Toxic Pollution And
Mass Killings In Iraq
By Ghali Hassan
28 September, 2004
Countercurrents.org
"It is especially
forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously
individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms,
projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering."
-
The Hague Convention IV, Article 23.
The
American use of "depleted" uranium (DU) munitions to attack
Iraq in the 1991 and 2003 wars has unleashed a toxic disaster that is
much more dangerous and deadly than the crimes committed on Vietnam
by the use of Agent Orange. Each round fired by U.S. tanks represents
10 pounds of solid uranium-238, which catches fire immediately. On impact,
it leaves a plume of radioactive dust to travel where the wind blows.
The radioactive dust, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, is
inhaled and absorbed into the gastro-intestinal tract. It contaminates
air, water and soil. It eventually passes into vegetables, fruits, plants
and livestock. Hospitals throughout Iraq have reported as much as 10-fold
increase in overall cancer rates and birth defects over the last ten
years.
According to the
Pentagon's own report, the US-UK dropped 320 tonnes of DU on Iraq in
1991. Greenpeace puts the figure at an estimate of 800 tones. More that
100,000 DU shells dropped on the city of Basra and its surroundings.
The Pentagon and the UN estimate that and Britain "used 1,100
to 2,200 tons of armour-piercing shells made of DU during attacks on
Iraq in March and April 2003 - far more than the 320-800 tons used in
the 1991 Gulf War," reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on
August 04, 2004.
In 2003 US War on
Iraq, the US Army used its DU weapons mainly to attack the urban centres,
rather than the desert battlefields as in 1991. All Iraqi cities have
been attacked and exposed to DU radiation, with southern cities the
most affected. US war on Iraq has not stopped since January 1991. It
is a period of children massacres, devastation and destruction. The
massacres of Iraqi civilians continue today.
Despite the US military's
attempts to bulldoze the surrounding topsoil, the Geiger-counter reading
on the remaining piles of radioactive DU dust registered at hundreds
of times the average. And a DU dart from a 120 mm tank shell emitted
radiation over 1,000 times normal, noted Scott Peterson of The Christian
Science Monitor. Mr Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out
tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that
had been destroyed by armour-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium.
Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger
counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background
radiation.
The families who
survived the tragic decade of sanctions, even the children who recently
survived the bombing of Baghdad, may not survive the radiated aftermath
of military profligacy. There are very few warnings for the people,
particularly children to see.
The Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico warned on March 1, 1991 of the impact on the
environment by depleted uranium and suggested that they may "become
politically unacceptable". There is increasing scientific evidence
to substantiate claims that radioactivity and chemical toxicity of
DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed.
A study by The World
Health Organisation (WHO) in 2001, which was blocked from publication
until recently, shows that the widespread use of DU in Iraq "pose[s]
a unique health hazard to the civilian population". This study
was deliberately suppressed, according to Dr. Keith Baverstock, the
main author of the study.
The study, which
has now been published on the Internet (see notes), shows that Iraq's
arid climate meant tiny particles of DU were likely to be blown around
and inhaled by civilians for many years to come. It warned that, when
inside the body, their radiation and toxicity could trigger the growth
of
malignant tumours. A recent study by Coen and colleagues noted that
DU undermines the stability of the body's genetic system, and is linked
to cancers and possibly other illnesses.
According to the
Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC), a private non-profit organisation
in Canada and the US, the toxic and radiological effects of uranium
contamination may weaken the immune system. They may also cause acute
respiratory conditions like pneumonia, flu-like symptoms and severe
coughs, renal or gastrointestinal illnesses.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic,
director of UMRC, explains that the initial symptoms will be mostly
neurological, showing up as headaches, weakness, dizziness and muscle
fatigue. The long-term effects are cancers and other radiation-related
illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain,
rashes, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances, infections,
lung and kidney damage, vision problems, autoimmune deficiencies and
severe skin conditions. It also increases miscarriages, maternal mortality
and genetic birth defects.
The US Army training
manual states that, "anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated
equipment or terrain [must] wear respiratory and skin protection",
and notes further that "contamination will make food and water
unsafe for consumption". Furthermore, a report by the US Army warned
that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted
uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions, reported Larry Johnson
of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on November 12, 2002.
