Doctors are calling for an investigation into an unprecedented number of birth defects in Fallujah, Iraq.
The war-ravaged population center has seen an increase of up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants since pre-war levels, according to a report by the UK’s Guardian. Documented statistics for birth defects in Fallujah have only emerged in recent months, but the rate of abormalities, including early-life cancers, is high enough to cause alarm at Fallujah’s General Hospital.
“We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies,” the hospital’s director, Dr Ayman Qais, told the Guardian. “Before 2003 I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically.”
“Most are in the head and spinal cord, but there are also many deficiencies in lower limbs,” he said. “There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of less than two years with brain tumors. This is now a focus area of multiple tumors.”
Here’s a video. Warning, its graphic and may not be suitable for younger children:
The Raw Story reporter mentions white phosphorus bombs as a possibility also, but my money is on depleted uranium, or maybe the combination of both. But who really knows? I have my doubts that any thorough investigation will ever be carried out, and certainly not by the US government. Just as for years our government denied the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and has stalled investigations into the causes of Gulf War Syndrome, the effects of toxic chemicals and compounds employed in today’s military arsenal will also likely be swept under the rug.
This is one more reason war must be a last option, and not a first one. The events of 9/11 did not require a war against Iraq. Now the innocent people of that country anf our service men and women will suffer from the “collateral damage” of that war of aggression for decades to come. And people wonder why we want Bush and Cheney tried as war criminals? As the International Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials stated after the end of of the War in Europe which Nazi Germany stated:
“[T]o initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and a whole host of lesser lights in the Bush administration are war criminals. They will never be tried for their crimes in America, but they should carry that taint with them for the rest of their lives.
I could never understand the use of depleted uranium. Did we run out of steel and copper? And it’s not like uranium is so plentiful that they’re building cars out of it.
Any slight superiority of uranium as a shell casing would be undercut by the long-term problem with covering a target area with a radioactive substance– unless that was the intent.
The Romans salted the earth of Carthage so that they’d never again be a threat to the Roman empire. Maybe it is the intention of the U.S. military to use depleted uranium to salt the genome of those populations who aren’t so compliant to our military’s will.
It was developed to deal with Soviet armor. In the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe NATO would have been vastly outgunned in the number of tanks (forget for a moment that the Soviets ever seriously considered invading Western Europe). So, it was thought by the geniuses at the Pentagon we needed to have a better tank to tank kill ratio should war break out in Europe. Depleted uranium for tank shells and antitank weapons was chosen as one answer because it was extremely dense and plentiful, and it did do a wonderful job of piercing armor plate. The problem? No one paid attention to the fact that despite being depleted it vaporized on contact releasing billions of aerosolized particles of a still toxic metal into the air, which if they get into you lungs (likely since they would become part of the dust that falls) anyone still living in that area would probably inhale a toxin far worse than lead (which as you know we forced the oil companies to take out of gasoline because of its toxic properties).
Why depleted uranium? It heavy per unit volume. It is easily available from nuclear reactors. The high mass per volume means that its impact on armored vehicles and other targets is much stronger, making it able to pierce heavy armor plating and reinforced concrete walls.
The fact that it is depleted means that most of the U-235 has split into its by-products, one being lead, which is also heavy. What remains is the non-radioactive isotope of uranium U-238.
More than likely, the cancers have been caused by lead and other heavy metal byproducts than by radiation or phoshorus. Phosphorus injuries would be heavy burns, not internal cancers.
There might be other chemical byproducts of battle, which although less noticeable might have a higher potential for inducing cancers. Gulf War Syndrome, for example, still is a mystery as to its causes.
The fact of a war of choice and the treatment of prisoners of war are sufficient to argue that Bush, Cheney, and company are war criminals without arguing for stuff that might not be true. What is clear is that some objective-minded scientists need to do an environment study of towns in Iraq that have these cancer rates.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I consider Bush and Cheney as war criminals because they waged a war of aggression (i.e., one without justification). The effects on the citizens of Fallujah do not change that fact.
Regarding the birth defects issue, I think that it is more than reasonable to infer that had there been no Battle for Fallujah the birth defects there would not have occurred at this high rate. Whether the cause is the weapons employed or some other consequence of the battle I do not know. However, my money is on the depleted uranium. It is still weakly radioactive, and in small particles inhaled or drunk as part of a contaminated water system (or from animals who consumed the particles) it could still cause damage to cells based on its toxicity as a metal and from the radioactive effects.
