Articles, stories & eye-witness accounts from inside Iraq
Page 5
(March
2007 - December 2024 )
The
unbearable nightmare (Cathy
Breen, 26 Feb
2007) |
Strangers in our lands
after four years of American “liberation” (Salam
Ismael, 18 March 2024) |
Baghdad Segregation Walls: Protecting whom?
(Eman A. Khammas
30 April 2024) |
Terrorizing
a Nation into Homelessness: Who is Responsible?
(Eman A.
Khammas 05 May 2024) |
'50,000 Iraqi refugees'
forced into prostitution (24 June 2024) |
Freezing in Iraq
(Sami Rasouli, MPT, 26 Feb 2024) |
Food and water in Iraq
(Sami Rasouli, MPT, 27 Feb 2024) |
An assessment of the conditions in the Kurdish part of Iraq
(Kamal Majid 23 July 2024)
|
Iraq in the Times of Cholera…and Occupation
(Sabah Ali, 17 Oct 2024) |
Who Can Forgive the Crime of using Depleted Uranium Against
Iraq and Humanity
(Dr
Haithem Alshaibani, December 2024) |
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WEBLOGS:
Baghdad burning (Riverbend: Iraqi girl blogspot)
|
Dahr Jamail Iraq dispatches |
Blogspot by
Imad Khadduri |
Iraq
Diaries |
The woman I was |
A citizen of Mosul |
Where is Raed |
A family in Baghdad |
Baghdad Dweller |
Dr. Salam Ismael |
The unbearable nightmare
Amman,
Jordan
Monday,
February 26, 2024
Sometimes
people in the states have asked me how people in
Iraq, especially in
Baghdad, cope on a daily
basis with the ongoing carnage and relentless violence. I have the same
question. It is one that continuously plagues me. As a nurse, as
someone who lived in
Baghdad,
I have some familiarity with the hospital scene there. Not only
in the months
leading up to the U.S.-led invasion, but also during the bombing of
Baghdad and later under the occupation, I was able to visit
hospitals in
Iraq on
an ongoing
basis. Because the situation has so drastically deteriorated over the
last years, it has become increasingly difficult to get information and
a sense of the situation within
Iraq.
In recent
days I was able to meet with doctors on two separate occasions, doctors
who are still in
Iraq.
Although their accounts defy description, I want to try and communicate
some of what they related. Unfortunately, so as not to jeopardize these
courageous men, their families or their ongoing work in
Iraq, I
feel very restricted in what I can share. We do not want to identify
them and put them at even
greater risk.
Because of
death threats, kidnappings and assassinations, most of the senior
doctors have fled
Iraq. In one of the general hospitals
in
Baghdad, a hospital known to me, only 8 surgeons
remain from the 28 previously working there. These hospitals were
once
major teaching facilities. Now teaching is no longer possible due to
lack of doctors, medicines and supplies. No longer do “daily clinical
rounds” take place on units. The public hospitals have been turned into
large emergency wards. Out of necessity and pure volume, the victims
of explosions and car bombs have taken over as it were. They take
preference over patients needing “routine” procedures such as operations
for tumors or interventions for gastro-intestinal, cardiac or
neurological needs, medical services we take for granted. Imagine this.
No insulin is available in
Baghdad. It is called
health care
of extremity.
Wounded
victims from the car bombs and explosions are rolled one after another
into the operating rooms their clothes blackened, their bodies mangled
and missing limbs. The horrific state of the operating rooms themselves
are one of the major causes of death.
Two-thirds of
the wounded die in the first few days from infection. Many die because
blood infusions are unavailable. The major blood bank in the west of
the city is unreachable.
One doctor
described how his own little son, suffering from diarrhea and vomiting,
desperately needed to go to a hospital for rehydration. It was at night
however during curfew when no one is allowed to move through the streets.
This includes ambulances. “We have to teach people how to behave in
emergency situations like this” he said, “when people have no access to
medical care.”
Tragically
university professors and students have been similarly targeted.
Lecture halls that previously held 200 students have been reduced to a
mere 28 students in attendance. Some teachers in retirement have
returned to the universities in an attempt to fill this gap. We must
call it what it has now become: education of extremity. This is
especially painful to Iraqis who value education for their children so
highly.
The other
night I was in the home of an Iraqi refugee family. Their son had just
lost a scholarship to a university in the
U.K.
because he does not have the new “G” passport, a passport obtainable
only in
Baghdad. They had spoken
that day with a relative
from
Baghdad whose son attends a
university there. Armed men had stormed the university and opened fire
on the students. Four were killed. The mother said
she could no
longer allow her son to attend classes.
Yesterday a
suicide bomb went off at a
Baghdad
University killing at least 40 students.
How can we
respond to such devastation? Devastation that we have caused. The
needs seem overwhelming; indeed they are. We must begin somewhere to
repair the damage we have created.
Perhaps one
way would be to find scholarships in the
U.S. for
Iraqi students. At high school, undergraduate and master’s levels. You
could help them obtain
student visas and welcome them into your
homes and communities. Small as such an endeavor might seem, it would
be a first step we could take so that the light in these young peoples
eyes is not extinguished all together. We can direct you to students,
to young people we have come to know and treasure as if they were our
own children. The time for wishful thinking is over. We are living in
times of extremity, and it is time for us to take responsibility for our
actions.
Strangers in our lands after four years
of American “liberation”
By Dr
Salam Ismael (18 March 2024)
“What shall
I do, where shall I go?” my neighbour Um Ahmed asked me over and over again when
I was back in Baghdad a few weeks ago. Um Ahmed, 45, recently became a widow
after her husband was killed by militia in her shop.
Four years
on and the taste of liberation and freedom remain bitter. When I think back to
all we have passed though in these four long dark years I force myself to laugh
in order to stop the tears. We Iraqis, hundreds of thousands of us are now
displaced; we are like foreigners in our own country.
I remember
how we used to gather at the table to eat our evening meal that consisted of
anything that was available and we would listen to Um Ahmed’s stories. Like so
many other Iraqis, I lived under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and as a
doctor I earned a salary of $1 a month. Even so, I look back and remember the
cooked aubergine, and the laughter and jokes over dinner. I remember that we
would eat the black bread that my mother used to cook in the oven of our home.
Often we were forced to drink poor quality tea and could only buy new clothing —
a shirt, a pair of trousers or a skirt for the women — every two or three years
as money was tight. Still I remember these times for the laughter, though we
were feeling lost without hope, trying to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Even then there was a deep joy and happiness, knowing that all of us were
together and content in being together.
Today, four
years on and we have cellular phones, even if we are unable to buy credit to
make a phone call to family or friends. We are able to drink Pepsi and we are
all eating white bread now, some of us are lucky enough to be driving a Korean
car and others even have passports. But we have lost the laughter and we are
missing the feeling of all of our families being together in one place. Our
smiles have vanished.
Four years
into our liberation and getting one’s hands on a satellite phone or passport is
like striking gold. A passport in today’s Iraq is one of the most precious
things that anyone can have. There is a booming trade in the black market, with
Iraqi’s desperate to get out of Baghdad and across the broken country. The UN
estimates that more than 50,000 Iraqis are leaving the country every month. To
get the new digitalised and shiny “G series” Iraqi passport you have to pay an
average of $500. When you have the new passport it feels like you have the key
to heaven — you have a chance to be born again, a chance to maybe stay alive and
get away from a country that is bleeding and traumatised.
Every day
tens of private cars and buses make the long and uncertain journey out of Iraq,
trying to reach the borders of Syria or Jordan; an attempt to wave goodbye to
the death and misery inside Iraq. The other precious wonder in Iraq is the
satellite phone which has became very popular as it’s the cheapest way to
contact family members. This phone is like an extended family member and without
it there is no hope of staying in contact or even knowing where anyone is.
