Cholera Spreads in Iraq As Health Services Collapse
Lack of clean drinking water and poor sanitation has led to 5,000 people in northern Iraq contracting cholera.
The outbreak is among the most serious signs yet that Iraqi health and social services are breaking down as the number of those living in camps and poor housing increases after people flee their homes.
“The disease is spreading very fast,” Dr Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan’s health ministry, told a UN agency. “It is the first outbreak of its kind here in the past few decades.”
Doctors in Sulaimaiyah in Iraqi Kurdistan have appealed for help because of the rapidly increasing number of cases, saying there is a shortage of medicines. Although the city has been less affected by fighting than almost anywhere in Iraq, Unicef says that mains water is only available for two hours a day and many people have dug shallow wells outside their homes.
“There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [the source of the disease] hasn’t been identified yet,” Dr Dirar Iyad of Sulaimaniyah General Hospital told the UN news agency Irin. Ten people have already died and he expects more deaths to occur “over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of illness.”
The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has risen from 50,000 to 60,000 a month, the UN High Commission for Refugees reported earlier this week.
“My two children, husband and mother have been affected by cholera because we weren’t able to get purified water and one of my children is very sick in hospital,” said Um Abir, a 34-year-old mother. “We have been displaced since January and we have to camp near a rubbish tip which, according to the doctor, might be the reason for all of the family being affected.” The number of Iraqi refugees stands at 4.2 million of whom two million have been displaced within Iraq. Many live in huts made out of rubbish and have no fresh water supplies. In addition to Sulaimamiyah, the cholera has spread to the oil city of Kirkuk.
“The bad sanitation in Iraq, especially in the outskirts of cities where IDPs [internally displaced person] are camped, has put people at serious risk,” said Dr Abdullah. “In Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk, at least 42 per cent of the population don’t have access to clean water and proper sewage systems.” Unicef says that local reports suggest that only 30 per cent of people in Sulaimaniyah have clean drinking water.
Most of Iraq outside Kurdistan is flat so water and sewage need to be pumped, but this has often become impossible due to a lack of electricity. The water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is highly polluted and undrinkable.
In central and southern Iraq, the Mehdi Army, commanded by the nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has so far obeyed his surprise instruction to suspend their activities for six months after clashes with police and rival militiamen in Kerbala left 52 dead and hundreds wounded. Checkpoints that normally protect the Sadrist bastion in Sadr City in Baghdad were unmanned yesterday.
Militia leaders say they will fight if provoked. “It will be hard to stand still with our hands tied when we are attacked or arrested by the Americans,” said Abu Hazim, a Mehdi commander. Ahmed al-Shaibani, an aide of Mr Sadr, said the suspension might only last a week if arrests continued.
© 2007 The Independent
When we set out to liberate a country’s oil, we leave no stone unturned.
“As the Iraqi people stand up, we will stand down”. George Bush, June 2005.
“OK George, as soon as this little cholera thing passes”, Iraqi people August 2007.
War, Pestilence, Famine and Death.
This is the Bush legacy.
This is what we are leaving for our children.
Are we still Proud to be an American?
George Bush, Patron Saint of Cholera. Well, his spiritual advisor, ‘Rev.’ John Hagee, called for ‘Babylon’ to be transformed into a ‘howling wilderness…where not even a cockroach could survive’ as a necessary precondition for the ascendency of Israel to its promised Biblical kingdom between the ‘two rivers: the Nile and Euphrates’. If you can’t burn them or bomb them, you just poison their waters and watch them purge their own satanic souls away. The Neo-cons have found the real biological weapon of mass destruction and are using it on the miserable people of Iraq! Genecide by another name: they can’t afford the bottled water imported by American contractors. It resembles the ’small pox blankets’ of the extermination of the Native Americans.
If only our saintly troops would pick up some of this ‘Nebucanazar’s Revenge’ - we might see a real surge in anti-war sentiment.
“As the Iraqi people stand up, we will stand down”. George Bush, June 2005.
“As US occupation surges, IRAQI people suffer and die in GENOCIDAL proportions….
Heck-of-a-job Bu$hCo…..
War Criminals extraordinaire……
Not much in the way of commentary from our “progressive” online community. I guess this is something that does not lend itself to some bullshit political tweak in the American body politic. I’m just waiting for someone to tell us that this is why we should vote for Kucinich in 2008.
misanthrope -
Yes, this IS why we should vote for Kucinich - he wants to stop this insane war (as well as impeach the VP who dreamed it up - the first pawn to go).
