Iraqi children are suffering

By MARK MacKINNON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail


UPDATED AT 2:09 AM EDT Saturday, Jun. 28, 2003


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Baghdad — Three-year-old Ibrahim Issam is clearly in pain. Clad in an orange jumpsuit, sitting on his father's knee in the Central Teaching Hospital's waiting room, he screams incessantly, unable to express where it hurts. In the already sweltering June heat, his forehead is even hotter to the touch.

His parents think he's got gastroenteritis, a stomach disease that dehydrates children rapidly and that has plagued this country since the United Nations imposed sanctions here 12 years ago, a trading embargo that left Iraq without chlorine to treat its water. His sister Aisha, just 18 months old, dozes on the hospital bed behind Ibrahim. She has the same symptoms.

The sanctions are gone now, but children like Ibrahim and Aisha still suffer. The situation, many say, is worse now. Even in big cities like Baghdad, the water remains undrinkable, and in the summer heat, many families have taken to drawing water directly from the polluted Tigris River.

"They have problems in their stomachs, diarrhea and vomiting. They're sick because the drinking water is dirty," the children's father, Issam Khalil, says. "Things are not better now than during the sanctions."

Doctors here agree. In interviews this week, three of Iraq's top pediatricians said that although no statistics are available, they believe the rate of child mortality — among the highest in the world during the past 12 years — has risen even higher since Saddam Hussein's regime fell and the United States took over governing the country.

With the medical system depleted by postwar looting and the slow restoration of basic services, the doctors feel underequipped to deal with what they expect will be a growing flood of cases like Ibrahim's and Aisha's. And in the early summer heat, which often peaks above 45 in the afternoon, infections are spreading like fire.

"There's no government since the end of the war, and the crisis is getting worse and worse," said Emad al-Hadithy, chief resident at the Central Teaching Hospital. "When we compare this period with the period of the embargo, the embargo was better."

Dr. al-Hadithy said that since the war in Iraq ended two months ago, he has seen a sharp rise not only in cases of gastroenteritis but in the so-called black fever, a disease spread by the sand flies which have been multiplying in Baghdad as piles of uncollected litter grow on the streets of the capital.

He also fears another rise in childhood leukemia, like the one after the Persian Gulf war in 1991, which many doctors here believe was caused by the depleted-uranium shells that U.S. forces used.

Before the latest war, the children's health crisis in Iraq was already staggering. A pair of Canadian doctors, Eric Hoskins and Samantha Nutt, who visited the country in January, estimated that 500,000 of Iraq's 13 million children were malnourished.

The United Nations Children's Fund says 70 per cent of all deaths among Iraqi children are caused by diarrhea-related diseases, and says that rates of such illnesses are "much higher than this time last year."

A recent Unicef survey in Baghdad found 7.7 per cent of children under the age of 5 were suffering acute malnutrition, up from 4 per cent before the war.

Complicating matters is the unpredictable security situation in Baghdad and other cities. Many parents, especially those who live in rural areas, are afraid to drive the sometimes dangerous roads into larger cities for hospital care.

"They come here only when the baby reaches the final stage of advanced gastroenteritis," Dr. al-Hadithy said.

Ibrahim and Aisha's parents hope they haven't waited too long. Mr. Khalil said they watched Ibrahim suffer for two days, afraid to go to the hospital, hoping he'd get better, before finally making the drive into Baghdad.

The hospitals that parents are travelling to are not sure they can cope. Though international aid organizations have been pitching in to help since the war ended, there's little that can be done until the overall situation in the county improves.

"Medicine is coming in now, but we don't have good security; we don't have electricity; we don't have a clean water supply," said Nazar al-Anbalai, director of the al-Mansur children's hospital, who said his doctors often have to work by candlelight and consciously skimp on the amount of water they use.

"If this doesn't change soon, there will be even more of an increase in the number of children's deaths."

In the hallways of his hospital, parents watching over their sick children are despondent.

