Iraq:
A Bush Family Jihad?
By Felicity Arbuthnot
29 September, 2007
Between Two Rivers
Ever
since the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, there have been two
parallell litanies from the invaders. They cannot leave until 'Iraq
can stand on its own feet' and it's army and police can maintain order.The
other is the mantra of 'thirty years of neglect' of Iraq's infrastructure
and Iraqis inability to repair it themselves.
Here is something worth repeating,
yet again. Before the invasion Iraq was an efficient, functioning society,
whose state institutions and ministries operated with near bribe free
and accountable efficiency.The army and the police were loyal to the
state and not to factions.The factionality and militias now absorbed
in to both, came in with the invasion (and many seemingly, are not even
Iraqis or had abandoned their Iraqi nationality and taken the now increasingly
worthless Dollar.)
Until the crippling thirteen
year embargo (implemented, under George Bush Snr., 6th August 1990)
Iraq had undergone thirty years of extraordinary progress and emerged
'a near first world country', according to the U.N., whose US/UK driven
embargo, created a quiet holocaust and denied essential parts and replacements
for every vital service and industry. Even X-ray and dialysis machines
lay idle, for want of imported parts; blood banks no longer functioned
due to sporadic electricity denying laboratory tests and refrigeration.
In 1992, the U.N., cited
a report by Beth Osborn Daponte which concluded: ' ... life expectency
has been reduced from (an average of) sixty eight years (pre 1991) to
forty seven years by late 1991'. A chilling, shameing and astonishing
achievement in under two years in the name of ' We the people ...'
Medical laboratory tests,
in what had been a highly sophisticated sector, dropped sixty percent
by 1992 - just two years in to the embargo. Major surgery declined by
sixty three percent in the same period. Those who had enough money,
or could borrow it, would take desparately ill relatives, children,
patients who should have been in intensive care, on the bus to Jordan,
in a desparate attempt to save them, a tortuous, often up to twenty
seven hour journey. Courtesy the United Nations, the sick, frequently
died, on the bus.
However, since the 2003 invasion,
inspite of the telephone number $billions squandered, embezzled and
disappeared and the $billion contracts awarded to all the usual suspects,
the health service and infrastructure is now worse than under the embargo.
Seriously sick and injured U.S., and 'allied' soldiers are rushed to
state of the art hospitals in their bases, which there seemed to have
been no trouble in rapidly building from scratch.
In the 'New Iraq', sick Iraqis,
bombed, ruined, irradiated, abandoned and ruled by quislings, quietly
die. ' We will reduce Iraq to a pre-industrial age', said James Baker,
in 1991. The forty two day, U.S., led carpet bombing did, but Baker
could not have dreamed of the improvement on his vision, the second
time round - and rising to new heights each of the invasion's genocidal,
criminal, fifty four months.
Now, courtesy of Uncle Sam,
cholera has struck with, according to World Health Organisation spokesperson,
Fadel Chaib, twenty nine thousand confirmed cases, mostly in the north,
but with a seven month old bottle fed baby in Basra now confirmed and
two cases seemingly, in Baghdad with others uncomfirmed. Since Iraq's
water has long been a biological weapon, this was a disaster waiting
to happen. Interestingly, Adel Muhsin, Iraq's 'Health Ministry Inspector
General', thus America's friend, states that 'cholera is endemic to
Iraq.' As ever, it is far more complicated.
Iraq as all tropical countries
is suscepticle to water borne diseases. It also has a highly complex
water system, with : ' The quality of untreated water "generally
.. poor;" drinking such water "could result in diarrhea,"
Iraq's rivers "contain biological materials, pollutants, and are
laden with bacteria. Unless the water is purified with chlorine, epidemics
of such diseases as cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid could occur."
' This comes from an astonishing document, discovered by Thomas J. Nagy,
Associate Professor of Expert Systems, at George Washington University,
in 2000, from the U.S., Defence Intelligence Agency.
However, such was the investment
and care in Iraq's water system, water borne diseases plumetted and
figures 1989-1990 (the embargo was implemented on 6th August 1990) that
the Iraqi Health Ministry statistics show cholera as nil, typhoid fever
as just 1,812 (in a population of twenty five million) amoebic dysentry
as 19,615 and polio, just ten. In 1992 there were 2,100 reported cholera
cases, 19,276 typhoid cases (an increase of 1060 %) 61,939 of amoebic
dysentry (increase 320%) and 120 cases of polio (increase 1200%.)