What is
happening in Iraq now is very difficult to describe. More than 2 million Iraqis
have left the country entirely with almost 600,000 other displaced; forced to
leave their homes and move to areas considered safer for them and their
families. Those that have the financial means have left or are trying to get to
Syria or Jordan or even Egypt. The question that everyone is asking is what will
happen next? Most answers are too painful to think about, and sometimes the
questions are too painful to ask. Militias, gangs, gunmen are now control of
daily life in Iraq. You can wake up at morning and you will find a paper in
front of your house threatening you and demanding that you leave the country,
evacuate the house; often it is impossible to know why you or a loved one has
been targeted. Many times this happens when there is ethnic tension, so the Shia
are forced to leave the Sunni areas and the Sunnis are forced to leave the Shia
areas. When you are singled out and told to leave you have no option but to
leave, often with no time to even pack your belongings and no idea where you are
going.
Many Iraqis
flee to Jordan and try and find some accommodation and way to have enough money
to cover the basics. The price of everything has gone through the roof. Some
Iraqis keep on moving and end up being refugees in countries far, far away. But
now the Jordanian government has started to restrict entry for Iraqis and many
are finding that their lives are becoming more difficult inside Jordan itself.
Now at the Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing there is a notice that says that
Iraqi men aged between 18-35 are banned from entering Jordan.
Syria
resembles hope and a ring of safety for many Iraqis, but even that ring is
starting to strangle Iraqis day by day. Everyday it seems that the obstacles
ahead of Iraqis finding a safe place to live are mounting.
Dr Omer is
a cardiovascular specialist. He left his job and is now working in a primary
health clinic. “What shall I do?” he asks, “I’ve been threatened by armed
militias inside the hospital, and already three surgeons have been killed and
now there are only three of us left and I can’t be the next target as I have a
child to raise.” Later he adds: “I am not happy with what I doing; it’s like
asking the officer to work as solider. I am doing the same thing. I was a
specialist doctor, now I am working as a junior doctor because they will not
employ me here in Syria.”
Hussein is
a graduate of a school of engineering and he is now working as a waiter in a
restaurant. “I used to have the ambition to become a lecturer in my school but
now I can’t as my brother has been killed by gunmen and we have been threatened
and told to leave the area as we are Shia. I do not want to stay here, I cannot.
I am trying to find a way of smuggling myself to Europe and seeking asylum.” I
asked him about how he would return to Iraq. “If we had the same Iraq that we
had four years ago I would be the first one to return. Who accepts indignity?
Who accepts to be stranger in another country? At least four years ago we were
safe, and I had a house.” At that moment I could see that Hussein wanted to
break down, just as I did.
Who accepts
to be without a country? Who accepts to be without identity? Who accepts to be
without history? Of course, those who live in the Green Zone are living in a
different world, with their different coloured
passports. They have 24 hours of
electricity and can fill their cars with benzene. They do not need to queue.
Um Ahmed
starts crying again as she describes to me how she tried to find a safe place
for her two boys. She was forced by Jordanian authorities to return to Iraq and
in Syria discovered that Iraqis are only allowed to stay for 15 days. She
finishes her conversation with me swearing by God, “Wallahi, I do not want any
thing. I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid for those two orphans. Who will
be with them? They have no guilt. I want them to have a future.”
I felt like
my soul had broken into pieces when I heard her say this. We no longer have a
country; we have become strangers in our own land.
Baghdad Segregation Walls: Protecting whom?
Eman Ahmed Khammas
(Former
co-director of Occupation Watch - Iraqi
Writer - 30 April 2024)
According to
the American occupation authorities, the new -3.5 meter high, 5 kilometers long
- wall which is being built around Adamiya neighborhood (north of Baghdad), is
to protect Sunni from Shiite militias' attacks. But no one is really buying this
lie, including the American troops on the ground, who say that it is built for
better control of the insurgency, as a part of the latest security crackdown.
It is also
difficult to imagine how this wall would protect the civilians, as it would not
prevent the rockets and mortars attacking the area almost everyday. Actually,
queuing at the wall's few entrances for hours would expose them to more dangers
of bombing and random shooting. It sounds strange too, that the American troops
would worry about protecting Adamiya as it is one of the strongest holds of the
resistance, according to the Americans again.
The strategy
is simply to divide Baghdad in many smaller and easily controlled areas, under
sectarian segregation names, to eliminate the resistance. Similar walls were
built before, in Ghazaliya, west of Baghdad, few months ago, and on the airport
highway two years ago (when it was called the death highway). There are at least
other 10 new similar walls to be erected soon in different parts of Baghdad,
according to the military spokesman of the Iraqi government. (other sources say
30).
Barriers of
big concrete blocks, dividing areas, streets, and surrounding facilities were
everywhere in Baghdad in the last 4 years, deforming the face of the city,
making transport almost impossible and exposing civilians' lives to dangers.
But this is
different.
Adhamiya is a
significant area, historically, culturally, politically, and geographically
speaking. It is the oldest center of the city which generated many important
patriotic names in the modern history of Iraq. Ghettoizing walls would turn it
in a prison, where citizens would be exposed to biometric technology,
identification badges, and scanner searching every time they want to enter or go
out of the neighbourhood.
Similar
procedures are used in different parts of Iraq. Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul, Tal
Afar, Haditha, Al Qaim…among many other areas. They failed. The Baghdad latest
crackdown, which is the third big joint military operation of its sort, did not
stop or even reduce the tens of unidentified and mutilated corpses to be found
every morning in the streets, or the rockets and mortars to hit different parts
of it.
This strategy
of walled-up security pockets, under sectarian pretexts, turns Baghdad into big
prisons, discriminating and isolating the communities, reinforcing the sectarian
divisions, and increasing violence. It is not just another military idea to
decrease the number of coffins going back to the U.S. A quick review of the
occupation political decisions in Iraq in the past 4 years would easily reveal
the true aim of sowing dissension among the Iraqis.
"We are
forced to live isolated in a limited area" a woman from Adamiya said.
PS. Troops of
the Iraqi "National Guards" raided Numan hospital, the biggest and only hospital
in Adamiya until further notice. The troops ordered, all the doctors, nurses,
technicians, all employees and all patients to leave immediately, and threatened
to shoot them on the spot if they do not.
The Troops,
then, locked the hospital gates with iron chains.
On the other
hand, Adamiya is, practically under 24 hour curfew especially after the NGs
arrested at least 40 citizens near the hospital earlier. The Adamiya Bridge is
closed (the only bridge left to reach the area, after the Sarrafiya Bridge was
blown up two weeks ago). All the commercial shops, markets and schools are
closed.
Numan hospital
is one of the biggest in Baghdad, serving hundreds of thousands of civilians in
the northern area, especially in the last 2 years when movement in Baghdad
became difficult and dangerous, and after armed militias controlled the
hospitals and turned them to traps for kidnapping and killing the people.
Terrorizing a Nation into Homelessness:
Who is Responsible?
Eman A. Khammas, Iraqi writer &
journalist - 05 May 2024.
Last January, the municipality of
Baghdad published a short advertisement calling tenders to bid on burying the
tens of "unidentified" bodies found in the streets of the capital every morning
for almost a year now. Few months before, the Iraqi ministry of Health proudly
declared that it imported two big refrigerators with a capacity of 2 hundred
bodies each, to keep those "unidentified" bodies. At the same time a new very
big "state" graveyard was created to bury the bodies, after giving them numbers
and taking their pictures , just in case one day a family would be lucky enough
to identify a son, a husband, or a father…
This is why millions of Iraqis are
leaving home. Every morning, a long queue of black-shrouded women, of all ages,
wait for hours at the gate of the Baghdad morgue, asking for the body of a loved
one who disappeared, kidnapped, or arrested few days ago…Men do not look for the
dead in the morgue, because there are always some armed men hiding around the
corner hunting those bereaved fathers and brothers. By passers in streets
everyday do not dare to approach dead bodies scattered here and there, somebody
might be watching and would shoot them.
These are just few examples of the new
Iraqi scene, which bypassed any imaginable limit of the absurd and the
surrealist. Not to mention anything about the bombings, the car bombs, the
random shooting, the kidnapping, the indiscriminate and collective arrests, the
horrible stories of torture in prisons…(PM Maliki said in Sharm Al-Sheikh that
the security is progressing and the security plan is going well).
The daily life conditions are simply
impossible in Iraq now, but this is not why the Iraqis are leaving their
country, they do not have this luxury…they are fleeing for survival, for being,
they are well aware of the refugees conditions inside or outside Iraq.
