Health and Environmental Catastrophe in Iraq
What can be done?
By Tahrir Swift
“Iraqi women giving birth in Basra, no longer ask, if it is a boy or a girl, they ask, is it normal?” This is the assertion made by an Iraqi doctor in Basra’s main hospital on the film ‘Deadly Dust’.
An extract of the hour and half documentary regarding the effects of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions on Iraq used in 1991 and 2003 US wars on Iraq was shown at the Brunei Gallery on the 3rd March 2008.
The public meeting at SOAS, organised by Solidarity for an Independent and Unified Iraq (SIUI), was attended by 150 people.
It is widely believed that the US forces used 350 tons of Depleted Uranium munitions on Iraq in 1991 and 1000-2000 tons in 2003.
In a report in Arabic dated 25th Feb 2008 Dr Jawad al Ali of Basra teaching hospital who has been studying and monitoring the effects of DU on public health, said that the rate of cancer in Basra has witnessed a dramatic increase compared to 10 years ago. Today it stands at 70 cases for every 100 000 people.
Dr Al Ali had also revealed in a report published in Asharq Al Awast London based newspaper last November, that 70% of cancer cases could be helped but are not, because of lack of equipment and medical supplies. The patients end up dead, even if their cancers were detected early and the prognosis of their case is good.
The successive occupation Iraqi governments have kept silent about this subject, but recently Nermin Othman, the Environment minister in the current government, broke the silence, by stating "there are 350 contaminated locations in Iraq due to US bombing." However she also stated on Al Alam TV last month, that her ministry’s function is ‘purely educational and has no authority’!
Information about Depleted Uranium, the scientific evidence of its effects, recent cases and debates can be found here.
Nicholas Wood an Architect by profession, who has written a book on Iraq and has a great deal of knowledge and interest in the issue of DU, said “I am satisfied that at last a London audience has managed to see part of this very important documentary about the consequences of these deadly weapons. The officials in the British and US government are in denial about the issue of DU. Depleted Uranium particles will continue to make civilians fall sick and die for thousands of years to come unless something is done about it. The sooner we break this denial barrier the sooner we can do something to save the future generations of Iraq.”
Dr. Doug Rokke, a US Army Health Physicist and a Nuclear Medicine Sciences Officer, has little doubt about the harm done by Depleted Uranium munitions. Click here to see his testimony on the subject.
The European Parliament voted on a moratorium on the use of DU munitions in the wake of successful cases of compensation in Scotland and Italy.
This film showing and discussion was part of the programme of an event entitled ‘The Heath and Environmental catastrophe in Iraq, what can be done?’ organised by SIUI.
Mundher Adhami an Iraqi academic, who spoke about possible interim solutions in order to contain the problem, said “This is a catastrophe of immense dimensions.
The Deadly Dust documentary shows that areas around Baghdad, Arbil and according to Dr Kadhum al Muqdadi even parts of Najaf, are now contaminated by radio active materials. These are areas that apparently did not get direct hits by DU weapons in 2003 war”.
This can only mean that we now have the possibility of radio active particles are being carried in the dust storms from one part of Iraq to the other. These minute particles can be breathed in, ingested or they could contaminate the soil and water table and enter the food chain, spreading about sickness and death all over Iraq.
“Urgent action is therefore vital, to contain the contaminated areas and prevent the continuation of the spread of radio active pollution with all its deadly consequences.” said Haifa Zangana who chaired the panel addressing the SIUI meeting at SOAS.
“The onus is on the user of DU to prove that it is safe and it is their responsibility to contain and clear up the contamination”, said Marion Birch of MEDACT
Lubna Samara an activist with Arab Media Watch spoke about Israel’s use of unconventional weapons on Palestine and Lebanon.
Lubna’s report started with the Israeli deliberate poisoning of the water wells of Acre with Typhus germs in 1948 to the use of White Phosphorus on the civilians in the 1982 Israeli war on Lebanon, to the use of DU munitions and cluster bombs in the summer of 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
Not forgetting the Israeli use of biological agents in confrontations with Palestinian civilians taking part in peaceful demonstrations.
Lubna’s very well researched report can be found here
The parallels between Israel’s and the US’s strategy of using weapons of mass destruction that violates international humanitarian law in the region are glaringly obvious for all to see.
Marion Birch the executive Director of MEDACT, a charitable organisation concerned with the effects of wars and conflict on the ‘Right to Health’ for the civilian population in the affected areas. ‘The Right to Health’ is enshrined in international law as an inalienable right for every man, woman and child all over the world.
In 2002, MEDACT warned against the dire consequences for the Iraqi people if the war on Iraq was to go ahead. Iraq’s health infrastructure was already in a fragile state because of sanctions and a previous conflict.
MEDACT is critical of the CPA’s management of the health system, sending experts with insufficient prior knowledge of the region but with an agenda for privatisation, failing to protect and re-establish health facilities, failing to set a good precedent and set good standards, by allowing the looting the hospitals and clinics.
MEDACT’s report Rehabilitation under Fire launched on the 16th January, paints a grim picture for the civilian population of Iraq. It states that up to 75% of Iraqi health professionals have left their jobs since 2003.
Ms Birch expressed concerns that the terms of the Geneva Convention have not been adhered to and the neutral space for health workers and health care services have not been/ar'nt respected.
She called for the protection of Iraqi health professionals, health facilities and provisions.
She also called for the protection of the personnel collecting data for the sake of an overall and continuing assessment of the health sector in Iraq. Without a system that collects this information on a regular basis, it is very difficult to determine the immediate needs and to plan and put in place strategic policies for the health sector in Iraq.
One factor that can undermine a fair assessment of the situation of the health sector is the politicisation of health information.