The primary document, Nagy
- who also has a Docotrate in Public Health - discovered was entitled:
"Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," and dated January
22, 1991.(The bombing of Iraq by thirty two nations had started on 17th
January.) The document, circulated to all Central Commands spells out
the clear intention to bomb all Iraq's water purification and treatment
facilities and how continuing sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying
clean water to its citizens.
'Iraq depends on importing
specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water supply,
most of which is heavily mineralized and frequently brackish to saline,"
the document states. "With no domestic sources of both water treatment
replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts
to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities.
Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking
water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences,
if not epidemics, of disease', the DIA document states.
Further, food and medicines
will also be affected, the document states. "Food processing, electronic,
and particularly, pharmaceutical plants require extremely pure water
that is free from biological contaminants," it says. A timetable
for the health decimation of the people of Iraq resulting from the loss
of clean water, is carefully explained: "Iraq's overall water treatment
capability will suffer a slow decline, rather than a precipitous halt,"
it says. "Although Iraq is already experiencing a loss of water
treatment capability, it probably will take at least six months (to
June 1991) before the system is fully degraded."
Connected Pentagon documents
discovered by Nagy include itemizeing likely outbreaks, including: '
"acute diarrhea" brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, shigella,
and salmonella, or by protozoa such as giardiasis, which will affect
"particularly children," or by rotavirus, which will also
affect "particularly children," a phrase it puts in parentheses.
And it cites the possibilities of typhoid and cholera outbreaks', he
writes. Giardiasis was recorded at 73,416 cases in 1989-1990 and at
596,356 in 1992 (a rise of 810%.)
The Geneva Convention, of
course, is unequivocal, as Nagy points out::'The 1979 Protocol, Article
54, states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render
useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,
such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and
supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them
for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse
Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians,
to cause them to move away, or for any other motive." '
But what do rogue states
care of the Geneva Convention?
For thirteen years all water
purification chemicals were vetoed (by the U.S., and U.K., at the UN
Sanctions Committee.) After the invasion the situation has worsened
even from the woeful previous situation, where up to eighty percent
of those who died from diahoreal illnesses were under five. Even potassium
and saline, to replace the vital salts lost from sufferers, were vetoed.
Saddam Hussein, of course,
was blamed, when even chlorin was deinied to Iraq..Currently, tankers
of chlorine are held up at the Jordan-Iraq border, on the basis they
might be used as explosives - and Baghdad, with its six million population
has just one week's supply left. Iraq's population, again, will die,
not with a bang but a whimper, as the greatest army on earth can apparently
not guarantee safe passage and delivery of a potential life saver. Saddam
would have, it has to be said.
Saddam Hussein placed huge
importance on water projects, even denied the purification materials,
and continued projects in the hope that any month the embargo would
be lifted. Inspite of the uprising in the south (again, encouraged by
the U.S., and U.K., who then stood aside as it was bloodilly quelled)
two giant initiatives were implemented to provide reliable water to
the parched southern provinces. In Basra and outlying districts, one
for unpolluted drinking water, the other for agriculture. Started in
1992, work went on round the clock for twenty two months, involving
five thousand engineers, technicians and skilled workers.
It was halted due to crippling
shortage of vital materials and equipment, but restarted in 1995 and
finally inauguarated on 23rd December 1997. Embargoed Iraq, which now,
we are asked to believe, is unable 'to stand on its own feet', unable
to import, with factories bombed, delivered water along a two hundred
and thirty eight kilometre pipeline from the Gharraf river, which, in
the absence of needed chemicals, was purer than the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The two 'finest armies in the world', have managed to deliver nothing
to the population of Iraq, but heartbreak, exile, disease and death.
Another extraordinary feat
was the Saddam River, also know as the 'Third River'. This was a narrow
irrigation channel, about the size of a ship canal, which ran from southern
Baghdad to Basra. Unable to import, expansion of agriculture was vital.
It was completed in just one hundred and eighty days, from May to December
1992.