A question - I thought you could prevent cholera by 1) boiling water and 2) water purifying pills, like (smart) campers use -mostly chlorine, I think. Surely our glorious troops could help with this disaster -
Genocide, clearly.
It’s no accident what is going on in Iraq. Rumsfeld called it and Afghanistan “a piece of real estate.” The plan is obviously to clear the people off of the “real estate,” and to then create another sparsely populated gulf state satellite. This has been done before the war with sanctions. At the start of the war -excuse me siege, attack and unilateral invasion - the people were unneccesarily bombed ( civilians ), the life sustaining infrastructure was damaged and often destroyed.
Then masses of people were unceremoniously and unneccesarily incarcerated, tortured and frequently killed in Abu Ghraib and other camps. Following this a serious of murderous raids have been ongoing which randomly target and kill civilian families in Iraq. Trials are now ongoing proving this statement in the press. Civil war has been the result of the chaos, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and displacement in the millions.
A museum was destroyed while American forces looked on. This too is genocide, a cultural genocide, which is frequently the prelude to ethnic cleansing policies.
Now disease is breaking out. This comes as no surprise.
What we US citizens are witnessing in Iraq is a massive genocide. The purpose: control of oil and strategic bases by privately owned cartels.
Who is paying for it?
U.S. citizens in blood and money.
In fact, those US soldiers who are unfortunate enough to be trapped in this illegal war are finding themselves being forced into longer service and greater danger than previous volunteers. They cannot get out. And they have to watch as private contract soldiers make huge salaries far higher than theirs. They also have to take the brunt of the danger, and are most likely forced to work with inferior materials and protections than the private contracted soldiers for hire.
It is amazing that this can continue. After all, the average volunteer must have to kick himself for signing up, when private contracting would at least provide some real financial benefits.
The Genocide continues. And average Americans are paying for it. Result: America will be feared and thus hated for decades worldwide.
The winners: The CEOs of war profiteering companies and their business partners.
The losers: Iraqis, and Americans.
Who will benefit most: Other world powers vying for influence worldwide: Notably Russia, China, Venezuela.
Check this out, folks:
Rolling Stone
09/06/2007
Matt Tiabbi
“James K. Haveman, who had served as Michigan’s community-health director under a GOP governor, was put in charge of rehabilitating Iraq’a health-care system and decided that what this war-ravaged, malnourished, sanitation-deficient country most urgently needed was…an anti-smoking campaign.
excerpt from page 65
How do you spin cholera?
Take a long look, supporters of this war.
It is very terrible to be responsible for such a breakdown of civilization as we are witnessing in Iraq.
It is a very terrible thing not to have impeached this criminal administration long ago.
impeachment is too good for bush and his cabinet of bunglers and murderers.they lied to the american people and warred in ‘our’name.they have committed a multitude of crimes against humanity and possibly their obscurantism should be considered,treasonous.bush and his rich friends,should be forced to pay restitution out of their own deep pockets,to the people of iraq.. for all the sorrow and misery,bush and his gang of criminals,have caused with their illegal and unnecessary invasion and shameful occupation.
Sorry Grandma, but it just isn’t going to happen. We’ll get one or another of the standard white millionaires (why do you think Bush Sr and Bill Clinton get along so well? Because their hands are drenched in blood!) And our “glorious soldiers” are not there to help but to kill in a genocide that may, with the help of the thousands of tons of DU we have and will spread about the Middle East, evolve into an ECOCIDE for all of us! Face Reality, it’s all we have left!
To think that a thirdworld country formally under dictatorial control and years of sanctions could sink even further into demise under the control of supposedly the most advanced democracy on the face of the earth. It just goes to show just how incomprehensibly inept this administration is. With the vast amount of resources available for humanitarian and medical aid, this war has been just so obsenely mismanaged it boggles the mind. The reputation, strength, and existing and potential wealth of American society has been so badly fractured by these traitors(Bush and his whole regime) that it will take generations to recover if recovery is even possible. We gave these bastards the keys to America and they have driven us off a cliff into the abyss. If this is not by design then I do not know how else it can be explained. Nobody on earth could be this utterly incompetant logically it is just not possible. These men were obviously placed into power to take down America and eventually the whole world. Reminds me of the Chinese proverb”May you live in interesting times” That is an understatement
misanthrope - You’re probably right, and really, I tend to agree. But letting a cholera epidemic rage unstopped threatens all the neighboring nations in the area, because that’s what epidemics do. And that’s no way to make those nations friendlier to us. So it’s just plain stupid. (Oh Oh I forgot - Stupid is what Bush/Cheney does best).