UNCHR says that 4 million Iraqis are
homeless now; other refugee organizations say that the number is the double. But
how big the number is, does not matter, really. The fact is that the so called
international community recognizes now, four years after the US-led occupation
of Iraq, that there is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, although the crisis began
4 years ago, or to be more accurate 17 years ago, when Iraq was devastated, put
under the most outrageous international sanctions that killed and uprooted 5
million Iraqis. In the last 4 years hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed
(again the numbers are not the issue here, whether they are 600.000 or 800.000,
according to the latest estimation last year). What is this called if not a
genocide?
UNCHR held an international meeting in
Geneva late last month, calling upon the world nations, states and organizations
to help the starving, homeless Iraqis, begging for donations to aid one of the
richest countries in the world, and to open the doors of safety for the fleeing
nations from the hell of violence.
Lately, many other prestigious
international organizations sent out similar warnings of an impending tragedy in
the Middle East: the Intel Red Cross, the Human Rights Watch, and the Amnesty
International. Good, it is important to raise the awareness of the world to this
crisis, and to urge the peoples to help the Iraqis. But it is really striking
how NONE of these prestigious organizations, including UNCHR, actually named the
real perpetrator of these crimes. None of them called the original crime in its
name, or the original criminal in the proper name: the occupation and the US
administration.
This is extremely important. Not only
because the US is legally and logically responsible for the suffering and the
humiliation of the homeless Iraqis, and there for should pay every cent to
guarantee a dignified life for every one of the Iraqis. And please do not
misunderstand me. I am NOT calling upon the Americans to send financial aid to
the Iraqi refugees. NO, NO. I am just stating a fact, and the fact is the
pentagon spends $8 Billion (8000.000000) a month on the military operations in
Iraq, but the US donate 18 million to the relief program ALL OVER the WORLD, if
they do at all.
But it is more important to hold the
American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq responsible of all the suffering,
the destruction and the genocide, because this is the only correct first step to
solve the Iraqi refugees, and other, problems. But unfortunately, no one was
"undiplomatic" enough to call the criminal a criminal in his face, to say the
least.
In fact, the high commissioner of the
UNCHR referred to "complexity of the situation" in Iraq, the "sectarian
violence", the "relevant parties"! without mentioning who they are, and actually
praised the Iraqi government willingness to address the needs of the displaced
and to support the efforts of the hosting countries!!. But please, Sir, the
Iraqi government IS responsible for the safety and well being of all the Iraqi
people INSIDE their country, not only the homeless, but all the people,
otherwise, if it is incapable or unwilling to do that, it should go away,
simply.
Amnesty International, on the other
hand, called upon the Iraqi government, the "multinational forces", and the
other governments and leaders in the region to "redouble their efforts" to find
a political solution!! NO, please, what they have already done is more than
enough.
Well, these organizations are talking
from a "humanitarian" point of view, not political. But the humanitarian face of
the Iraqi problem, a catastrophe in itself, is a reflection of a bigger and more
dangerous problem: the criminal occupation. Some Iraqi refugees left the country
because they were terrorized by the sectarian militias, that is true, but who is
behind these militias. How many people outside Iraq have heard the name of
Shiite or Sunnis before the American invasion? Who allowed them and included
them in the new Iraqi security forces? Who maintains them? It is the Occupation.
So the Iraqi refugees become a burden
on the others! My God, these are the best of the Iraqi minds. It would be very
useful if the UNCHR tell the world how many of them have a higher degree in
sciences, how many of them are university professors, medical doctors,
engineers, lawyers, officers, teachers, linguists, intellectuals, journalists,
artists…these refugees build Iraq, why would they need a third country to host
them. Is not it in the interest of the occupiers that they should be far away
from Iraq?
Eman Ahmed Khammas
is a former co-director of Occupation Watch, Iraqi writer, journalist and
translator. She's a member of the BRussells
Tribunal Advisory Committee and currently living in exile.
'50,000 Iraqi refugees' forced into prostitution
elpt
Women and girls, many
alarmingly young, who fled the chaos at home are being further betrayed after
reaching 'safety' in Syria
By Nihal Hassan in
Damascus (24 June 2024)
It's Monday night in a dingy club on the outskirts of the Syrian capital.
Two dozen girls are moving half-heartedly on the dance floor, lit up by
flashing disco lights.
They are dessed in tight jeans, low-cut tops and knee-high boots, but the
girls' make-up can't disguise the fact that most are in their mid-teens.
It's a strange sight in a conservative Muslim country, but this is the sex
business, and it's booming as a result of the war in Iraq.
Backstage, the manager sits in his leather chair, doing business. A Saudi
client is quoted $500 for one of the girls. Eventually he beats it down to
$300. Next door, in a dimly lit room, the next shift of girls arrives,
taking off the black all-covering abayasthey wear outside and putting on
lipstick and mascara.
To judge from the cars parked outside, the clients come from all over the
Gulf region - many are young Saudi men escaping from an even more
conservative moral climate. But the Syrian friend who has brought me here
tells me that 95 per cent of the girls are Iraqi.
Most are unwilling to talk, but Zahra, an attractive girl with a bare
midriff and tattoos, tells me she's 16. She has been working in this club
since fleeing to Syria from Baghdad after the war. She doesn't like it, she
says, "but what can we do? I hope things get better in Iraq, because I miss
it. I want to go back, but I have to look after my sister". Zahra points to
a thin, pubescent girl with long black hair, who seems to be dancing quite
happily. Aged 13, Nadia started in the club two months ago.
As the girls dance suggestively, allowing their breasts to brush against
each other, one winks at a customer. But these girls are not just providing
the floor show - they have paid to be here, and they need to pick up a
client, or they'll lose money. If successful, they'll earn about $60,
equivalent to a month's wages in a factory.
There are more than a million Iraqi refugees in Syria, many are women
whose husbands or fathers have been killed. Banned from working legally,
they have few options outside the sex trade. No one knows how many end up as
prostitutes, but Hana Ibrahim, founder of the Iraqi women's group Women's
Will, puts the figure at 50,000.
I met Fatima in a block of flats operating informally as a brothel in
Saida Zainab, a run-down area with a large Iraqi population. Millions of
Shias go there every year, because of the shrine of the prophet Mohamed's
granddaughter. "I came to Syria after my husband was killed, leaving me with
two children," Fatima tells me. "My aunt asked me to join her here, and my
brothers pressured me to go." She didn't realise the work her aunt did, and
she would be forced to take up, until she arrived.
Fatima is in her mid-20s, but campaigners say the number of Iraqi
children working as prostitutes is high. Bassam al-Kadi of Syrian Women
Observatory says: "Some have been sexually abused in Iraq, but others are
being prostituted by fathers and uncles who bring them here under the
pretext of protecting them. They are virgins, and they are brought here like
an investment and exploited in a very ugly way."
Further viewing: Nihal Hassan and Nima Elbagir's report will appear on
'More4 News' at 8pm tomorrow
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2701324.ece
An assessment of the conditions in the Kurdish part of Iraq
Kamal Majid,
Emeritus Professor, University of Cardiff, UK
23rd. July
2008.
Synopsis
When
dealing with Northern
Iraq, the western media often impress the public opinion in two
ways: First, they stress that the Kurds are different from the rest of
Iraqis and indeed have suffered from the successive central governments in Baghdad. Second, they
claim that since 1991, when the north eastern part effectively separated
itself from the rest of the country, the Kurdish people there have had a
wonderful and peaceful life. This paper refutes both these claims.
Historical Background
The
July Revolution of 1958 brought the pro western monarchy to an end. Iraq withdrew
from the Baghdad pact
(CENTO), thereby closing down the British military bases in Habania and
Shueba. The newly established Kassem government invited Mustafa Barzani and
his followers to return home from the Soviet Union, where they had fled after the
failure of their 1946 rebellion against the Nuri Saeed government. The
jubilant people of Iraq,
both Arabs and Kurds, welcomed them back and the new government allocated
Nuri Saeed’s house, in the present Green Zone, to Barzani’s family and gave
him a cabinet minister’s salary. All his followers were given good jobs in
various government departments, in a process in which I was directly
involved. Several Kurdish ministers were also included in Kassem’s Cabinet.