Its aims were to improve
six million Donums of agricultural land and to carry away about sixty
million tons of salt a year. (The salination in the region is extraordinary,
travelling south, a feature is the vast mounds of salt, blown and piled
along the roadsides.) The project also drained the level of pollution
from the Tigris and Euphrates. It also encouraged families who had worked
on the land, but left for cities due to the lack of irrigation, back
to settle by its banks and re-establish farming and agricultural projects.
The West ranted against an
'environmental catastrophe' (though numerous western firms had vied
for the project since the 1950's, the first being a British firm, Mott
McDonald - all had given up in months, saying it could not be done.)
Unconcerned about the 'environmental catastrophe' of an entire nation
denied near all the basics to sustain life, they were worried about
the effect on the unique southern Marshes and destruction of fauna and
flora and an ancient way of life of the inhabitants.
The Marshes had been drained
dry, was the allegation. Well no. A part had, because it prevented insurgents
from Iran coming in to ferment trouble, through this vast, historically
unpoliceable area. As ever, innocents did suffer, but suffering which
pales against what liberation has wrought. After the 2003 invasion,
the British re-flooded the drained areas and now the 'coalition' threatens
Iran, because 'insurgents' from there are coming in to Iraq. Senior
military decision makers, again, in every aspect, hopelessly out of
their depth, in a far away place of which they know absolutely nothing.
Another vital sector in to
which resources were poured, by Saddam Hussein's regime, was education,
now near destroyed by the invasion, subsequent attacks by both militia,
occupying forces and fear of letting children out of the house. Between
1979 and 1990, kindergarten attendence rose by an average of over twenty
percent a year, with commensurate building projects.
Nursery enrollment saw an
annual increase of over four hundred and sixty eight percent, with buildings
flourishing to accomodate the rise. Primary education rose by one hundred
and twenty three percent per annum with secondary and vocational schools
seeing a rate increase of students over 1247%, with more imaginative
construction, as did for teacher training colleges, accommodating a
rise of eight hundred and ten percent in teacher training. An additional
seven great universities were built.
Huge growth during the same
period was seen in road building, rail and air passengers, telecommunications,
ship cargoes and building and construction in all sectors. This all,
inspite of the (Western driven) eight year Iran-Iraq war which cost
an estimated million lives between the two countries.
The people of Iraq are being
kept on their knees, their infrastructure unrepaired, they are tortured,
disappeared at the hands of and because of the invasion. The blame lies
squarely in Washington and Whitehall.
Four million displaced and
one and a quarter million dead, according to the recent poll, by resepected
ORB and now a cholera epidemic. Have the 'liberators' flown in emergency
and essential medicines and medical equipment to counter this,as they
would if it were their troops, or their pals cowering in the Green Zone?
Of course not.
From the destruction of the
water system in 1991, to the ongoing slaughters which came in with the
invasion, to troops random killings of Iraqis in their tens and hundreds
and now a choldera epidemic, with not a hand lifted by the occupying
forces, with all their infinite resources, I am again reminded of a
chance conversation in a cafe in Jordan, days before the invasion. What
was I doing in Jordan? I had just come back from Iraq, I said. Without
preamble he said: 'America will never get their hands on Iraq and Iraq's
oil, unless they kill every last one of them'. It seems they are trying
to do just that, by any means possible, in the Bush's family's personal
Jihad.
Thomas Nagy is a Member of
the Association of Genocide Scholars, who concluded that the deliberate
destruction of Iraq's water system in 1991 was genocide. It seems they
have a lot more work ahead. Oh, and the invasion of Iraq was sold to
the American public, by their Administration linking Saddam Hussein
to 11th September 2001 and Osama bin Laden. It was not Saddam, but the
Bush family who were in business with the Bin Ladens.What wickedness.
References:
Medical deprivation under
the embargo:The Fire This Times, US War Crimes in the Gulf, Ramsey Clark,
Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994.
Destruction
of Iraq's Water: How the US Deliberately Destroyed Iraq's Water,
Thomas J. Nagy, Global Research, 29th August 2001 (with links to DIA
papers.)
Allies
Deliberately Poisoned Iraq Public Water Supply, Felicity
Arbuthnot, Sunday Herald, 17th September 2000.
The
War on Truth, Neil McKay, Sunday Herald Books, 2007.
Iraq Progress and post 1991
Water Projects:Iraq - Thirty Years of Progress, Ministry of Information
and Culture, Iraq, 1998 and author's numerous regional interviews and
eyewitness.
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