“Surveys based on random cluster samples, have long been accepted by governments the world over. It is therefore puzzling to see the initial rejection of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s mortality surveys (Roberts et al & Burnham et al) published in the Lancet”.
Alternative surveys in order to ascertain the number of casualties in Iraq could have been used constructively together with these to reach the most accurate picture.
MEDACT believes the Iraqis should be assisted in rebuilding their health system while being given the space to decide what sort of health system they want.
A recent report released by the Iraqi government quoted by IRIN states: “Since the US-led invasion in 2003, 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, as well as medics and other health care workers, have been killed nationwide, according to figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry released earlier this year.”
The above mentioned report quoted by IRIN, states “Baghdad a city of 5 million people, has no neurosurgeons”.
Activists in the Brussel’s Tribunal have meticulously documented what can only be described as a deliberate effort to empty Iraq of its doctors and health professionals, through a campaign of assassinations, arrests and threats of violence.
According to Iraqi government sources and also the Oxfam report released on 30th July 2007, bureaucracy and rife corruption cripple health authorities and medicine distribution.
“KEMADIA, the state-owned medical supply company, is unable to provide for the hospitals and primary health-care centres. Of the 180 hospitals countrywide, 90 per cent lack key resources including basic medical and surgical supplies.
Like many government institutions, KEMADIA has been crippled by bureaucratic, centralised management and a lack of distribution capacity, while accusations of corruption and sectarian influence have eroded people’s confidence in its ability to deliver.”(Oxfam, page 11, Rising to the humanitarian challenge in Iraq).
During 2006 and 2007, under the watch of ex Health minister Ali Al Shumari, now an asylum seeker in the US, Iraqi hospitals became arenas for the sectarian score settling. Despite the overwhelming evidence against minister’s aides for orchestrating the violence, they walked out of court free men due to witnesses intimidation and the Iraqi government’s failure to guarantee their protection.
This meeting did not just highlight problems but it also offered possible ways forwards. In the case of the health service crisis, Nicholas Wood illustrated in a short film how easy it is to get hold of medical supplies, such as oxygen masks, baby incubators and even a mobile hospital!
Nicholas has been campaigning since he had seen a channel4 Dispatches TV documentary called ‘Iraq’s missing Billions’ on the hospital of Diwaniya , where two days old twins died because of the lack of Vitamin K, a £0.95 canola and a £1.50 infant’s oxygen mask that could have assisted the baby’s breathing.
Mr. Wood has been instrumental in organising the open letter to Tony Blair signed by 100 senior British health professionals calling on the British government to rise up to its legal and moral obligations under the Geneva Convention.
On the subject of Depleted Uranium contamination in Iraq, both Nicholas and Mundher Adhami referred to the UN Environmental Department’s suggestions to deal with the DU contamination in Bosnia, as an interim measure.
A short film was shown :"DU Crisis in Iraq spraying a possible solution? . "
This illustrates how an old oil spill from a pipeline in America left the sand still compacted to 60 cm deep after a twenty five year period, and that the sand remained water repelent. The film suggests that, in Iraq, if oil was sprayed on purpose on the highly contaminated sand round abandoned tanks, it would stop some of the radioactive sand blowing about in dust storms , and reduce to some extent the projected resulting cancers and birth defects ( projected at up to 7 million cases in ten years) .
It also showed how bitumen spray is used today to protect sea walls in the Thames Estuary, and how this technique could be used to cap dumps of bulldozed contaminated sand, and throw rain water off the mound preventing it soaking DU into the ground water run off. (Bricks stuck together in Babylonian times still have intact bitumen joints) Sticky bitumen sprayed on tank hulks would also prevent children playing in them and contracting radiation damage and Leukaemia.
(Copies of this film can be obtained on request ( £7pp) from saranickwood@btinternet.com)
Mr Adhami’s contribution to the discussion can be found here.
Haifa spoke briefly about the systematic deforestation, cutting down of orchards and burning down of vegetation in Iraq, a practice comparable to the uprooting of citrus and olive groves in Palestine. Haifa said “the official US army websites and military blogs, mentions so called 'Controlled Burn', as if it is a great service to the people of Iraq! It is done with relish, one marine, describes the sound of burning as if it is ‘an orchestra playing a piece of music’.
No mention of the environmental damage and devastation caused to the farmers tending these groves and orchards.
A fact sheet with all up-to-date statistics and information on the situation in Iraq was given out to members of the public attending the meeting, this fact sheet can be found here.
After all the contributions from the speakers on the issue of health and environment, there was a lively discussion about raising the public awareness on the dire health situation in Iraq and the importance of organising similar meetings in universities up and down the UK. An online petition was suggested as one of the ways forward.
Amongst those present at the meeting are Iraqis and non Iraqis who were friends of the well known Iraqi woman artist, Nuha Al Radhi. Nuha died of cancer in August 2004, she was convinced her illness was linked to Depleted Uranium.
The final speaker was Jonathan Stevenson of Iraq Occupation Focus (IOF) on the important campaign of ‘Justice for Iraq’.
The UK government talks about withdrawing British troops, though the word ALL is never mentioned.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, pretending to distance himself from the Blair era and putting himself forwards as the leader who will slowly but quietly withdraw from Iraq and that will be the end of the matter!
IOF has formed a working group for the campaign: Justice for Iraq and has put together
a document detailing the obligations and responsibilities of the protagonists of this illegal war and the reparations they have to pay the Iraqi people. Withdrawing the troops and all the private security personnel (mercenaries) should only be the beginning. An end to this hated occupation and the eradications of all its manifestations must follow, the rule of International law must be restored.