Several studies
by Iraqi scientists have pointed out the link between DU exposure and
cancer in Iraq. According to one study by Dr Alim Abdul-Hamid's of Al-Mustanseriya
Medical College in Baghdad, "malignancies and leukaemia among children
under the age of 15 have more than tripled since 1990.
Whereas in 1990
young children accounted for only 13 per cent of cancer cases, today
over 56 per cent of all cancer in Iraq occurs among children under the
age of 5". He noted, that it "isn't just direct exposure of
the children to the radiation still present in the environment; it's
also the cumulative exposure of their parents over time". This
cumulative exposure does permanent damage to parental genes, damage
that is then passed on to their children.
Iraq's National
Ministry of Health organized two international conferences to present
data on the relationship between the high incidence of cancer and the
use of DU weapons. It produced detailed epidemiological reports and
statistical studies. These data showed a six-fold increase in breast
cancer, a five-fold increase in lung cancer and a 16-fold increase in
ovarian cancer. Iraqi scientists were barred from presenting seminars
outside Iraq.
Birth defects have
increased dramatically in southern Iraq -- in 1989 there were 11 per
100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births. Cancer has
also increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died
of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer
deaths, reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on November 12, 2002.
Environmental biologist
and Iraq's foremost scientist, Dr Huda Ammash reported alarming rise
of birth deformations and cancer cases in the country. In several publications
on toxic pollution and the hazards of DU, Dr Ammash, writes, "Iraqi
death rates have increased significantly, with cancer representing a
significant cause of mortality, especially in the south among children".
Dr. Ammash has been
openly critical of the dire consequences of DU contamination and of
the UN embargo, and actively involved with foreign delegations coming
to witness the impact of US war. Dr Ammash was arrested and imprisoned
by USA forces in May 2003. Despite her being innocent of any wrongdoing,
she is still in US custody in Baghdad. It is a deliberate effort to
destroy connections between Iraq's rising health crisis and the effects
of nuclear warfare.
I live in Australia,
a Western society, and I have yet to hear from any scientist in the
Western world protesting against the imprisonment, and unfair treatment
of fellow scientists by the Occupation forces of US tyranny. I have
seen a "democratically" elected prime minister mislead and
deceit the people of Australia to participate in war of aggression on
Iraq for no other reason than being obsequious to US power.
It should be borne
in mind that the impacts on Iraq's environment caused by the first US
War in 1991 has been studied at least to a certain extent. However,
because of US Occupation of Iraq, the impacts and the atrocities of
the second US war in 2003 remain secret. The United Nations Environmental
Programme (UNEP) has not been allowed to carry out an environmental
assessment of DU contamination in Iraq. The US prefers to keep its atrocities
hidden from the public. As Bertrand Russell said "It is the nature
of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among
the last to know and care about circumstances in the colonies."
At the same time,
it is argued that because uranium is also ubiquitous in the natural
environment, natural exposure can be used as a "benchmark"
for exposures such as that to DU after its military use. However, this
is not necessarily the case; "Both the chemical form and the route
of entry into the body may have a critical influence on toxicity,"
noted Dr. Keith Baverstock, who is now at the University of Kuopio in
Finland.
The US government
denies that DU weapons can cause sickness. Washington refuses to acknowledge
DU use anywhere or that it poses any danger. To acknowledge radiation
poisoning would immediately raise demands for a cleanup and compensations.
The US has no plans to remove the debris left over from depleted uranium
weapons it is using in Iraq. The US says no cleanup is needed, because
research shows DU has no long-term effects. There is enough evidence
to support abolishing the used of DU. The Second Watergate Law states:
"Don't believe anything until it's been officially denied".
Exposure to DU by
US soldiers is also documented and many war Veterans are suffering for
DU related illnesses. In March 2003, sick veterans from Canada, the
US, the UK and Iraq sent urine samples to be tested for DU to highly
respected Professor Hari Sharma, Professor of Chemistry at the
University of Waterloo, Ontario, in Canada. The results were astonishing.
