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Report on the situation in Iraq
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
In a report published three years ago, the United Nations Children’s Fund said that between 1991 and 1998 economic sanctions contributed to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children under the age of five. These deaths weren’t caused by sanctions alone, however. Other factors have also contributed to the high child mortality rate, including the after-effects of the Gulf War, where the country’s infrastructure, namely water and sewage treatment facilities, was deliberately destroyed. In addition, depleted uranium from tank shells and bombs used in the Gulf War has caused cancer in many children. This situation was worsened by the Iraqi government not taking all available measures to prevent the massive increase in child mortality. Dr.Ginan Ghalib Hassen, an Iraq paediatrician said, “I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. It is almost exactly the same here; we have an increased percentage of congenital malformation, an increase of malignancy, leukaemia, and brain tumours.”
During the Gulf War, more than 300 tons of depleted uranium was used in weapons against the country. On impact, they left a residue of radioactive dust. This dust, travelling where the wind blows, remains radioactive for 4,500 million years and as a result, there is now an epidemic of cancer throughout Iraq causing babies to be born without eyes, limbs, genitalia, and sometimes with their organs on the outside of their bodies.
Professor Doug Rokke was the army physicist responsible for cleaning up Kuwait. He now has 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in his body. He wonders why the United States and Britain decided to use a ‘weapon of mass destruction’, “What happened in the Gulf was a form of nuclear warfare,” he maintains.
As if the death of innocent civilians from cancer wasn’t enough, Britain and the US have also been bombing the country on and off since 1991 to protect the so called ‘no fly zones’. During 1999 alone the two countries dropped more than 1,800 bombs and hit 450 targets. Bombing happens almost every day, yet to read the mainstream media you wouldn’t know it was happening.
For 50-odd years, Iraq relied on its oil exports for national earnings. In 1990, its ability to export was cut off overnight and its oil facilities decimated by bombing. Although the country can now export oil, it can only spend the bulk of the revenues on humanitarian imports. “What this means” Dr Glen Rangwala from the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq said “is there things: Iraq can’t rebuild its country’s public services; it can’t rebuild its oil sector, so it earns less than a fifth of what it was earning in 1980 with double the population to provide for. The Iraqi people don’t have jobs that pay anything like adequate salaries, because the Government can’t use its oil revenues to pay its people - which means that people aren’t able to afford any of the necessities of life. They receive the bulk of their food in a government ration - the whole country has been run like a refugee camp for the past 12 years. Lastly, it also means that if we invade, the ration distribution system will probably collapse and we’ll see mass starvation.”
Bush and Blair say Saddam Hussein is still a threat to the world but Scott Ritter, for five years a senior weapons inspector in Iraq who meticulously checked out the countries chemical, biological and weapons infrastructure, said “If I had to quantify Iraq’s threat, I would say (it is) zero.”
It was the CIA who helped put Saddam in power and it was the West who helped keep him there. It was the US who sold materials that it knew could easily be used to make nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, even after the Iraqi government had slaughtered 6,000 Kurds in its chemical bombardment of Halabja in 1988. A year later John Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State, visited Baghdad and told Hussein “You are a force for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq.”
Saddam’s problem was not that he tortured and murdered thousands of his people, gassed and bombed the Kurds and made war with Iran, but that he invaded Kuwait and now refuses to toe the American line. As Rahul Mahajan, author and Green Party candidate for Governor of Texas points out, “The Bush administration wants a war…replacing Saddam with a U.S.-friendly dictator who will make deals with American companies and follow American dictates.”
On any given day, U.S. troops are in 140 countries around the world with permanent bases in more than half of those. This is the reality of the so called war on terror, a war that will never end, until every country bows to the might of the United States.
The source of this article is here.
During the Gulf War, more than 300 tons of depleted uranium was used in weapons against the country. On impact, they left a residue of radioactive dust. This dust, travelling where the wind blows, remains radioactive for 4,500 million years and as a result, there is now an epidemic of cancer throughout Iraq causing babies to be born without eyes, limbs, genitalia, and sometimes with their organs on the outside of their bodies.
Professor Doug Rokke was the army physicist responsible for cleaning up Kuwait. He now has 5,000 times the recommended level of radiation in his body. He wonders why the United States and Britain decided to use a ‘weapon of mass destruction’, “What happened in the Gulf was a form of nuclear warfare,” he maintains.
As if the death of innocent civilians from cancer wasn’t enough, Britain and the US have also been bombing the country on and off since 1991 to protect the so called ‘no fly zones’. During 1999 alone the two countries dropped more than 1,800 bombs and hit 450 targets. Bombing happens almost every day, yet to read the mainstream media you wouldn’t know it was happening.