I understood your point about Bush’s war crimes. However, there are a lot of heavy metals and other elements released in fission. Here is a list I found on Wikipedia:
* 1 Krypton 83-86
* 2 Rubidium 85,87
* 3 Strontium 88-90
* 4 Yttrium 89
* 5 Zirconium 90-96
* 6 Molybdenum 95, 97, 98, 100
* 7 Technetium 99
* 8 Ruthenium 101-106
* 9 Rhodium 103
* 10 Palladium 105-110
* 11 Silver 109
* 12 Cadmium 111-116
* 13 Indium
* 14 Tin 117-126
* 15 Antimony 121,123
* 16 Tellurium 125, 128, 130
* 17 Iodine 129, 131
* 18 Xenon 131-136
* 19 Caesium 133, 134, 135, 137
* 20 Barium 138, 139
* 21 Lanthanides (lanthanum 139, cerium 140-144, neodymium 142-146, 148, 150, promethium-147, and samarium 149, 151, 152, 154)
Strontium 90 is radioactive isotope and can cause birth defects. That was one of the factors that politically drove the US to underground testing by the 1960s. Check the effects of the other heavy metals in the list.
There is some natural spontaneous fission in U-238, but I doubt if it contributes considerable fission fragments, compared to a nuclear bomb. Most of the radiation is natural decay by alpha emission. This is still dangerous and my money’s on depleted Uranium as a mutagen over white Phosphorus. Direct burns are probably Phosphorus.
Just a technical correction, I agree with your overall judgment.
Another technical correction:
Depletion means the U-235 has been separated out for use in bombs or reactors, where it is added to natural uranium to make enriched uranium.
U-238 is indeed radioactive, but it is non-fissionable. Non-fissionable is a relative term. If you piled up enough U-238 it would fission. I don’t know how much, perhaps a billion cubic feet.
I spent a lot of my own money on my Physics degrees. You have to expect me to use them.
Aha! That explains the appearance recently in artillery shells.
What a great way to clean up the depleted uranium at Hanford and Savannah River and Oak Ridge as those facilities closed or reduced the production of nuclear weapons.
And I wonder what happened to the nuclear material that the US recovered from the build-down of Soviet nuclear weapons under START.
Food for thought!
This is absolutely heart wrenching and a full investigation should be mounted. Why aren’t these pictures broadcast to the mainstream media? If this was the work of the taliban or someone else, we would be constantly bombarded with it every single day but this is a result of criminal elements in the US military who authorized the use of these weapons against these people.
How shameful š
eurail pass
Because we have a media that has no reason to tell Americans all the terrible things that are done in our name (with a few exceptions). Bad for business. Unamerican. Traitorous. You know the drill. These vids are from a BBC report and likely have been seen all over the world except in America. If we didn’t have You Tube when would we have found out about it? Think of how long it took after the Vietnam war for Agent Orange to get any coverage in the media, even though there were signs that it was some nasty stuff years before it ever got reported, and then only because of claims by Veterans which our government and many in the media tried to debunk.
Sorry, vids are from Sky Television which is telecast in the UK and ironically owned by Murdoch. I’m sure however many other foreign media outlets have broadcast similar reports.
Here’s one not in English:
Here’s the link to the Guardian story which has their own video or you can watch it at The Raw Story link posted above.
These pictures are outrageous evidence of a military gone berserk. The US has become a nation of monsters doling out massive amounts of pain and suffering to the innocents of the world. Other than the Nazis, who can match the American record of killing children from Japan to Vietnam to Panama to Iraq and Afghanistan? And the horrific weapons never stop: from Agent Orange to depleted uranium to white phosphorous to God knows what next.
Yes, these pictures should be aired on the mass media. Yes, Bush, Cheney and their evil companions should be tried as war criminals. Yes, we should brings our soldiers home from the Middle East, all of them. Yes, we should do penance for the wrongs we have perpetrated upon Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, we should eliminate these terrible weapons from our arsenal.
It seems like the American dream has become a nightmare haunting the entire world. How long before Destiny catches up with us?
American soldiers who have served in the areas where DU has been used have many of the same symptons. I have an entire folder of articles and studies in a box somewhere. And again, like agent orange, the military denies any link.