It may not be deliberate genocide - only careless, uncaring, and crazy. Ditto for the use of DUs, which we never should have done. But as I understand it, the DU dust is there now and can’t be cleaned up, whereas a cholera epidemic is stoppable. So we should take all steps to stop it, and maybe we could regain the respect of some of the world community.
Or - maybe not. Maybe never.
Why must we learn this information from media outlets in the UK? It is ridiculous that stories like this one are ignored by American media. Thank you, Common Dreams, for daring to give us information from around the globe. Otherwise, many of us would be totally in the dark about what is really going on in Iraq.
Restitution should be the obligation of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. Two Bush
companies that are enriching themselves as a
result of the Iraq Invasion
misanthrope-
Cynicism is what sets in when an idealist capitulates to despair and moral cowardice. The right wing in this country counts on comments like yours to keep the progressive movement fractured and politically nuetered. And as long as we eat our own, authentic progressive voices like Kucinich will continue to poll in the single digits.
As for me, I don’t really care if others think I’m charging the windmills by supporting Kucinich. His platform is point by point what I think this country needs for a sane policy, both internationally, and domestically. And I’m not interested in whether anyone thinks he can win or not. Supporting him is the right thing to do, and I hope most folks on this web site agree.
I hope those who say it’s darkest before the dawn are right because it’s pretty dark right now. Personally I refuse to give up until I’m dead. Otherwise, why be here? Maybe we will get Kucinich for President. If not now, maybe next time. Maybe things just need to get worse before they can get better.
I believe you are right Kathyodat, things will have to get worse before they get better and Bush will see to it they do. If he attacks Iran,___ Kathy, bar the door.
Since 1991 the bombing on Iraq has never stopped.
Since 1991 millions and millions and millions of Iraqi civilians and military personnel have been murdered.
And yes: cholera is “stoppable”.
However: without electricity the Iraqi people can not boil their water.
And how and from where will they obtain chlorine tablets?
Remember 12 miserable years of “sanctions” against Uruk?
Nothing could come into that country; especially not medical equipment, medicines, et cetera.
After the “Bombs over Baghdad” (and heaven knows where else…re: Fallujah, Basra), in 2003, that which was left of the infrastructure (bombed into the stone-age in 1991) had been completely -and with satanic deliberation- destroyed.
There will come a time during which no human (or animal, for that matter) can reside in the Middle-East.
This thanks to depleted uranium. It is a known fact that this d.u. completely attacks the immune-system (and the dna of all living beings).
Thus: lack of water, lack of electricity to boil whichever water might still be obtainable, and the attacked immune-system, cause cholera. And a lot of other contageous diseases.
The cradle of civilization is gone.
It was, in essence, gone already after the 6 weeks of incessant bombing in 1991.
During which time d.u. has also been used.
And ALL OF US ARE GUILTY as charged of the crimes against humaninity during the late 20th and the early 21st century.
Guilty of knowing what they were doing.
And not having said a word.
Guilty of sending boys and girls to a (or any) country to murder people, who have never done anything against them.
Guilty of watching the idiot-tube, and relishing in the monstruous shows called: “Bombs over Baghdad”.
Guilty of not caring about our fellow-humans, whether they be in Uruk, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Yougoslavia.
Guilty of having ourselves let be trapped into living in fear. Fear of a so-called enemy; fear of a so-called government; fear of what if…fill in the blanks…
Yes, of course: the neo-cons and the puppet-stringers are guilty of the most horrendous genocide the world has ever seen.
BUT: we, as the collective “we, the people”, are guilty, because we have been (and still are) too complacent, too lazy, too busy buying unnecessary things, and too fearful, to ever say or do anything against a diabolical “government”.
Neither articles on web-sites, nor the comments to those articles, will ever cause the end of the military.
Only IF and WHEN little Johnny and little Mary are being told (by parents, or other care-givers), that any and all wars are unnecessary and sinful, then maybe (and hopefully) future generations will not even know a word for military, or war, or bombs.
(As is the case in languages of so-called primitive tribes…).