In return Barzani sent his tribal fighters to help Kassem to crush the March
the 9th1959 Shawaf rebellion in Mosul.
Naturally NATO disapproved the idea of a united independent Iraq.
According to Jalal Talabani, now the president of the pro American regime,
The Shah of Iran, a zealous Supporter of the west, appointed General Warham
to isolate and topple Kassem, using Barzani and his tribe. (See the
Interview with Jalal Talabni, Al-Wasat Arabic Journal, London, no. 357 and
358, 1998.)
Once Kassem was killed in the 1963
coup, organised jointly by the Baath party and the Kurdish Democratic Party
(KDP), then jointly led by both Barzani and Talabani, Israel and the west
decided to use the Kurdish party to continuously destabilise the successive
Iraqi governments. According to Henry Kissinger, (See Years of Renewal,
Phoenix Press, London,
1999, pages 584 to 592) between 1972 and 1975 alone the US government
spent some $23M on the anti-Iraqi Barzani rebellion while Israel supplied
weapons worth $28M. During the same years, theUS Senator
Otis Pike stated that 35000 Kurds were killed and some 200 000 of them ended
as refugees.( See the Guardian on 20/10/2020)
In 1964, in a power struggle,
Talabani and a number of the leaders of KDP went against Barzani and his
tribal followers. This initiated a bloody war between the two factions in
which tens of thousands of Kurds have been killed. This war ended in
September 1998, i.e. 34 years later, but both factions still keep their
separate armies as explained below.
In 1966 Talabani and his fighters
entered into an alliance with Baghdad government
to fight Barzani’s faction. This continued even after the Baath Party
returned to power in 1968; but on March the 11th. 1970 the
government succeeded in signing a peace agreement with Barzani and four
Kurdish followers of his took cabinet posts inBaghdad. However, the
Iraqi government nationalised the oil industry, recognised the East German
government and signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet
Union. As a result in 1972, Richard Helms, the
director of the C.I.A., invited Idrees Barzani and Dr. Mahmood Othman to Washington and
agreed with them to start a new war againstBaghdad. This is the war
mentioned above in which the US government,
as Kissinger explained, helped the KDP generously. (See Mahmood Othman’s
Statement in Kufa Gallery, London, 1996.)
During the Iran- Iraq war both
Barzan’s KDP and Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) joined Iranagainst Iraq.
In fact the chemical attack on Halabja came immediately after the forces of
Shawkat Haji Musheer, a member of the central committee of PUK, attacked the
town from Iran and
occupied it. There are also several witnesses and other material evidences
proving that the PUK forces pillaged the town after the chemical attack.
After the war in Kuwait, in which
both Barzani’s KDP and Talabani’s PUK sided with the west, Baghdad lost
total control of the best part of the Kurdish north east and a provincial
government was formed there with Arbil as its administrative centre. An
election was held in May 1992 but within three days Massud Barzani, the now
leader of KDP, issued a statement, on 22/5/2020, in which he admitted to wholesale election fraud.
Disregarding the results, he decided to agree with Talabani to form a joint
parliament and government. Both parties were represented equally, with
non-elected members appointed by each leader taking 50% of the seats and the
portfolios.
Within less than four months the
newly formed Arbil administration agreed with the Turkish government to
attack the Kurds of Turkey. On 7/10/2020, Pam O’Toole reported in the Guardian that KDP
forces have joined the Turkish government army in order to fight the Turkish
PKK elements who have taken refuge in the Iraqi mountains.
The worst news, however, came when
on May the 1st. 1994 the Peshmargas belonging to KDP and PUK
clashed. The war between these forces continued until September 1998 and
became particularly fierce after August the 31st, 1996 when
Saddam Hussein’s army occupied Arbil in order to expel Talabani and his PUK
forces and hand the city to Massud Barzani and his KDP. The two parties
succeeded in killing more than ten thousand Kurds. The scale of the
atrocities was recorded by Amnesty International in its report no.
MDE14/WU01/94 on 1l/6/1994 which stressed that both parties not only killed
Kurdish prisoners but tortured them and mutilated their dead bodies. The
Bush administration should at least feel embarrassed for being allied to
such people as Barzani and Talabani.
The Arbil administration
( a ) – The Economy:
Before and during the Kuwait war
President George Bush Senior made several statements inciting the Iraqis
against the central government. When the people rose, on the 2nd.of
March, 1991 the supporters of both the Kurdish parties managed to expel the
Iraqi forces out of northeast Iraq and
temporarily captured the oil city of Kirkuk. This was followed
by a prolonged lawlessness in which government as well as private property
was pillaged. As late as 13th of
September 1992 Chris Hedgers reported from Arbil, in the International
Herald Tribune, page 6, explaining that
‘’
the Kurdish Government’’ is lumbered with chaos and has lost control of the
countryside. There the local peshmargas are acting independently,
‘’confiscating vehicles and machinery in order to sell them in Iran.’’
As an example he said that ‘’out of 700 vehicles belonging to Arbil
municipality’’ before the takeover of the city ‘’only 92 are left and most
of these are out of action.’’ He pointed out that the police force in the
city had lost two third of its members and ‘’out of 345 vehicles it is left
with only 18.’’ The decline of the living condition of the Kurdish people
may have started from these events.
The UK/US forces never bombed the
power stations in the Kurdish part of the country. The fact that the people
now have very little electricity is because thieves took vital parts of
turbines and hydro electric generators as well as miles of copper cables and
sold them in Iran.
The remaining generating equipments in both Dookan and Darbandykhan dams as
well as the numerous substations have been out of service for nearly two
decades and are obsolete. To rectify the electricity grids in that part of
the country is going to take years and many millions of dollars.
The
water supply pipes and pumps are old and rusted to the extent that the
primitive sewerage system, if available, often contaminates the drinking
water. In many cities and towns drinking water is brought in tankers. Other
infrastructures are precarious and often don’t exist. This is especially the
case in the villages.
Smuggling became the main source
of income for the administration. Throughout the 13 years of Sanction Massud
Barzani was collecting more than a million dollars a day by allowing
hundreds of Turkish Lorries to pass throughIbraheem Khalil Bridge to
deliver all sorts of goods to Baghdad. This daily
illegal business was being conducted with full knowledge of the UN and the
US/UK forces controlling the area.
An equally profitable smuggling
was that of cigarettes. From the city of Dahok, on 18/8/2020, Chris Hedgers reported in the New York Times and
the Guardian that the Kurdish safe heaven has become ‘’a major black market for smuggling’’ duty free American
cigarettes, such as Kent, Marlborough and
Victory ‘’worth millions of dollars.’’ Dahok, then and still is under the
control of Massud Barzan, is the distribution centre for all sorts of other
goods to Iran, Turkey, Syria and the Arabic parts of Iraq.
After the occupation of Iraq, in 2024,
extensive looting took place in the cities of Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, Tikrit, and Baquba
and many other towns. Thieves emptied banks, Government offices and military
barracks. Special gangs of Kurds associated to both KDP and PUK drove away
thousands of military vehicles municipal buses and private cars. A new,
extra rich class of people suddenly dominated the Kurdish community. Their
past experience, during the Kuwait war,
and permanent links to their counterparts in Iran and Turkey, helped
them to establish routes of smuggling throughout the Middle
East with links to ex-
Soviet republics in central Asia. This highly profitable activity was
conveniently extended to smuggling of tens of thousands of Kurdish and other
economic refugees to Europe. With the help of the Kurdish film
maker, Karzan Krekar, the BBC produced a graphic documentary on the subject.
After Iraq’s occupation
in 2024, apart from the United Nations handouts in accordance with the ‘’Oil
for food’’ programme, both Massud and Jalal’s parties became wealthy
recipients of Iraq’s
oil money transferred to them in cash by Paul Bremer. On 10/12/ 2024 the
Financial Times (FT.com) reported that the KDP received $1.4 Billion,
(Notice Billion not Million) which is being invested for Barzani in
international banks by a company established by Ed Rogers and other
associates of President George Bush. Further enquiry, through DR. Mahmood
Othman, who is a Kurdish MP in Baghdad, revealed that
President Talabani had received an equivalent amount.