All were positive, and some had readings of over 100 times the 'safe'
limit in their bodies. The use of depleted uranium is a war crime. The
Geneva Protocol of 1925 explicitly prohibits "asphyxiating, poisonous
or other
gasses, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices".
The impact of DU
on the flora and fauna has endangered the existence of many species;
especially rare trees of Acacia gerrardi are threatened. Furthermore,
to inflict more damage on the Iraqi people, the US introduced the Latin
American screwworm, Chrysomya bezziana, which decimated Iraq's
livestock and killed many people as well. The small parasite, which
was unknown to Iraq until 1996, has found a favourable environment in
Iraq. 'These Latin American parasites are now to be found in Iraq should
provoke a few questions about the probability of biological warfare',
quoted Felicity
Arbuthnot in New Internationalist Magazine.
In addition to the
atrocities inflicted on Iraq by the use of DU, and other deadly weapons,
the Occupation forces have systematically destroyed the natural and
urban environment. They have razed trees and other greenery. Tanks rumble
through the streets and over pavements, spreading clouds of
dust, bursting water mains and filling the sewers with rubble. Gardens
are set on fire and houses are demolished. Then there is the noise pollution
caused by the deafening sound of low-flying aircraft.
The current state of the road to Baghdad international airport illustrates
the extent of the devastation. Whereas this road was once bordered by
kilometres of trees and parkland, today it is a barren desert patrolled
by American tanks and armoured vehicles. The same applies to the Baghdad-
Jordan highway. "It is difficult to perceive any logistic purpose
for such gratuitous vandalism beyond the humiliation of the Iraqi people,"
writes Mr. Aziz Jabir Shayal, director of the Baghdad Centre for Human
Rights.
Nothing has escaped
the US atrocities in Iraq. The destruction of the Buddha's status by
the Taliban regime was met with an outcry in the US, Britain and others
of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq, reported the Guardian
of London. Yet the Occupation forces have destroyed the ancient cities
of Babylon, Ur, and the holy city of Najaf, and ransacked Iraq's cultural
heritage atrocities that hardly make it to the mainstream media.
According to the
WHO figures prior to the 1990 US war, the Iraqi people had 92% access
to high quality free health care in some of the finest hospitals in
the Middle East, 93% access to clean water, high nutritional status
and a free education system described as unique by UNESCO, since of
standard such that a child born into abject poverty could leave graduate
school as a doctor, engineer or architect.
The unprovoked US
attacks with cluster bombs on Iraqi cities such as Kut, Samarra, Hillah,
Summawah, Fallujah, Baghdad and Kufa have caused several massacres of
women and children, destroying the infrastructure, and civil society.
Thousands of people have been killed and many more thousands injured,
adding to the tens of thousands of civilians killed by US invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The London-based
Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War (IPPNW) reveals that up to 55,000 Iraqi civilians died
in the bombing of 2003 alone. The charity organisation concluded that
the war's continuing impact - particularly the failure of occupation
authorities to ensure security - has resulted in a further deterioration
of Iraq's infrastructure and the Iraqi population's health status. Western
media are happy to propagate the death of 1000 US soldiers
since the invasion, while ignoring the atrocities committed against
the
Iraqi people.
Western liberals
or "power intellectuals" who "opposed" the war and
now adopted the argument of "moral responsibility" remain
silence in the face of continuing US atrocities in Iraq. Where are those
defenders of morality and human rights? Why is no one condemning America's
terrorism in Iraq, and
particularly in Najaf and Kufa? They are ready to attack Sayyid Muqtada
Al-Sadr for his resistance to this fascist Occupation. Portraying the
Iraqi people as violent "insurgents" and dehumanising the
Iraqi people is part of a deep Western racism in order to rationalise
and legitimise the repression and colonial occupation.
As I see it, a resistance
leader has to be accepted by Western liberals and intellectuals first,
before his own people accept him. Very few have dared to say anything
about Iyad Allawi. He seems to be acceptable to Westerns despite him
being rejected by the vast majority of the Iraqi people. Sayyid
Muqtada Al-Sadr is a thirty years old Iraqi citizen, who courageously
opposed the foreign occupation of his country without taking orders
from outsiders.
