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Worse Than Imagined: Consequences of the Iraq War
In 2003, several weeks before the start of the Iraq war, I wrote an article on the impending war in which I warned against the terrible humanitarian consequences that a war against that country would unleash. I never imagined that they would be much worse than the nightmarish scenario that I painted in my article.
A recent article by Drs. Busby, Hamdan and Ariabi in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health describes the consequences on the civilian population of the coalition forces’ attack on Fallujah in 2004. Their conclusions are based on a study they conducted in January and February of 2010, in which a team of researchers visited 711 houses in Fallujah and obtained responses to a questionnaire in Arabic on cancer, birth defects and infant mortality.
Among their findings are dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia years after the attack on that city. The infant mortality rate was 80 per 1,000 live births, more than 4 times the rate in Egypt and in Jordan, and some 9 times the rate in Kuwait. After 2009, the infant mortality rate increased even more markedly, to 136 deaths for 1,000 live births.
Already in 2005, Iraqi doctors in Fallujah stated that they were being overwhelmed by the number of babies born with serious defects, and they also reported on the high number of cancer and miscarriages suffered by the city’s population. The rate of babies born with heart defects is said to be 13 higher those born in Europe.
Professor Chris Busby, an expert in the effects of radiation on humans said that uranium particles can alter the DNA of sperm and eggs from contaminated adults and cause a multitude of birth defects in any baby they conceive. A doctor in Fallujah quoted by Inter Press Service stated, “I can say all kinds of toxic pollution took place in Fallujah after the November 2004 massacre.”
The U.S. military, which at first denied it had used white phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah, later retracted that denial and admitted using it. However, the Pentagon argues that white phosphorus doesn’t poison people but burns them. In consequence, it is covered by the protocol on incendiary weapons, which the U.S. hasn’t signed. While Saddam Hussein’s use of white phosphorus against the Kurds was severely criticized, the same criticism should apply to the use of white phosphorus against civilians in Fallujah.
In addition to white phosphorus, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were extensively used in Fallujah. According to the Pentagon, 1,200 tons of DU have been used thus far in Iraq.
Reports covering the U.S. offensive on Fallujah state that widespread human rights abuses were committed, including indiscriminate violence against civilians and children.
Writing for The Independent Patrick Cockburn says, “In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officials were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties.”
A documentary produced by RAI, the Italian state TV, shows a series of photographs from Fallujah corpses with the flesh burnt off but clothes still intact, a finding consistent with the effects of white phosphorus on humans. I am reminded of a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa “You and I are Disappearing,” whose first stanza says,
The cry I bring down from the hills
belongs to a girl still burning
inside my head. At daybreak
she burns like a piece of paper.
- Posted in
18 Comments so far
Show AllAt one time the United States was the economic envy of the world. We exported the best the world had to offer. Now thanks to to our Wall street banksters scum and the likes of the three stooges; Lieberman, McCain and Graham, (and many others) we export death.
All in the name of greed. They have destroyed this once great Republic.
I pray they will someday find justice.
Well said Frank Cash, excellent post. What's that old saying: "When the people lead, the leaders will follow."
I suggest we begin with rolling boycotts of corporate amerika.
sigh . . . wishful thinking?
I paid $38.00 today for my electric bill, $30.00 for gas (budget over the winter will be $65.00/month). Good clean well water and cable for my internet and I'm set for another month. I've got a small garden and I eat mostly vegetables, and I'm looking at going to work in a grocery stocking shelves. I own my home, so I don't need big house payments or rent. In effect, I've decided to stop supporting the military-industrial complex with my generous tax money like I did when I was younger and could work lots of hours and bring home $800-1000 a week. I just miss some of the excitement I used to enjoy a few years back.
USA: the smell of death.
I often wonder:
Can I help?
Can anyone help?
I don't think so.
US citizens must help themselves.
How?
Well,
Get
Away
From the USA.
I left years ago. Never regretted it.
Hoa binh
It would feel good to express the repulsion and moral outrage one feels when reading of US war crimes and atrocities.
But we haven't earned the right to do that.
Until we figure out what we need to do to stop it.
And get it done.
I think the time has come to move beyond the 'cheap thrill' of expressing moral outrage at what is obviously obscene.
In other words, Frank, me think thou doth protest too much.
In the verbal, DO NOTHING sense.
The time has come for active protest/obstruction. In the DO SOMETHING sense.