The Kurdish administration,
virtually independent since 1992, has never produced a budget. In spite of
the unification of the two administrations of Arbil and Sulaimania there are
still two finance ministers, one for each party. Neither has imposed any tax
on the people they administer. Apart from smuggling they receive whatever
Barzani and Talabani give them. The 17% oil money, annually received from Baghdad, goes directly to
the two ruling parties.
To reduce unemployment, the majority of the government officials occupy
artificially created posts. There are also 18000 members of PUK alone who
earn their living as party officials. It is claimed that the police force
has some 400 thousand members; this is for a population of only five
million.
Wages in the private sector are
extremely low and this is the main reason for the Kurdish youth to leave the
country with the hope of settling in one of the European countries. The
number of Kurdish men who have left for Europeis claimed to have reduced the ratio of
men to women by 9%. On the other hand workers from Bangladesh, the Far
East as well as some
30000 Arabs from the troubled south of Iraq carry
out menial tasks and engage in begging.
The Kurdish part of Iraq was
famous for tobacco farming, producing some 15 000 tons a year; with the
government in Baghdad being
the farmer’s only customer. Because of cheap smuggled American cigarette the
tobacco farming has stopped. So have the cigarette factories in Sulaimania
and Arbil.
There were also Sugar producing
factories which used beetroot grown locally. Because most farming has
stopped, these factories were also dismantled and sold in Iran,
together with one or two other textile factories. The garment tailoring
factory went on producing cloths until the PUK recently sold it to property
developers who intend to build a luxury housing estate. There are still two
cement factories which were built long ago by Baghdad government. The
one in Sarchenar has been confiscated by Nokan, which is a PUK owned
company. The other, in Taslooja now belongs to Talabani's wife Hero, and her
agent, Farouk Mala Mustafa. The latter also owns the Mobile telephone system
and a number of luxury hotels.
Until recently corruption was rife
in the construction industry, especially at the tendering stage, when
contracts were first offered to the relatives of the party leaders or
influential members of the ruling parties. Each contract was then
successively sold to other favoured bidders down the hierarchy. Most such
contracts, however, have come to standstill because of the devaluation of
the dollar and huge rises in material prices.
Because of the collapse of
agriculture many villagers have moved to the main cities of Arbil,
Sulaimania and Dahok. Food, including perishables, is imported from Iran, Syria, Turkey and
the United States and
sold at extortionate prices.
Lack of rain and the diversion of Sirwan River by Iran have
reduced the water level in Darbandikhan reservoir. Because of sewage
disposal, the water in this reservoir is claimed to have turned dark and
undrinkable. Lack of water in the rivers has also reduced farming
drastically which in turn has forced the villagers to move to the cities.
Local farmers were also bankrupted because the people were receiving free UN
handouts in accordance with the ‘’Oil for food’’ agreement.
Kirkuk is
the main oil producing city in the north but there is an unpleasant
disagreement among the Kurds, the Turkmen and the Arabs. There are also huge
gas fields in the Kurdish areas of Taq taq, Chamchamal and Laylan. For
topological reasons gas pipelines, like the existing oil pipes, have to be
constructed through the Arabic planes west of the Tigris River before
interring Turkey.
This fact is likely to be a major factor for friction between the Arabs and the
Kurds on the one hand and also between the Kurdish administration and Turkey.
At the moment the two ruling
parties smuggle some forty tanker loads (about 10 000 b/d) of crude oil a
day through Iran to
the Gulf. In a statement Abdul Hadi Al Hassani, deputy chairperson of the
Oil and Gas committee in the Baghdad parliament,
pointed out that the Norwegian oil company DNO sells the oil to the black
market at $35 a barrel at a time when the market price is more than $140 a
barrel.
The Kurdish administration has
signed a number of contracts with international oil companies. However,Baghdad’s
oil minister, Dr. Hussain Shahristani, in the BBC News, Hard talk programme,
on 18/6/2008, declared them as ‘’illegal’’. This dispute of who is entitled
to sign oil contracts is a major obstacle, preventing the ratification of the
new oil legislation by the Green Zone parliament and could become the
catalyst for a prolonged disagreement between the Arab and the Kurdish
members of the fragile Baghdad government.
The gap between the rich and the
poor is widened and created acute social problems including prostitution.
This latter activity is the source of widespread ‘’ honour killing.’’ The
main social change in the cities, however, is the domination of village
mentality, which has suffocated the intellectual life and given rise to a
flood of religious fervour. Cities come to a near standstill at prayer times
when masses of worshipers walk to the mosques for prayer.
(b)
– Politics:-
Massud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal
Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were never
elected by the Kurdish people for any position or post whatsoever. The
leadership of KDP is hereditary. When Mustafa Barzani died his son Idrees
automatically became the leader of the party. When he died his brother,
Massud, took the leadership. On the other hand Jalal was elected as the PUK
leader by a handful of people when the party was formed in 1975. He still
holds the same post.
Since 1991 three elections have
taken place in the area under their control, one for the Baghdad parliament
and two for Arbil’s. Neither men were nominated for membership but they
selected all the representatives of their respective parties to these
assemblies. What is worse is that they have the right to sack any
disobedient member before his term is over.
On 21/9/2020 Jalal Talabani,
referring to the then defunct Arbil parliament, stated, in London, Al Hayat
newspaper: ‘’ The parliament was established on the bases that each party
has half the seats; the election did not take place on constituency bases,
people voted for the parties, not for named candidates and each party has
the right to replace its members by others.’’
Dr. Mahmood Othman, himself a
member of Baghdad parliament,
went further. He stressed to me that during the election the two Kurdish
parties themselves supervised the ballot boxes. ‘’ Well they packed the
boxes with their own ballot papers.’’ He said.
The members, in Arbil parliament,
rubberstamp the leader’s decisions only. So much so the Kurdish newspaper,
Hawlati, reported, on 16/6/2020, a statement by Susan Shahab, herself a PUK member
of the parliament, suggesting that ‘’ Parliament should be cancelled
altogether because it is defunct.’’
The animosity between the two
ruling parties has not been resolved. This is why Arbil administration has
two separate ministers for Peshmarga, one for each party. The commanders of
each peshmarga receive their orders from their party leader, not from the
head of the administration. There are also two separate ministers for home
affairs, again one for each party. Because of this duality Mr. Hamai Haji
Mahmood, himself a member of Arbil government and parliament, stated in
Hawlati, on 11/7/2020, that:
‘’
There isn’t a real and unified government ‘’ ruling the Kurds in Arbil.
Skirmishes still take place
between the two parties. On 29/6/2020 Hawlati,
no. 434, reported the disappearance, on13/5/2020, of the PUK member Kareem Ahmed and three of his
sons because they were suspected of secretly working for KDP. Up till now
nobody knows their whereabouts.
The two parties have lost the
support of the people. This was amply demonstrated when the people of
Halabja not only attacked the PUK forces in March 2024 but burnt down the
monument and the museum Talabani had erected to commemorate the chemical
attack on the town in 1986. Indeed, lack of jobs, water, electricity and
petrol have all caused discontent among the masses and several anti
government demonstrations have taken place in Sulaimania,Kirkuk, Kalar and Akra
where Kurdish police have attacked and killed at least six demonstrators.
Yet apart from the revival of Islamic trends and the growth of the Islamic
League no serious secular political group has been identified.
The most alarming development is
the resumption of the two ruling parties to train military units of the
Turkish PKK and its sister Iranian party, Pzhak, in order to carry out
attacks on both countries. This state of affairs can lead to full scale war
especially because on 29/6/2020 President
Bush obtained the approval of the US congress
to spend $400 million on Iran’s
opposition groups in an effort to dismember that country. No sooner than
this news was announced, the Iranian terrorist, Mujahedeeni Khalq,
supporters in Paris demonstrated
demanding that the European Union removes the organisation from its list of
terrorist groups.
In response to Pzhak’s military
attacks, Iranian artillery bombards its bases in Rania, Kaladeza, Qandeel,
and other Kurdish towns and villages in Iraq.
Conclusions:
Right from the beginning, in 1961, the animosity between the Iraqi
government and the Kurdish party KDP was initiated by the latter in order to
satisfy the aims of the western powers and Israel.