"He's not eating anything," whimpered Bayan Jihad Abdul Razak, hugging her pallid-looking son, Mustafa, against her as they took a walk through the al-Mansur's crowded hallways. Though the boy is 20 months old, he looks much smaller. He's suffering from gastroenteritis as well as anemia.

"The situation here is not good. He's always sick, since he was born," Ms. Abdul Razak said. "He doesn't eat anything. I wish I could send him out of Iraq."


© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Tell me again how everything is better.

LINK

Extreme Birth Deformities in Iraq: article and photo's.

Yes. Liberation from life and dignity.

Another Great Accomplishment by Shrub.

Impeach Bush NOW!

Excessive radiation poisoning from DU causes (mainly) kidney damage and lung cancer (just think about how it works) These things also take some years to develop.

If the people are showing OTHER symptoms it is probably somthing else that is causing it.

As to the article above. the question is can the US provide a long term improvement. short term - THEY JUST HAD A WAR - health conditions are not going to be ideal.
Wars are pretty much by definition some sort of a short term sacrifice in order to achieve a long term benifit.

However at the same time I dont think that mark has shown any particular scientific method of determining these things.

Thank-you for rationalizing the death and destruction that I have wrought on the Iraqi people.

Sadam would like to pay you for rationalizing his killings but at the moment you will just have to make do with a IOU because your side lost.
He does however suggest that maybe george galloway has some to spare you.

our side did loose. and it continues to loose.
we are salting the earth with a poison the romans who
sacked Carthridge could never have dreamed of.

I am proud to be a Bush boot licker.

The activist community is dying!
Organize!
Organize!

Republicans are selfish and greedy by definition.

...the Supreme Ignorance of the "Made" Sycophant.

Radiation is not the only causal element in the poisoning caused by DU.

Uranium is a heavy metal.

Ever hear of "Heavy Metal Poisoning" moron.

Uranium is one of the worst. The effects are debilitating and quick once one has accumulated enough in their systems.

Ask the Veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.

You are a disgusting apologist for mass murder. May Satan take his own - and soon.

"May Satan take his own - and soon"

Do you also believe in the easter bunny? the tooth fairy? santa claus? You nutcase!

OK you got me uranium poisoning causes some of those kidney problems too. Your not really making much of a point here.

My point is if someone gets hit on the head and a bruise appears on his toe they probably aren't cause and effect.
he probably jsut happened to hit hit toe as well.

"The Royal Society found that the majority of soldiers will not be exposed to levels of DU that are likely to cause heavy metal poisoning, but a small number might suffer kidney damage if they inhale or swallow large amounts after their vehicle has been struck by a DU penetrator or if they have been working for long periods of time inside and around contaminated vehicles.

This report recommends that veterans who may have had substantial intakes of DU should be invited to participate in an independent programme to measure levels in their body and assess likely health effects. The report calls for soldiers to be tested for the presence of DU in their urine and for kidney function."

"Ask the Veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. "

Your gulf war syndrome has been looked into many times and it doesnt seem to be getting anywhere.

"Your gulf war syndrome has been looked into many times and it doesnt seem to be getting anywhere."

Unsubstantiated Allegation
For more on logic at your level, try reading "Logic for Dummies."

Since you are accusing someone of murder (or at least poisoning) the burden of proof is on you.
So Unsubstantiated Allegation is only relevant when applied to you.
If oyu want to argue with me you will need facts.

Do a google search [DU+birth+defects]
Do you have a strong stomach, shit head?

-I have recently received large numbers of photographs of horrendous birth deformities that are being
experienced in Iraq. I have not, quite frankly, ever seen anything like them. -
http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

You can't do a google search [DU+birth+defects] and know that DU was the cause of the birth defects. As far as I know, there has never been a real study conducted that links DU to any Iraqi birth defects. They could be caused by a number of Iraqi environmental problems.

You can't just see a picture of a deformed Iraqi and assume it was DU, even if somebody on the web says its cause was DU (because they don't know either). Were there deformed Iraqi babies born in the 80s? I imagine there were. And please don't quote figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry -- they mean nothing to me.

I piss all over you scum. Die homo communists so we can ship your sorry corpses to Cuba, you dictator lovin shitscum.