Words can indeed be powerful. But the level of depravity of the actions of my government are self-evident.
Calling these policies war crimes, at this point, and in this forum, is redundant.
My point is that an awareness of atrocities committed in our name, by our government with our tax dollars brings with it a responsibility to actively resist, organize, strategize to stop it.
In my opinion the perpetrators and enablers of these aggressive wars ("the supreme war crime, for all other war crimes follow from it") are traitors. Including the current phony of a president who continues the madness. Their war-making has not helped the U.S. but made it more vulnerable to any and all forms of retaliation in the future, and if that is not giving aid and comfort to our enemies, then what is it? And what about paying actual money to the very people we have designated as the enemy?
It's treason.
The only reason this treason and these war crimes have not been properly dealt with is because there is no country or body of citizens in the world with the power to enforce the laws of war. We live in a world where law is becoming more and more meaningless in terms of justice, but "might makes right" rules. The fact the the U.S.-led aggressive wars are also a very thinly disguised "Christian" crusade against non-Christians make it all the more obscene. That these men can speak of prayer or of God or "the Lord" or Jesus is pure blasphemy, and pure evil. Obama is just the silver-tongued devil, he lies and decieves as Bush did.
And now, I read that 8.7 billion dollars has just up and mysteriously disappeared. Oops! Fog of war, you know! Can't keep track of everything! We're so sorry!"
Bull. That money, like so much more of this nation's wealth- OUR money, the money we need for our own citizens' needs, has been STOLEN.
All in all, since Bush stole the election in 2000, I think there has never been a larger grand theft in the history of this nation, or even the history of the world, in so short a time, and by so few people.
Curse the men and women who have brought this evil upon all of us, and especially upon the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Curse them to everlasting hell. That's how I feel. The bastards. Liars, hypocrites, robbers, and murderers is what they are. And Obama continues it all. Like many another well-intentioned fool, I voted for the lying creep.
Third party voting is the only moral choice there is. Any vote for a Republican or Democrat is aiding and abetting war crimes, not to mention just plain stupid, unless you're already a millionaire, in which case it's the selfishly greedy thing to do.
If my precinct were paperless, I wouldn't vote either, but I would stand outside with a sign explaining why. Although third-party movements rarely succeed, non-voting movements never seem to accomplish anything. Still, wherever crooks OK paperless electronic voting, democracy there is dead.
Great comment Frodnonog and I'm with you all the way but that last sentence you made was for me the most important.
'Like many another well-intentioned fool, I voted for the lying creep.'
Its a pity so many citizens don't vote. But rule number one has just got to be this! Never vote for either Republican or Democrat Party candidates again till real change occurs though an independent or Third Party Presidency has evolved to counter the war making gangersterism of these elites.
Regardless of State, I reckon its best advised to never fall for the 'wasted vote' propaganda and the disgraceful propagandists for The Democratic Party in particular who initiated an insult to real Democratic ideals in their attempts to blame and discourage potential floating voters from casting their vote for an honourable man, namely Ralph Nader. Then blaming those intelligent voters for Bush's false victory in Florida.
His main push was for real electoral reform. That didn't suit either main Party.
What if a Progressive Third Party worked on an democratic agenda to return to the rule for law at home and abroad. All it would have to do is commit to a new independent examination of what occurred on 9/11 and that it would look backwards to prosecutions of war criminals and to a return to the rule of Law across the board. Included would be the roles played by leaders throughout the media, the financial sector, the military, the corporate sector leaderships so on. Any persons found to be implicated in illegality and criminal promotion would also face prosecution. Get the idea? Would this be possible?
If such a Party even made serious inroads, it might be enough to bring change. I wish! But many more less fortunate abroad wish for justice too. Perhaps somebody of group can put together a reform agenda? But it might be good to begin with an assurance that war crimes will be punished. When they hung Sadaam it was enough he was convicted by a mock court for much less a crime than Fallujah.
Fallujah wasn't alone among Iraq cities to suffer dreadful crimes by the US military either!
Wonder how Bush, Cheney, Obama and plenty of company would react to a rope around their own precious necks to chants and taunts from victimised, revenge seeking masses?
Description of another sad consequence of the Iraq incursion can be found at http://to.pbs.org/bnU9ZS. It's indeed ironic that the deeply religious Christian George W. Bush enabled the deadly and continuing persecution of Iraq's Christians. I don't think the U.S. public is aware of this.