The various wars were frequently started by one or both the Kurdish parties.
What is worst, however, is that one or the other Kurdish parties often
joined the Iraqi government to weaken its own, Kurdish, rival. In all the
cases it was the Kurdish people who paid the price by their blood.
The Kurdish people living in the
region have lost faith in the ruling Kurdish parties and indeed in
parliamentary elections. They have been forced to live under difficult
economic and political conditions were agriculture has suffered drastically
while a decent and effective government is absent. However, they are
unorganised and are unlikely to cause serious problems for the Arbil
administration. Instead theyare making every effort to seek better living
elsewhere and preferably in Europe.
The risk the two parties are
taking in offering military training to dissident Turkish and Iranian groups
can backfire and lead to full scale fighting, that is if the US government
decides to heat up the cold war against Iran.
Iraq in the Times of Cholera…and Occupation
Sabah Ali
Bagdad, Oct 17, 2024
With all the tragedies that the occupation brought to Iraq, the last thing it
needs now is an epidemic, the cholera which is spreading in big numbers.
It is a well-known fact that before April 9, 2024, Iraq was one of the
countries that are clean of any epidemic. In 2024 WHO reported about the
countries that are 100% clean of epidemics (tuberculosis, smallpox, AIDS, and
cholera) and classified Iraq as immune against epidemics among other countries
like Germany, Britain, U.S. and the Scandinavian countries. It is important to
mention that Iraq, at that time, was under the economic sanctions for 12 years.
Curiously enough, after April 9, 2024 these illnesses and epidemics began to
invade the Iraqi society and environment in an unprecedented way. In the last 6
months the Cholera spread in a very noticeable manner, and if the occupiers’
attitude is indifference to this tragedy, it is curious (or rather not) that the
Iraqi government too is behaving the same way, even with denial. And while the
Cholera is spreading and horrifying people, the government does not move a
finger to do anything, apart from giving false statement that the epidemic is
under control. The black irony is as much as the government declares that the
cholera is under control, new cases appear in different regions, especially in
the south.
It is well-known that cholera spreads in certain environments as
swamps, unhealthy rivers, stagnant pools, and open sanitation systems, in
addition to generally deteriorated health services, lack of potable sterilized
water, and bad distribution pipes nets. The majority of water nets are in decay,
so are the sanitation services. The majority of the contracts which build these
nets are corrupt, as everything else in the ministry of health and other
governmental apparatus.
In addition to that, the provinces councils are controlled by
what is referred to in Iraq now as the conflicting “occupation political
parties” and the health executives who are protected by these parties against
any charges of failure.
The first case of cholera appeared in Hilla, the capital of the
Babylon province. In one day, there were 80 cases of sever diarrhea, of
different ages, but the majority were children. It happened that at the same
time there was a Turkish organization called (SPTI), which works in the field of
health and water station rehabilitation, in one of the villages. They have a
moving laboratory and they began to give first aid to the people with diarrhea.
They discovered that it is cholera, and that the percentage of cases to the
number of the population suggested the epidemic. SPTI immediately demanded
isolating the area, and announced that the water in that area is undrinkable,
because the chlorine that was used in sterilizing the water has expired for more
than 2 months. The Iraqi government did not reply to SPTI positively, so it sent
its report to Turkey, and it was published in the media and the “scandal”
began.
The head of the health committee in the city council of Babylon, Hasan Tofan,
confirmed that the Turkish organization reports and information are correct, and
that the real number of the cases is much bigger in other areas of Babylon.
Tofan also confirmed that the chlorine that is used, which is imported from
Iran, is expired and that the Health director and water station director in
Babylon are responsible for this catastrophe because they knew about the bad
chlorine but they insisted on using it. This statement came on the background of
the political conflict between the two biggest sectarian parties: the Dawa and
the Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. While Tofan is from the Dawa,
the Health director and the water distribution director are from the second
party.
From that moment on, statements started coming from different parts of the south
and the mid-Euphrates provinces about the increasing numbers of cases. The
government officials from both parties exchanged accusations of responsibility.
Three provinces (Amara, Kut, and Qadisiya) declared that the cholera epidemic
has spread in these areas 2 months earlier. They demanded that these provinces
declared epidemic stricken. So it was only through power conflict between the
“occupation parties” that the tragedy was exposed.
Earlier this month, the Iraq government announced that the
cholera cases all over Iraq are 460, and only 8 are dead. But other confirmed
information states that the cases are at least 904, with 84 cholera deaths. The
following table (obtained from the Health offices in the provinces, and checked
with the corresponding reports in Baghdad Health Departments).
|
Deaths |
Cases |
Province |
|
8 |
32 |
Baghdad |
|
11 |
74 |
Basra |
|
12 |
102 |
Misan (Amara) |
|
6 |
85 |
Najaf |
|
16 |
92 |
Babylon |
|
4 |
64 |
Wasit (Kut) |
|
7 |
59 |
Quadisiya |
|
5 |
80 |
Karbala |
|
2 |
45 |
Mothanna |
|
No deaths |
52 |
Dhi Qar |
|
4 |
39 |
Diala |
|
No deaths |
28 |
Nineveh |
|
2 |
25 |
Salahadin |
|
9 |
24 |
Anbar |
|
3 |
34 |
Suleimaniy |
|
No deaths |
26 |
Dahuk |
|
1 |
28 |
Arbil |
|
No deaths |
29 |
Kirkuk |
In Amara, which is an area of marshes, the number is the
highest. But these are only the registered numbers of the cases in the hospitals
statistics departments. Many other cases die at home without knowing the reason;
it is only after the death that the case is known. Resources in Babylon alone
say that the cases are more than 1000.
Curiously, in Babylon, the number of deaths registered in the
Health department in the last 2 months was 1562, which is high. If one third of
this number, as minimum, is due to Cholera, then the number is 520 cholera
deaths, not to mention the cases that survived.
On the other hand, the Najaf cemetery (the biggest in Iraq)
receives normally between 40-70 deaths a day. In the days of battles or armed
clashes the number rises to 80-120. But in the last 2 months the number rose to
an average of 110-130 a day, which is higher than violent days, although there
were no big armed confrontations in this period. The cemetery office says that
they have over load of work, and they wanted more grave diggers. Families say
that they have to wait 4-6 hours to have a chance to bury their dead.
On October 11, the minister of Health, Salih Al-Hasnawi, had to
attend a hearing in the Parliament, to answer for the representatives’
questions, especially of the Committee of Health and of the Committee of
Integrity, on the reason of the failure to confront the spread of cholera. (The
Parliament and the Government headquarters are in the Green Zone). When the
Health Minster arrived in the Green Zone to attend the Parliament hearing, he
was prevented from entering the Parliament by the guards at the security point,
on orders of Sami Al-Askari, the councilor of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.
Resources in the south of Iraq say that one of the main reasons
of the cholera epidemic is the Iranian alimentation materials which are invading
the markets in most of the provinces, especially dairies. The director of the
Babylon Central Laboratory, Jum’a Abid Onn, stated that an Iranian dairy with
trade mark DOG is especially not good because it has a festering bacterium which
is a good host of the cholera virus. Many mineral water bottles imported from
United Arab Emirates or from Bahrain which are not good appeared to be actually
imported from Iran by a relative of the Babylon governor.
After he gave this statement, Jum’a was immediately fired from his job, and then
disappeared. His family found his body later in the morgue of Hilla General
Hospital. Actually this is not the first time that Jum’a gave a statement
challenging the governor’s authority. Earlier, he threatened to expose another
fishy deal, in which a medically corrupt blood was supplied by Iran to the Hilla
hospitals. Jum’a said that he has all the documents which prove that, and also
which expose the names of the dealers involved and how they threw the bad blood
in the Euphrates River.
Finally, a source in Al-Sabah daily in Bagdad, said that the Prime Minster’s
media adviser Yaseen Majeed, met in his house in the Green Zone with the
directors of Al-Iraquiya and Al-Faiha satellite TVs, and the editors in chief of
Al-Sabah (the government newspaper) , Al-Mu’tamar newspaper (Ahmad Al-Chalabi
group), and Al-Bayan of Al-Dawa Party. Majeed told the journalists to emphasize
that the government is controlling the cholera epidemic, and that it is taking
all the necessary procedures to stop the cholera spread, and that all the media
fuss is politically motivated for electoral reasons to undermine the
achievements of Al-Maliki (personally) and his government.