And as you say (I will dig on this a bit to try and find
some actual research) there hasn't been any in the main stream media, but stats indicate a sharp rise in BD since the 1st gulf slaughter.
I can't help but be reminded of the tabacco industry pounding the 'there's no link' between lung cancer and the
use of their product.

Sheepdog,
It would be interesting to see a study of birth defects post-winter '91 in Southern Iraq and Kuwait. I imagine quite a bit of DU weapons were used in both regions. If I could see a study that showed results, normalized for the amount of DU used and for population in each region -- that would be enlightening.

I never read about huge numbers of Kuwaiti children with birth defects caused by DU. Maybe there are some. But shouldn't one guess that they should be about the same as Iraq's number?

Some text from the following article:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-06-28&id=3252

Then two surgeons at Al Kindi teaching hospital in Baghdad, Dr Rahim Ismael and Dlair Omar, ... damned the health ministry under Saddam as a corrupt and brutal instrument of state oppression. They said that many medicines had been held back in warehouses. The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime. Any Iraqi doctors who didn’t toe the line were punished.

Felicity Arbuthnot, Pilger’s senior researcher for the film, wrote in a magazine article published in September 1999, ‘By early 1992, doctors in Iraq were bewildered by the rise in birth deformities — some so grotesque and unusual that they expected to see them only in textbooks and perhaps once or twice in a lifetime. They compared them to those recorded in the Pacific Islands after the nuclear testing in the 1950s. Cancers, too, were rising, especially among the young, the most susceptible to radiation.’

Hang on a minute. Cancers don’t happen overnight. They develop after a latency period of at least four years. The Iraqis reported a rash of cancers in the south from 1992 onwards. The cancers that happened in 1992 cannot, scientifically, have been caused in 1992 — or 1991 when the depleted uranium was used — but at least four years before that. ‘To say any different is ridiculous; it would deny the evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,’ Dr Nick Plowman, the head of oncology at Barts, told me.

In the mid-1980s Iranian human-wave offensives almost took Basra, but they were stopped by Saddam’s chemical weapons. The UN found incontrovertible evidence that Saddam used mustard gas against the Iranians every year between 1984 and 1988. When the Iranians came close to Basra, the Iraqis dropped gas on their own people, too. Nearly all of the war was fought in Iraq, not Iran, so that’s where Saddam dropped his chemical weapons.

Mustard gas — sulphur mustard — is carcinogenic and mutagenic. That is, sulphur mustard causes cancers, leukaemias and birth defects. The children of Iranian soldiers who were gassed by Saddam’s men have developed terrible cancers and birth defects. No depleted-uranium weapons were used on them. The children of Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed by Saddam, have developed cancers and birth defects. Again, no depleted uranium was used on them.

I love you!

How big is your penis?

...a report on the increase in Iraqi Birth Defects following Gulf Massacre I.

The apologists for the Bush Junta have to desperately avoid giving this one any credence as it is clear cut. IF DU is one of the main causes for the drastic increase in Birth Defects then this becomes a clear War Crime through continued use of DU Munitions. It is illegal under the 4th Geneva Conventions to use indiscriminate weapons which will knowingly affect noncombatants.

If the Bush Junta and the U.S. Government were to admit to the deadly affects of DU it then opens the door to BILLIONS in Lawsuits, War Crimes Charges against those who used them and authorized their use.

There are really very few reasons why one would continue to defend the Pro-DU position in light of the accumulating weight of evidence (including the surfacing of a couple of internal Military Memos acknowledging DU's dangers).

1. Government Shill
2. PR Shill for the Weapons Manufacturer (wanting to avoid being Sued out of existence).
3. Ignorance and with Internet access such ignorance at this stage of the game is intentional avoidance of any information which might disprove their ignorant assumptions and slavish acceptance of the Part Line.
4. Sociopathic Personality who enjoys seeing pictures of dead and dying children, Soldiers, and other noncombatants.

Ignorance is not a defence. It is just ignorance.