Last: may all the gods in all the heavens (who-ever and where-ever they may be) have mercy on all of us.
Thank you.
Ruth Benderall
whitepatches@verizon.net
On the bright side, all these deaths by illness are bound to reduce the percent of death by violent means.
Bu$h the inferior’s spin machine will work this into the next report - blaming terrorists and/or Iran for interfering with Iraq and destabilizing the infrastructure. They will also credit the surge for reducing the violent deaths.
The spin machine will not, however, be able to get Bu$h the inferior to pronounce the words correctly or assemble them in sentences.
Wow, if this is what our “Christain” leadership imposes on the Iraqis-what is in store for us??????
Dear Ruth Benderall,
Thanks for laying it all out for anyone to see. How many so called innocent Americans have we all met, who shrugged at the first Gulf War and said: “Well, if it helps keep the economy going, it’s okay by me.” And later, after 9-11, the soccer moms slept better knowing that the bombs were falling and thinking their kids were safe. We are ALL responsible for this nightmare, just like the Good Germans, we looked the other way and let it happen. Realizing that does not make us failed idealists or moral cowards, if you get my “Drift”. It does, however, reveal the existential truth of our collective situation.
shakker, if you knew what it’s like to die of cholera, you wouldn’t be talking about the bright side.
From Wikipedia (excerpted):
Symptoms include those of general GI tract (stomach) upset and massive watery diarrhea. Symptoms may also include terrible muscle and stomach cramps, vomiting and fever in early stages. Symptoms are caused by massive body fluid loss, up to 36 liters of liquid diarrhea in a six day period in adults with accompanying massive dehydration. Radical dehydration can bring death within a day through collapse of the circulatory system.
This administration is looking more and more like Nazis.
We should be doing everything to treat the victims and prevent the spread of this disease. We should be doing a lot more than that.
I’m opposed to the death penalty, but Bush should spend the rest of his life behind bars, where the rest of the world would be safe from him while we figure out how to treat sociopaths.
Over and over the actions of this administration make me feel sickened and ashamed to be an American. You think Vietnam was bad? LBJ and Nixon had some redeeming features. I can’t think of one with Bush. Not one.
REHYDRATION- BETTER THAN SPORTS DRINKS, YOU CAN EASILY
MAKE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy
EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THIS
Ruth Benderall - I don’t believe for a minute that our military medical people can’t manage boiling water, chlorine tabs, and medical care for the people in “northern Iraq” (ie, Kurdistan). Unless we do something fast I may begin to believe that we really are deliberatly supporting genocide. Bushco may be blundering fools, but they’re really after the oil and this would not help them get it - turn too many other nations in the region against us, not to mention the UN. BUT -
tbonez said “Nobody on earth could be this utterly incompetant, logically it is just not possible.” But Bushco is caught up in a religious mania, and therefor what passes for “logic” with them is very different from what we understand by that word. So there may be a possibility that to them, genocide is the start of the long-awaited Apocalypse.
I have heard that there is a rumor around Washington that Bushco has told its various minions that if they don’t plan to stay in their jobs until Bush leaves office they should resign now. Anyone else heard this? I would take that as a signal that they will call off the election, which would support the genocide idea because they would get away with it.
Cholera, hmmm. Reducing diseases isn’t one of the Congressional benchmarks set for Bush. Neither is providing electricity or water to the Iraqi’s, getting a handle on the growing number of Iraqi refugees, providing the Iraqi Army sufficient military equipment to take care of itself…
KEM PATRICK
found a good website www.freedocumentaries.com in which there are many related to iraq. however, some of them are unavailable and unfortunately, the one entitled ‘the invisible war’ which is about DU. but have a look it might come back. there is also a short film advertising a peaceful protest on 9/11. and the follow up to zeitgeist.
i know this will not help the poor iraqis suffering from these abominations now, but the more people become educated about what is going on, the more chance we have to stop these crimes.
SINNERJIZM
how pathetic that is about recommending an anti smoking campaign. next they’ll be advocating birth control…………..to stop the deformed babies
(something wrong with this edit system) to stop the deformed babies.!!!!
KEM PATRICK
correction: it’s www.freedocumentaries.org
Hi COCO, Thank you very much for the link. How the heck are ya doin? I’ve been working a little bit with Linda Kroll on the DU issue in Hawaii. Linda is the other swell nurse who blogs here.