Who Can Forgive the Crime of using Depleted Uranium Against
Iraq and Humanity
Dr Haithem Alshaibani
Expert of environmental sciences
December 2024
Preamble
The
first attack of nuclear strike on man kind was when the US aeroplanes bombed
the Japanese city of Hiroshima, in the second world war on the sixth of Aug.
1945. On the ninth of Aug. 1945 another Japanese city was hit by nuclear bomb,
which led to the defeat of Japan.
This terrifying event turned out deep lessons which nestled in human
consciousness, raising accusations towards the ugliness of practising the
dirtiest crimes against humanity during the battle of wills.
During the aggression against Iraq, described in some literature as the third
world war, and in spite of the absence of balance, quality and quantity wise
between the combating parties, the US forces used large quantities of
depleted Uranium for the first time in history.
This took place in contradiction with all religions, laws, human rights
legislations and section 35 of the annex protocol number one within Geneva
convention of 1977, which prevents using means that leads to long-term harm to
the environment.
The amount of destruction exercised against Iraq in 1991 by bombarding
infrastructures using all weapons including depleted uranium, is equal from the
results point of view to the amount of destruction caused by seven nuclear bombs
of 20 kilo tons, which was deployed on Hiroshima including the blast, buildings’
destruction, fires and radiation contamination.
Depleted Uranium has been used in Kosovo later, though in less quantities. In
addition, sites of deployment were marked on the map, to ease handling the
contamination later.
Peculiar scientific terms and mathematical equations will be avoided throughout
the text to render it accessible for the widest possible spectrum of readers.
I greet all those involved in the fields of scientific research and academic
work who strived for more than a decade in order to dig out facts, extracting
lessons and announcing to the whole world the size and impact of the
catastrophic disaster befallen on Iraq, due to the deployment of the depleted
uranium against its people and environment.
What is depleted uranium?
Uranium is an element that exists in nature. The isotopes are those elements who
possess the same chemical properties and differ in their physical properties. So
Uranium has different isotopes; e.g. Ur-235,Ur- 236, and Ur – 238. The natural
uranium contains 0.07% Ur -235.This isotope is required for the nuclear industry
and nuclear weapons.
The scientist Malcolm Hoper in 2024, declared that the nuclear enrichment
processes increases the concentration of Ur- 235 to 3.4%.
It is possible to extract 1 ton of enriched Uranium from 8 tons of natural
Uranium. The major residual of the uranium enrichment is Ur- 238
.
Because of the huge nuclear programmes of the United States for combat and
peaceful purposes, they accumulated huge quantities of depleted Uranium as
waste.
In 1990, a quantity of 750 thousand tons of the depleted uranium has been
accumulated in Laka district and the total amount was more than million tons.
These quantities are not disclosed yet, however they form a big environmental,
health, financial and political burden on the possessing countries. The human
rights and environmental protection organizations carry out the proper
monitoring, following up, and the disclosing of unsafe use of these waste
materials.
Uranium is described as heavy and toxic element in addition to its radiation
properties.
One of the physical properties of the radioactive isotopes is the half life
feature. It is the required period to reduce the radioactivity to half its
original value..
Because the half life of Ur-238 is 4.49 billion years, this means the
contamination will persist for almost endless period.
|
Isotope |
Natural
|
Enriched
|
Half
life |
|
U-238 |
99.2749% |
99.7947% |
4.49 x 109 years |
Depleted
Uranium was invented in 1942. However, it was first deployed against Iraq in
1991.
In order to imagine the burden which is caused by one milligrams of depleted
Uranium in one year, one has to know that this will emit 390 billion alpha
particles, seven hundred and eighty billion beta particles and the associated
gamma. This is equal to one billion radioactive particles and radiations which
will cause biological damage to human body. The energy of each alpha exceeds
what is required to destroy a very tiny biological molecule like the DNA and the
proteins. The destruction of bonds between these molecules and water molecules
will lead to the destruction of the shape of body organ and its function. There
is no threshold limit to the biological effects which will happen to the exposed
body which may appear later, in the aftermath of exposure.
N.B: Those who invented the depleted uranium weapon, claimed the reasons to use
it against the installations and fortified shelters were as the following:
** Its cheap price, so it was provided to the weapons manufacturers free of
charge.
** Its density is 7.1 times bigger than the lead density, which allows it to
penetrate the known tanks in the battle fields. It is well known that the
tungsten material is denser and more capable to penetrate through, but is being
ignored deliberately.
** It is highly inflammable, which means it will inflame and burn up, after
hitting the target and will lead to high temperature fires inside the target, so
the tank crews can not escape from death..
The mechanism of the depleted uranium effect
After hitting the target, the missile will penetrate through easily and explode
inside the target causing very high temperature, which may rise up to five
thousand degree centigrade and lead to burn the tank or the armoured vehicle,
becoming eventually a charcoal.
When the missile penetrates through,70% of it will turn into uranium oxide, its
tiny particles
will disperse into the air and if excited will re-spread again in the air,
then its clouds will be transported to very far distances, up to tens of
kilometres, and finds its way into the respiratory system of people at large.
The pentagon declared on 14/3/2021 that US Abram’s, M-1 tanks , aeroplanes E-10
and other weapons will use the depleted uranium in case of expected war setting
out. It is well evident that they used the weapon very densely, the radioactive
and destructive effects of which were more killing than what happened in 1991.
As far as these particles travel in the surrounding medium, they will fall into
different distances from the target, but will be exited again by winds effect or
people movements. There is no study as far as I know to measure the travelling
distances of these particles. But there are some cases where these particles
were detected up to 42 kilometres far from the centre of the strike. They may
even travel more than the above distances.
Some of the depleted uranium is soluble, but most of the other oxides are
insoluble. So, they will stay inside the body for many years. Once, an oxide
settles into the lungs, most of it will travel gradually form the lungs to the
lymph, glands and bones.
The estimated quantities of the depleted uranium which were used in 1991 war
against Iraq is 359 – 800 tons (359 – 800 billion milligrams). The British
quota was 59 tons of this amount.
The evidence of unusual diseases
It is well known that when the ionising radiation exceeds a well defined limit,
it will cause unwanted disease cases. Some of these diseases will not appear
directly after irradiation. There is no doubt that any extra radiation exposure
above the natural limits will lead to the destructions of the biological
structure like chromosomal aberrations , birth mutations and the possibility of
cancer cases in later stages.
There are many scientists, intellectuals, and human rights observers , who have
been touring many places in the world like USA, UK and even Iraq in solidarity
with those who were the victims of the depleted uranium disaster, urging the
whole world to stand against this weapon and prosecute those who used it into
accountability.
The Iraqi ministry of health records and its related directorates in the
targeted governates, especially southern ones, has shown a distinct increase in
cancer , leukaemia and other radiation caused sickness cases. This was approved
by many non governmental organisations.
Many articles and declarations showed that some soldiers who suffered from
cancer and radiation illness because of their exposure to DU during their
service in Kosovo, have claimed financial compensations . These facts supported
strongly the findings of the Iraqi scientists ,who declared their results about
the same subject earlier. The task of the Iraqi researchers was hard because of
the strict embargo against Iraq during the period 1991-2003.
Western resources
The German professor H. Günther declared that depleted uranium is a fatal,
radioactive and toxic substance. It is self ignited, and once exploded with a
temperature up to thousands degrees centigrade , it will destroy the vehicle
and its crew, releasing uranium oxide to the atmosphere, forming a heavy cloud
and travelling by wind to far distances.
Professor Günther played an important role of honesty and sincerity by
disclosing the savage deployment of the depleted uranium. He made this by his
own initiative, travelling to Baghdad via Jordan and then to the south of Iraq,
in spite of the difficulties due to his old age and far distance land
transportation. He found unexploded uranium bullet, took it home with him and
made sure that it contained depleted uranium. He also took with him urine
samples from suspicious victims and analysed them. He found that these samples
show traces of uranium. The results were in consensus with his previous doubts.