BUSH LIED AND CHILDREN DIED, WERE DEFORMED, CONDEMNED TO MISERY. Yes it really is that horrorific.

has a nation caused a crime so awful and so long lasting
to the people of earth. May we and our children be forgiven.
I doubt if future generations will. Rome was frail compared to this.
There are areas of the earth that will cause death and misery for a period of time longer than life has existed.

Diogenes,
Check where UNESCO got the data.
I don't have a pro-DU position. My position is that it requires evidence to link a cause and an effect. Seeing cancers within a year or two of an event is not plausible.

Sheepdog,
That is overstating the situation by a huge degree. As an aside, tell me where in Iraq in GWI that the International Coalition used DU weapons in the vicinity of civilians.

I believe this 'radioactive salting' of the land is
far more evil than what Rome did to Carthridge.
And DU in its particulate oxidized form carries on the wind
and into the water table to spread in an uncontrolled
plume. We will have the rest of our species existence to see who is correct.

Who really gives a shit about the health of Iraqis? I don't.

I don't need your assistance.

That WAS me, you paranoid psycho. Please get your prescriptions filled before you hurt somebody.

It takes a small mind to be limited to hijacking somebody's name. Make up your own name and say something worthwhile.

Thanks, Sheepdog, for realizing it wasn't me.

"It takes a small mind to be limited to hijacking somebody's name. Make up your own name and say something worthwhile."

It's all I got.

The only way you get sick from DU is if you ingest it, ask all the real doctors (not your liberal activist friends), but anyways, DU in your face! (Plus they helped our guys take out Iraqi tanks, not that you ever cared about the American soldiers) (Thats right, where were your support the troops rallies? HUH? Filthy protestors)

...what they have been TOLD to "think" about an issue.

Someday I wish someone would invent a cure for “Head up your ass Syndrome”. Obviously the above poster knows nothing about the effects of DU beyond what “Rush” has told him to think.

If you would care to alleviate your obvious ignorance here is a good article written by the man (Dr. Doug Rokke; Major, USAR) who wrote the Army’s Training Video on DU Hazards and Handling (the one that was shelved because it makes pretty clear just how really dangerous the stuff is. He also led the Army team investigating DU environmental damage following Gulf Massacre I):

Depleted Uranium: Uses and Hazards: http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/rokke/rokke.htm

Another Report (well footnoted if you care to check the basis of the article): http://www.ratical.com/radiation/dhap/dhap992.html

Here’s one from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/362543.stm

Here’s another at Gulufuture: http://homepage.eircom.net/~gulufuture/future/nothing_depleted.htm

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1)
Adopted on 8 June 1977 by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law applicable in Armed Conflicts; entered into force 7 December 1979

It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.








-- Article 35 paragraph 3









The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations.

[C]ivilians shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited, [including an] attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.








-- Article 51 paragraphs 1, 2, 4 and 5 (excerpts)

According to Rokke, DU contamination occurs when:

1) Being in the midst of smoke from DU fires resulting from the burning of vehicles uploaded with DU munitions or depots in which DU munitions are being stored.

2) Working within environments containing DU dust or residues from DU fires.

3) Being within a structure or vehicle while it is struck by DU munitions.


Since DU munitions were not used in any civilian areas in Desert Storm, there is no need to worry. The only Iraqis who may have been exposed are dead from the munition destroying their vehicle.

we don't know that. A radiological survey should be done with alpha counters to see the extent of contamination.
We do know that the cruise missiles and other ordinance were
constructed with components of DU however. We'll have all the time in the world to find out. In the meantime women in Iraq are terrified to have children.
I myself get a little sick seeing the deformities.

Popinjay?

"2) Working within environments containing DU dust or residues from DU fires. "

A. Now just what do you think happens to the DU Dust picked up on the Desert Winds? Does it, with a Half Life of 4.5 BILLION Years, just evaporate? Does it Magically turn into Angel Dust? Transmute into the purest Silver? Idiot.

B. It is absolute DISINFORMATION to say DU Munitions were not used near inhabited areas. Take a look at the march of the U.S. Troops and everywhere they called in Air Support DU Munitions were used. Imbecile.