Kathy, Bush has one. He’s a born again Christian. _____________HMmmmmmmmm. Well, guess you’re right.
KEM PATRICK
there’s another message to you on the arms sale issue.
i’m doing fine. just so distressed at this senseless senselessness. but keep up the good work with linda. i’m doing my bit over here trying to inform people. but you know, 9 times outta 10 the reaction is: oh, i don’t want to know, i don’t want to see……….or complete silence. i have 2 iraqi friends here and i feel so sorry for them having to leave their family and country.
STEVEBONZAI
very good link. thankyou.
einstein, of course the troops can get out. they just have to refuse to participate any more.
Juliania said:
“Take a long look, supporters of this war.”
Do any supporters of this war read anything on www.commondreams.org? I doubt it?
I suspect we are all “preaching to the choir”. Often I get a lot of very useful information about the evils of the empire. But I need more help on how to actually fight the evil empire.
What I would like is some help from others here on what sites are worth visiting in order to put the issues to the enemy’s supporters. So then where is it worth going on the internet to put an antiwar position where many there might be as yet undecided or may even want to disagree with me?
.
kathyodat August 31st, 2007 11:37 pm
I wouldn’t minimize the death of anyone let alone a horrible death from a preventable disease.
Guess my satire missed the target.
Bu$h the inferior and his ilk including many members of the media will ignore or USE it for a political purpose.
There is no low as low as media consultants and political advisers.
Bombing water purification plants in Iraq has been going on since Gulf War I. Bad water kills people. It is a violation of international law and considered a war crime.
And then there is the use of depleted uranium munitions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush has been convicted by the Tokyo International Tribunal for War Crimes in Afghanistan in 2004. The problem remains how to place him under arrest.
However, it is my opinion that Congress is equally complicit as they have refused over and over again to deal with the depleted uranium issue.
The use of depleted uranium weapons comprises a relatively clear violation of international law. Many other aspects of the Afghan and Iraq invasions fall into the category war crimes, but the Tokyo action was centered on the use of radioactive weapons. The Japanese understand the hideous long-term effects of radiation. This url is worth the read and more can be Googled.
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm
Another war crime action is scheduled by the Pro Tem Committee for the Kuala Lumpur International War Crimes Tribunal to be held in 2008:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2081.shtml
Well, yes the troops can get out. They can refuse to participate. Anyone with a mind would. If 5 percent refused it would be all over.
Sorry, shakker, what we are doing to the Iraqi people fills me with grief, anger and shame. I think of that Iraqi nurse singing and crooning to Jessica Lynch to comfort her because they had no pain medication to give her. The Iraqi really liked us before we started dropping bombs on them. What kind of people are we? Not as large as they are. I want to smack Americans up the side of their heads, saying “How dare you!”. We are no better than Bush to allow this to happen to these innocent people who never did anything to us at all. We have destroyed their culture, their history, their children. We have contaminated their land with poisonous DU that will sicken and kill them for generations. Our whole country should be hauled before the World Court and we should spend billions in reparations. We cannot repay what we owe them because we cannot return destroyed lives.
It seems to me that what we do will come back to us. Isn’t there a phrase, “reap the whirlwind”?
Isn’t Christ reported to have said “What you do to the least of us you do to me”? How can any of these people call themselves Christians? I can’t.
Oral re-hydration is useless in cholera because the victim is too sick vomiting to drink. I have seen a young man die from irreversible shock due to cholera.
Spreading cholera, either intentionally - by contaminating the drinking water, or ‘unintentionally’ by destroying water treatment and electricity facilities is a war crime. Since March 2003, the American occupation forces in Iraq have committed war crimes against the civilian population of Iraq - leading to over a million deaths due to violence and unknown tens of thousands due to disease and malnutrition. This has been a deliberate policy of driving Iraqis into ethnically cleansed enclaves in order to split up the country. For these crimes - the planners and decision makers in the US Administration and the high military official who carried out these crimes deserve to hang. Not just the President, either. The propagandists who made these crimes possible through their control of the mass media and censorship of the truth, deserve at least long prison sentences at hard labor.
Stop being liberals, for once. These is no way these crimes can be papered over with liberal pronouncements of ‘having gotten rid of Saddam’. Most Iraqis would give anything to go back to the stable days of that mustachioed goon who at least kept the country together.
einstein August 31st, 2007 5:04 pm
“Genocide, clearly.”
CORRECT…GOOD POST….