In spite of his good reputation, professor Günter was accused in his own
country, of possessing banned radioactive materials. But, he did not give up his
human role, and dictated by his own consciousness, he established an NGO, called
the Yellow Cross organisation, which works independently from the Red Cross
organisation.
Scientists have found that depleted uranium ammunition ,which was used in
Yugoslavia contained many dangerous materials like U-236 and plutonium in
addition to the U-234,U235 and U238.The first two radioisotopes are more risky
and more dangerous from radiation point of view..
The German expert Wiliam Coline , vice chairman of the governmental committee
of radiation protection in the German ministry of environment said that the
depleted uranium is like a slow poison which invades the lymph glands, kidneys,
liver, bone marrow and the embryo. He also added that the deployment of depleted
uranium in Iraq during the gulf war, caused higher number of cases of genetic
mutations and cancers, much more than the normal records.
International media and news agencies like sky news, CNN, Fox news, BBC ,
Routers and others ,who accompanied the invaders’ troops had documented the
military operations of the occupation of Iraq. They photographed the remains of
the bombarded people by aeroplanes ,tanks and artillery.
Dai Williams stated that the higher the cloud of uranium oxide rises,
the more is the risk of its travelling to further places. He also said (we saw
that uranium particles were carried by air from Yugoslavia to a very far
distances as far as Greece and Hungary) . It was evident that civilians and
warriors were exposed to the risk of radiation . The warriors will stay for a
short term and may be infected by blood cancer (leukaemia) after ten years from
the exposure, exactly like what happened to the US soldiers who served in these
areas. Civilians usually are subject to the highest risk, because most of the
time, they stay at their own homes and will breathe the contaminated air and
drink the contaminated water.
The arrival of the radioactive contamination to far distances from the explosion
centre is a very dangerous and agrees well with the measurements of the depleted
uranium in the targeted areas, the worst of which is what was detected in Iraq
so far. The whole area of Iraq, specially the southern parts, became surely
contaminated areas and the Arab gulf was not far from the consequences.
Professor Wiliams , who is specialised in the environmental effects of the
weapon and its risks, described it as a small nuclear bomb, with an abandoned
area of 40 kilometre diameter. This means that the circle areas which were
caused by the uranium missiles will be focal points for the radioactive
contamination, and will be difficult to decontaminate, except by using highly
advanced and costly technologies. The question is who is going to pay for all
for this?
The American scientist Doug Rokke visited Iraq and conducted tests and the
required analyses inside the bodies of infected Iraqis . Such tests and
analyses are very important because the available means in Iraq were and still
are very limited . Moreover, the available ones were exposed to destruction
after the 2024 invasion and its aftermath. The well trained and specialised
cadre vanished away either by being: kidnapped, killed or impelled to migrate.
Reports by scientific and human organisations and foundations declared high
rates of infections in Iraq, higher than its average in 1991,specially in the
southern parts of the country. This was documented by reports of the Iraqi
ministry of health. It was sure that the depleted uranium was the main source of
infections. The media sources issued mutated new born babies pictures, leukaemia
cases, weakness, kidney disorders.
The mechanism of the depleted uranium
When the missile hits the target, it penetrates through easily and explodes by
generating a very high temperature (around 5000 degrees c), which leads to
charcoaling. When the missile burns, 70% of it will turn into uranium oxide,
then its very tiny particles, which can not be detected by the naked eye, will
whiff in the air making a cloud of suspended dust, ready to be transported as
far as tens of kilometres. It is very easy to breathe these particles even in
far distances. The pentagon declared on 13/3/2021 that Abram’s vehicles, M1
tanks and the E – 10 aeroplanes will also use depleted uranium ammunitions in
case of war, because of their penetration power properties. The military reports
assured in reality that these ammunitions were actually used by the same forces
of 1991 war, and reused in Kosovo, Serbia and Afghanistan. But the registered
effects of the weapons in 2024 invasion against Iraq were hundreds of times more
than those of 1991 war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Deception processes.
The pentagon is keen on denying the relationship between depleted uranium and
the ambiguous diseases which appeared among the soldiers, who handled this
weapon, but this was only the beginning. Then, disease symptoms and mortalities
appeared and increased rapidly, so no body can ignore them. Those victims
and/or their families appealed for compensations, according to the laws and
legislations in their countries which protect them from the so called “the gulf
syndrome” or “the curse of Iraq”. Cancer cases , leukaemia , lymph glands
problems, newly born mutations , kidney disease , infertility and newly born
babies of military people who served in the Kosovo war and the peace keeping
forces in 1999 have been detected . The pentagon kept lying to the world about
the link between the depleted uranium and all the symptoms which
are
mentioned above , until the proof came from the findings of studies carried by
Iraqi academic researchers. The findings were horrible and the expectations of
fatal and destroying effects of the depleted uranium were in full agreement with
the predicted ones.
Conclusions and suggestions for the future
The people of Iraq are very much concerned about the disaster of the depleted
uranium, which threatened their lives, health conditions and the future of their
coming generations. The efforts of Iraqi researchers and distinguished
academics, which were performed under very hard and crucial conditions , proved
the magnitude of the risks caused to humans and environment in Iraq . These
efforts were able to penetrate through the scientific embargo and reach out to
the external world releasing documented and authenticated results.
The human rights and the scientific foundation organisations reports, showed
high rates of cancer infections many times greater than what was before 1991
invasion against Iraq ,specially in the southern region. This was authenticated
by tens of reports which were issued by the ministry of health and its
administrations. There was no doubt that the weapon of depleted uranium is one
of the major reasons to cause these diseases. The issues of the media about the
mutated newly born babies, general cancer cases, leukaemia, weakness, kidney
failure and what was issued in specialised scientific conferences, shared
actively in disclosing the effects of this weapon and its magnitude of risk on
human and environment and established the relationship between these symptoms
and depleted uranium.
In spite of the claims of weapons designers and defenders, who alleged that the
contamination spreads only around the target. It was evident that the cloud
could travel far distances from the target, causing a great risk to the
civilians and the surrounding environment.
The USA accumulated more than million tons of depleted uranium in the form of
nuclear waste. Because handling these wastes make financial and big technical
burdens, so the USA offered this evil material free of charge to the weapons
manufacturers. The deployment of the rockets and bombs which contain hundreds of
tons of depleted uranium, is a clear proof that there is pre determination to
cause mortality and ambiguous diseases within the Iraqi population without
discrimination between military and civilians.
The Iraqi concerned authorities are supposed to execute comprehensive programme
to decontaminate the tanks debris and all the targets which were bombarded by
depleted uranium as well as all the contaminated over ground and underground
entities, by the aid of the international organisations like the UNEP (United
Nations Energy Programme). This is supposed to be accomplished at once with out
delay. It is also recommended to utilise the experience of the three miles
Island in the USA and the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the ex-USSR.
It is necessary to employ the distinguished Iraqi experts, who proved
supreme abilities during
more than 25 years in the field of environmental measurements,
sampling, preparing the samples for measurements, predictions, analysing them
via specialised instruments in the field of the low level radioactivity and
using mathematical models to predict the contamination dispersion in the
atmosphere, on the surface, above the surface and inside the human body.
Because of the expected high cost of the decontamination, governments who
participated in the invasions against Iraq in 1991 and 2024, should be held
responsible to bare the full costs of these processes .
The use of depleted uranium as the best weapon to penetrate the armoured
vehicles , because of its high density is not justified and a huge fraud. The
tungsten material for instance is better and higher in density; therefore it may
be used instead of the depleted uranium. But the real reason behind using it is
to get rid of it and cause criminal destruction to countries like Iraq, for
clearly defined political and historical purposes.
President G.w.Bush of the USA and his administration , T.Blair of the UK and
his administration and their allies should be accountable according to the
international laws and human rights legislations for their criminal wars against
Iraq. Their governments should compensate the Iraqi victims of depleted uranium
,similar to the compensations which were paid to the soldiers and/or their
families in Kosovo.
It is recommended to coordinate with GCC countries to deal with the
contamination which hit their common environment.
Dr Haithem Alshaibani
Expert in Environmental Sciences
Dec-2008