For 50-odd years, Iraq relied on its oil exports for national earnings. In 1990, its ability to export was cut off overnight and its oil facilities decimated by bombing. Although the country can now export oil, it can only spend the bulk of the revenues on humanitarian imports. “What this means” Dr Glen Rangwala from the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq said “is there things: Iraq can’t rebuild its country’s public services; it can’t rebuild its oil sector, so it earns less than a fifth of what it was earning in 1980 with double the population to provide for. The Iraqi people don’t have jobs that pay anything like adequate salaries, because the Government can’t use its oil revenues to pay its people - which means that people aren’t able to afford any of the necessities of life. They receive the bulk of their food in a government ration - the whole country has been run like a refugee camp for the past 12 years. Lastly, it also means that if we invade, the ration distribution system will probably collapse and we’ll see mass starvation.”
Bush and Blair say Saddam Hussein is still a threat to the world but Scott Ritter, for five years a senior weapons inspector in Iraq who meticulously checked out the countries chemical, biological and weapons infrastructure, said “If I had to quantify Iraq’s threat, I would say (it is) zero.”
It was the CIA who helped put Saddam in power and it was the West who helped keep him there. It was the US who sold materials that it knew could easily be used to make nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, even after the Iraqi government had slaughtered 6,000 Kurds in its chemical bombardment of Halabja in 1988. A year later John Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State, visited Baghdad and told Hussein “You are a force for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq.”
Saddam’s problem was not that he tortured and murdered thousands of his people, gassed and bombed the Kurds and made war with Iran, but that he invaded Kuwait and now refuses to toe the American line. As Rahul Mahajan, author and Green Party candidate for Governor of Texas points out, “The Bush administration wants a war…replacing Saddam with a U.S.-friendly dictator who will make deals with American companies and follow American dictates.”
On any given day, U.S. troops are in 140 countries around the world with permanent bases in more than half of those. This is the reality of the so called war on terror, a war that will never end, until every country bows to the might of the United States.
The source of this article is here.
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Comments
Steelgate...you do realise that DU does not stay dangerously radioactive for 4.5billion years, as you have just claimed....
When i saw the title for the thread "Report on the situation in Iraq"..I said three things to myself.
1) It will contain a HUGE copy/paste.
I was right.
2) It will contain a link to a lefty website.
I was right.
3) I will feel, by the end of the article, like reporting you to the relevant DSS office for not actively seeking work.
I was right.
If you love Iraq so much, fuck off over there and stop sponging off of decent hard working people here.
Yeah, but they don't let those emotions get in the way of the job which must be done.
I don't think anyone here revel in the death of innocents, but as the report says sanction "contributed" to these deaths, but they weren't the cause. The cause is Saddam instringence which is why the sanctions are there in the first place.
You seem to have trouble identifying the root cause. Before you look at sanctions, look at why they are still there first.
The root cause is the western countries battle for complete control of the oil rich Middle East! It was America and other western countries who created Saddam Hussein in the first place when it was in their interests to have him in power! It was the American CIA who helped Saddam to power and it was America and other western countries who armed Iraq to the teeth during the Iran / Iraq war in the 1980s when they supplied Iraq with the equipment to produce chemical and biological weapons to use against the Iranian forces so that Iraq could beat Iran which was then in the wests' interests!
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk
D'oh you missed the root cause again.
Why was the bombing being carried out?
Surely not a reaction to Saddam....
The root cause of all war is capitalism, which cause competition between nations over the worlds resources! Only by achieveing socialism will we rid the world of the threat of war!
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk
Statement
Since the international community has pretty much discounted much of what is claimed by Iraqi exiles this report and the claims are nothing new. Still no evidence to back up all these claims though is there? *drum roll please* NO!
An interesting thing that Scott Ritter pointed out was that chemical and biological weapons can only reamin viable for a few years so even if Iraq did manage to keep some from 1998 those weapons are no longer of any use.
Israel is also the one country in the Middle East that we know for sure has nuclear weapons. America also has more weapons of mass destruction including nuclear war heads than any other country on earth.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk
Another thing he pointed out was that, as he hadn't set foot in Iraq for four years, he couldn't say for certain whether Iraq had developed more...
He added that he wasn't 'in the loop' anymore either.
Really?
Mustard gas stores from WWI were still viable at the end of WWII.
Sarin nerve gas manufactured by the Nazis during WWII was still viable when the Berlin Wall came down.