Sky News reports the World Health Organisation is to undertake a study of birth deformities in the Iraqi city of Falluja.
The announcement follows mounting concern about the surge in birth deformities in the five years since US forces used massive quantities of heavy munitions in its two attacks on the city 40 km from Baghdad. I posted last month on the chorus of calls by Iraqi doctors and international campaign groups for an independent investigation. Doctors at the Falluja hospital cite a 15-fold increase in birth deformities. It is thought US forces used both white phosphorus and depleted uranium weapons during the attacks on Falluja.
The International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons is calling on the US to clarify what role uranium weapons played in the two attacks on Fallujah; to provide details of areas where these weapons were used in both Iraq wars to civil society and to the Iraqi authorities; to provide funding for independent scientific research to establish the cause of these effects, and for medical and technical assistance to the victims.
Meanwhile a group of British MPs has submitted a parliamentary motion calling the US use of toxic weapons at Falluja a ‘human rights atrocity’:
That this House notes the deeply disturbing report of BBC correspondent John Simpson indicating the high numbers of children being born with serious defects in the Iraqi town of Fallujah; further notes that the report says that those born with congenital heart defects is 13 times the rate found in Europe, that other babies have been born with limb loss or distortion, paralysis or brain damage, and that officials in the town have warned women that they should not have babies; further notes that during the US onslaught on Fallujah, white phosphorus and depleted uranium weapons were amongst those used, and also that after the fighting was over, rubble from the town was bulldozed into the river, polluting water supplies; further notes that there has not been a proper independent inquiry by medical experts to establish the cause of these birth defects; and considers that this consequence of this US military action makes it a human rights atrocity.
I have a member’s bill in the ballot that would ban depleted uranium weapons, just as we ban nuclear weapons.
Depleted uranium ammunition was my first thought when this news story was broadcast.
This from a country that tries to keep the upper moral ground on such things. The US are the terrorists!
Did anyone catch the story on RNZ last week of the former Australian journalist who went to Iraq as a human shield? She spent alot of time in falluja also.
IF Saddam Hussein had uinleased depleted uranium on his people, he would have been branded for more genocide, and rightly so…
That’s awful.
I seem to remember that after the razing of Falluja, no reporter or anyone else was allowed in. It seemed that they had flattened the city in case some insurgents might be there. Perhaps in addition to hiding the evidence they didn’t want anyone else to become affected by such trifles as depleted uranium as they were after the first Gulf War. An American I spoke to said “We did it because we can.”
Good point IanMac I dont recall any embedded reporters in Falujja then…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/nov/09/pressandpublishing.Iraqandthemedia
Thanks Tracey. I Googled Falluja and it makes pretty grim reading including verification that the USA used napalm. They did say that they warned the civilians to get out before the attack so thats OK?
The Guardian reports on a study of contaminated sites in Iraq which indicates 42 sites with high risk of depleted uranium and other toxins. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-sites
this is a shocker … Bush & Blair should be tried as war criminals. If it’s fair to execute Saddam & Chemical Ali for genocide then George & Tony should at least be tried before a court.
@ coolas: Won’t happen – the US never agreed to the ICC and they won’t try their own people for crimes against humanity. There’s a lot of reasons why I call the US the biggest rogue state in the world but most of them resolve around the point that they think that international law doesn’t, and shouldn’t, apply to them.
What Coolas said. But add Cheney, Rice, et al.