Iraq war infant birth defects

This video is called Cancer Birth Defects, Depleted Uranium, 2012, Fallujah, Iraq, Europe.

By Eric London:

US munitions cause spike in Iraqi infant birth defects

27 December 2012

Though it has been nearly a decade since the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq, a report from the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology released in September reveals the devastating impact that the war is continuing to have on the Iraqi people—particularly Iraqi infants.

According to the study, titled “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,” the Iraqi cities of Basra and Fallujah are experiencing an exponential rise in birth defects, allegedly caused by the use of depleted uranium ammunition by the United States and British invasion forces.

The German-based Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology survey reported that half of the infants it surveyed who were born between 2007 and 2010 were born with a birth defect. This figure was less than 2 percent before 2000. In Basra, the southern Iraqi city and site of a massive bombing campaign undertaken at the start of the invasion in March and April 2003, the birth defect rate was 17 times higher than before the 2003 invasion.

“Some [infants] had only one eye in the forehead. Or two heads. One had a tail like a skinned lamb. Another one looked like a perfectly normal child, but with a monkey’s face. Or the girl whose legs had grown together, half fish, half human,” Basra children’s cemetery owner Askar Bin Said told Der Spiegel.

Chemist Chris Busby, the co-author of two studies on the subject, told the Guardian that Fallujah is experiencing “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.”

Hair sample studies performed in 2010 by Bulletin researchers revealed that lead levels were five times higher in Fallujah children than in other children. Mercury levels were six times higher. Diagnosed cases of hydrocephalus, or “water in the brain,” are six times higher in Basra children than in children from the United States. Basra is also experiencing the highest ever rate of spina bifida, or “open back disease.” In total, over 45 percent of pregnancies ended in miscarriage between 2004 and 2006.

Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a lead author of the report and an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told the Independent that “the massive and repeated bombardment of these cities is clearly implicated here. I have no knowledge of any alternative source of metal contamination in these areas.”

According to Dr. Savabieasfahani, there is now a “footprint of metal in the population” and “compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments of Iraqi cities.”

Moreover, the data reported by the study was most likely an “underestimate,” according to Dr. Savabieasfahani, on account of many parents’ attempts to hide their children’s defects from public view.

The unprecedented health crisis facing the bombed-out targets of American imperialism is apparently the result of the use of “depleted uranium” ammunition used by the United States and British armed forces during the invasion and occupation. “DU” ammunition contains alloys or cores made of depleted uranium. The added density the uranium gives to projectiles allows bullets and shells to pierce bodies and metal with increased facility.

When the ammunition explodes or hits a target, it releases a chemical dust that is inhaled or permeates through the skin of its victim.

In other words, the advanced weaponry utilized by the US with the express goal of facilitating the destruction of Iraqi towns and cities has achieved its goal: local populations will quite literally be feeling the pain of the invasion for generations to come. Infants born even after the public “withdrawal” of invasion troops are killed as a result of the impact of the invasion on young Iraqi mothers and fathers.

“The war is to blame. The pollution. There were many bombs in our neighborhood,” said Sabra Salman, the mother of a 10 year-old child with cancer, to Der Spiegel.

Mohammad Haider, a Basra parent of a deformed child, also told Der Spiegel that he and his wife “both grew up in Basra. I hold the United States responsible. They used DU. My child isn’t an isolated case.”

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• Depleted Uranium Receives More Attention (sgtreport.com)
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• Fallujah: the forgotten scandal of babies affected by depleted uranium (nuclear-news.net)

British soldiers’ murder of Iraqi receptionist

This video says about itself:

UK doctor acted ‘dishonestly’ in Iraq

Doctor found guilty of dishonest conduct in death of Iraqi arrested by British soldiers in Basra.

Last Modified: 16 Dec 2012 20:26

A former British army doctor has been found guilty of dishonest conduct over the death of an Iraqi prisoner.

The charges against Dr Derek Keilloh date back to 2003, when hotel receptionist Baha Mousa died after being arrested by British soldiers in Basra.

Mousa suffered 93 seperate injuries while in their custody – but Dr Keilloh had repeatedly denied any knowledge of the injuries.

Now, a medical watchdog has found him guilty of acting dishonestly – and failing to protect detainees.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Potter reports.

Related articles

• Iraq doctor acted ‘dishonestly’ (oddonion.com)
• Ruling due on Iraq accused doctor (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)

Iraqi children’s birth defects

This 2009 video says about itself:

Doctors are dealing with an increase in chronic deformities in infants in Falluja, where heavy munitions were used in 2004

Another video used to be called DEPLETED URANIUM from US, UK munitions ’cause birth defects in Iraq’.