Many years ago French
Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said to his fellow-countrymen during the
French atrocities in Algeria: "It is not right, my fellow-countrymen,
you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not
at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not
even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself.
I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did notrealize what
was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true;
but now you know, and still you hold your tongues."
Iraqis have always
stood up to invasions and imperial atrocities, and have always prevailed.
The Iraqi people cannot wait for the so-called "anti-war movement"
to emerge from its hibernation. Iraqis know they have nothing to depend
on but their own resources those the Coalition haven't destroyed or
usurped.
Professor Hassan
Nafaa of Cairo University writes, "I was always confident in the
ability of the Iraqi people to mount a resistance against the US occupation.
Nevertheless, I had never imagined that their movement would build up
momentum and gather strength at the pace we have seen. Within a very
short space of time, the Iraqi resistance has been able to expose the
ugly face of America. It has proven to the world that the US came to
Iraq not as a liberator but as an invader, not as a provider but as
an avaricious taker. Contrary to its claim, it is now abundantly clear
that the US came to
Iraq to stay, and to exert its control directly over the affairs of
that country, or through its handpicked agents". Many people around
the world share this comment.
The US Occupation
forces see all Iraqis as potential "terrorists" regularly
shooting and killing innocent civilians demonstrating for peace, or
simply for expressing displeasure at their presence in Iraqi streets.
On Sunday, September 12, 2004, US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed
innocent civilians in Baghdad killing more than 13 Iraqis, including
children and an Arab journalist, and injuring dozens others.
It is absurd to
label the Iraqi resistance as "terrorists" and "insurgents".
Iraqis have a legitimate right to resist US occupation and to fight
for liberation against this new colonial tyranny. Occupations are very
ugly and unbearable, so some forms of resistance against occupation
can be unsightly. Iraqi resistance is a legitimate liberation movement
fighting on the front line against colonial tyranny. The US "messianic
mission" is one of injustice and terrorism, masked in the "moral
responsibility" of Western hypocrisy to serve its own interests.
"Terrorism" is the brainchild of the Western powers. It is
the West and Western interests that have pushed terrorism to the forefront,
not the terrorists. The West used terrorism as a tool for war and colonial
control. Just take a look at what happening in Iraq. Junaid Alam, co-editor
of Left Hook journal called the 'war on terror' "an absolute fraud".
I would add that all America's wars are fraud.
Iraq is not a free
country. It is occupied by violent and outlawed foreign forces. A true
antiwar movement that support the Iraqi national liberation resistance
against the tyranny of Western imperialism must demand the full withdrawal
of the US occupying forces from Iraq. The US government should be made
accountable to pay full reparations to the Iraqi people. Finally, the
US authorities are obliged to cleanup the toxic, radioactive waste in
the interests of all the people in the world, not just the Iraqi people
who are the victims of this atrocity.
Ghali Hassan lives
in Perth Western Australia: He can be reached at e-mail:
[email protected]
Further readings:
[1] Felicity Arbuthnot (1999). Poisoned legacy, New Internationalist,
issue
316, September http://www.newint.org/issue316/poisoned.htm
[2] Laka Foundation Report (1999). Depleted Uranium: A post-war disaster
for
environment and health. http://www.ratical.org/radiation/dhap/dhap99.pdf
[3] K. Baverstock, C. Motherstill & M. Thorne (2001). Radiological
toxicity
of DU. http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Radiological-Toxicity-WHO5nov01.htm
[4] Natasha Coen, Carmel Mothersill, Munira Kadhim and E. G.Wright.
(2001).
Heavy metals of relevance to human health induce genomic instability
The
Journal of Pathology, 195(3).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/85011734/PDFSTART
[5] The Medact Report (2003). Continuing Collateral Damage: The Health
and
Environmental Costs of War on Iraq. London, UK.
http://www.mapw.org.au/iraq/2003/ippnwiraq/MedactIPPNW-ContinuingCollateralD
amage.pdf
[6] Wandsworth Stop-the-War Coalition (2003). Depleted Uranium - Silent
Genocide.
http://www.wandsworthstopwar.org.uk/du/index.htm