BUSH LIED AND PEOPLE DIED. Those who attempt to justify, defend, or obscure what has occurred are nothing better than Accessories to Mass Murder.

Let's hear a nice little Sieg Heil from you Eddie.

The scared Iraqi women can now take comfort in the fact that Saddam is gone -- and chemical weapons, the most likely cause of any increase in birth defects, will no longer be used in their country. In this wonderful fact, we can all rejoice!

This whole does-DU-cause-birth-defects-in-Iraq debate focuses on the '91 war, smart guy. Any mutations resulting from the latest war won't be apparent for another 3 years, at the earliest. Maybe the asylum has a science book they'd let you borrow...

If this is really you Eddie you can fuck yourself.
We put that bastard in power.

You are a reasonable fellow. Sorry if I got a little testy. I just get frustrated at intellectual sloppiness (using emotions rather than reason when evaluating the DU debate) and the 10-year-old-esque quality to call anybody who doesn't agree with you a nazi -- very boring.

Like I said, you are a reasonable fellow. And because you were offended, I will apologize.

...you are not a NAZI Eddie.

However, I still stand behind what I wrote minus the offensive characterizations.

Your conclusion was superficial and did not take into account the Climactic Conditions, the means by which DU dust spreads and the way rains will leach it into the Water Table.

Dr. Rokke did another piece where he addressed some of those concerns and I'll see if I can dig it up out of my archives.

I mean haven't we wasted enough of this earth already?
The Amazon rain forests, the oceans, the rivers, the skys...
haven't we jeopardized our survival on this LONELY piece
of real estate enough for superficial and greedy reasons??
Hit dont make no sense.
The use of such dangerous material should be banned.
I suspect it to be a convenient and deliberate side
benefit of our buddies in Ike's military/corporate weapons
labs. Don't forget, the majority of oil and fuel goes to military use. Everybody is happy except the living organisms
for all practical purposes in its proximity, forever.
It's a form of deadly salt.

"Don't forget, the majority of oil and fuel goes to military use."

That figure seemed awfully high. So I did some research.

Department of Defense petroleum use per year: 5 billion gallons
(source: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/art7049.php)

Total US petroleum consumption (2002): 19,761,000 Barrels / Day
(source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html#anote)

Assuming 365 days per year and 42 gallons per barrel:
The US military uses less than 2% of total US petroleum consumption. And this could be a high estimate, since it's possible that overseas military petroleum use is not counted in the numerator figure.

Okay, Diogenes, lets take a look at your supposedly non-biased resources....

-http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/rokke/rokke.htm
"stopnato" tells me all i need to hear, probably made up by a bunch of radical commies whose sole intent is to lie enough to make the US look like a bunch of nazis. I wouldnt be surprised if i went to their webpage to discover their version of Bush with a Nazi-like mustache.

-Here’s one from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/362543.stm

Uh oh!!! The BBC, they dont have an agenda against Americans at all.

Nice try, next time try and get some real sources for your information against DU.

I heard it unverified by personal research. Good one.
Listen, this isn't about merely extracting resources, this is
a deliberate form of racial/cultural genocide.
these inevitable plums of U238 and it's still toxic, still
radiologicaly active and now in a micron sized by product are
literally mini Chernobles [spell check?] and must be disposed of.
Hey, I got an Idea. Let's put all of these, and I will repeat this often, Nuclear Weapons back into hell from where they came. And their co-dependent power industry with them. Their by-products are an obscenity to life.
.
This fetish for resource control in Lou of trade is naked
piracy on an Imperial scale. The fall can be very rough.
How very foolish there are other real sources.of power..

Where the article is published has no bearing on the issue.

Dr. Rokke was the U.S. Army's Training Expert on DU handling.

Are you mainitaining that you know more about DU Dangers that he does?

ROFL!!!

What a Maroon.

"Despite the claim that Iraqi children are suffereing, sources have documented that the reading of Diogenes lies are much more painful, however they do provide a higher degree of humor.

And that's the way it is........."