By Fred Mazelis in the USA:

New evidence that US invasion has produced epidemic of birth defects in Iraq

17 October 2012

A new study confirms, not for the first time, the horrific price paid by the Iraqi people for the US-led invasion of their country in 2003, and the 2004 bombing campaign and assaults on the city of Fallujah in particular.

Eight years after the attacks on Fallujah, a majority-Sunni city about 40 miles west of Baghdad where the resistance to the invasion had been tenacious, the consequences of this collective punishment, illegal under international law, are continuing to unfold.

A study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology focuses on an extraordinary epidemic of congenital birth defects in Iraqi cities over the past decade, particularly in Fallujah and in the southern city of Basra, assaulted by British troops in 2003.

This study has been released only one month before a broader survey is due to be released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO report has looked at nine areas in Iraq and is also expected to show increases in birth defects.

As summarized in the British newspaper The Independent, the first study, entitled “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities” and published online on September 16, pinpoints statistics for Fallujah and Basra that add up to a public health crisis that is as serious as any other around the world.

More than 50 percent of all births surveyed in Fallujah were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010, the newspaper explains. In the 1990s, Falllujah had a birth defect rate of 2 percent. This rose to about 10 percent in the early years of the twenty-first century, and then exploded in the years following the siege of Fallujah in 2004.

The data on miscarriages was also significant. Before the 2004 attacks on Fallujah, both in April and in November-December of that year, about 10 percent of pregnancies ended in miscarriage. This rose to a rate of 45 percent in the two years after the bombings. It fell as the most drastic attacks subsided, but the rate still remained high, at one in six pregnancies.

In Basra, attacked by British troops as part of the US-led invasion, the data is also compelling. Al Basrah Maternity Hospital recorded birth defects in just 1.3 out of 1,000 babies born a decade before the 2003 assault. This had risen to 20 out of 1,000, a 17-fold increase that is very likely attributable to the decade-long US-led sanctions campaign. In the past seven years, the rate of birth defects has risen another 60 percent, to 37 out of 1,000 births.

One of the authors of the article, Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, spoke to The Independent about the study’s significance. The birth defects are almost certainly related to metal exposure as a result of bombs and bullets used over the past two decades. Levels of lead were five times higher in the hair of children with birth defects in Fallujah than in other children, and mercury levels were six times higher.

Dr. Savabieasfahani said there is a “footprint of metal in the population” and there is “compelling evidence linking the staggering increases in Iraqi birth defects to neuro-toxic metal contamination following the repeated bombardments of Iraqi cities.”

“In utero exposure to pollutants can drastically change the outcome of an otherwise normal pregnancy,” the doctor continued. “The metal levels we see in the Fallujah children with birth defects clearly indicates that metals were involved in the manifestation of birth defects in these children. The massive and repeated bombardment of these cities is clearly implicated here.” She added that the data was like an underestimate, since parents often hide children with birth defects.

A professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University in Britain, Alastair Hay, told The Independent that the figures in the study were “absolutely extraordinary” and that “people here would be worried if there was a five or 10 percent increase [in birth defects]. Professor Hay said that another factor, in addition to the increase in metal exposure, was “the extreme stress people are under in that period; we know this can cause major physiological changes.”

Official spokesmen for both the US Defense Department and the British government responded to the latest findings with statements that add up to little more than evasion and double talk. The Pentagon claimed, “We are not aware of any official reports indicating an increase in birth defects in Al Basrah or Fallujah that may be related to exposure to the metals contained in munitions used by the US or coalition partners. We always take very seriously public health concerns about any population living in a combat theatre.”

Iraq: ten years, a million lives and trillions of dollars later: here.

Lu Lobello, Iraq War Veteran, Tracks Down Kachadoorian Family And Apologizes For Shooting Incident In 2003: here.

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• Horrors of war: US, UK munitions ’cause birth defects in Iraq’ (rt.com)
• RT @BeyondAid: Fallujah has seen a five-fold increase (and rising) in birth defects since US siege during Iraq War http://t.co/VBCFplbV (independent.co.uk)
• Iraq records huge rise in birth defects, New study links increase with military action by Western forces (refreshingnews99.blogspot.in)
• Invasion of Iraq causes epidemic of birth defects (climateandcapitalism.com)
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Fallujah, Iraq children killed by US armed forces?

This video says about itself:

1 August 2012 by Al Jazeera English

New research is under way on the alarming increase in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, showing elevated levels of radioactivity in the city and across the country. Iraqi doctors have long reported a spike of cases involving severe birth defects in Fallujah since 2004 which are shocking in their severity. So is the US being honest about the weapons it used in the 2004 battle for the city, and in its other theatres of war? Guests: Ross Caputi, Dai Williams, Raed Jarrar.

See also here.

A new study confirms what many Iraqi doctors have been saying for years – that there is a virtual epidemic of rare congenital birth defects in cities that suffered bombing and artillery and small arms fire in the U.S.-led attacks and occupations of the country: here.

Human Dignity: A Casualty of War. Matt Southworth, Friends Committee on National Legislation: “As a bright-eyed nineteen-year-old soldier in Iraq in 2004, I was faced with a crisis of conscience. I thought I was going to Iraq to help free Iraqis, but instead I was a part of a mission to put them in a different kind of prison”: here.

In a report presented at the University of Michigan last Wednesday, “The epidemic of birth defects in Iraq and the duty of public health researchers,” Dr. Muhsin Al Sabbak, a gynecologist from Basra Maternity Hospital, and Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicology researcher, reviewed the ever-growing mountain of data showing that rates of cancer, child cancer and birth defects (BD) have reached historically unprecedented levels in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities since the 2003 US invasion: here.

A decade after the US military waged two barbaric sieges of Fallujah, the Iraqi city is once again the scene of a bloody armed conflict: here.

Armed clashes erupt around besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah: here.

War Not Over: U.S. Occupation Is Still Poisoning Iraq’s Children. Environmental toxicology report ties elevated levels of lead in children to bombings and ammunition: here.

Witnessing the BBC’s omissions on Fallujah. IAN SINCLAIR reveals how the mainstream media is downplaying US-British crimes in Iraq.

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• AOAV warns Iraqi government not to use explosive weapons in Fallujah

• RT @BeyondAid: Fallujah has seen a five-fold increase (and rising) in birth defects since US siege during Iraq War http://t.co/VBCFplbV (independent.co.uk)
• Horrors of war: US, UK munitions ’cause birth defects in Iraq’ (rt.com)
• Iraq records huge rise in birth defects, New study links increase with military action by Western forces (refreshingnews99.blogspot.in)
• The victims of Fallujah’s health crisis are stifled by western silence | Ross Caputi (guardian.co.uk)
• US Bombing of Iraq: The Toxic Legacy Continues (commondreams.org)

British torture prison in Basra, Iraq

This video from Britain is called Baha Mousa video released.

A video which used to be on YouTube used to say about itself:

The Ministry of Defence has agreed to pay almost £3 million to the family of an Iraqi who died while being detained by UK troops and nine other men who were allegedly mistreated by the British Army, their solicitors said today.

The family of Baha Mousa and the other men will share £2.83 million in compensation from the MoD, law firm Leigh Day & Co said. The ministry confirmed that a settlement had been reached, but would not go into any details on the figure.

Mr Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, died while he was being detained by soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in Basra in 2003.

Mr Mousa sustained 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose. During the mediation session General Freddie Viggers also apologised to the families for “the appalling behaviour of British soldiers” which had left the Army “disgusted”, the law firm said in a statement.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Iraqi prisoners were abused at ‘UK’s Abu Ghraib‘, court hears

Detainees were starved, deprived of sleep and threatened with execution at JFIT facilities near Basra, high court told

* Ian Cobain

* Saturday 6 November 2010

Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at a secret British military interrogation centre that is being described as “the UK’s Abu Ghraib” emerged yesterday during high court proceedings brought by more than 200 former inmates.

The court was told there was evidence that detainees were starved, deprived of sleep, subjected to sensory deprivation and threatened with execution at the shadowy facilities near Basra operated by the Joint Forces Interrogation Team, or JFIT.

It also received allegations that JFIT’s prisoners were beaten, forced to kneel in stressful positions for up to 30 hours at a time, and that some were subjected to electric shocks. Some of the prisoners say that they were subject to sexual humiliation by women soldiers, while others allege that they were held for days in cells as small as one metre square.

Michael Fordham QC, for the former inmates, said the question needed to be asked: “Is this Britain’s Abu Ghraib?”

The evidence of abuse is emerging weeks after defence officials admitted that British soldiers and airmen are suspected of being responsible for the murder and manslaughter of a number of Iraqi civilians, in addition to the high-profile case of Baha Mousa, the hotel receptionist tortured to death by troops in September 2003. One man is alleged to have been kicked to death aboard an RAF helicopter, while two others died after being held for questioning.

Last month the Guardian disclosed that for several years after the death of Mousa, the British military continued training interrogators in techniques that include threats, sensory deprivation and enforced nakedness, in an apparent breach of the Geneva conventions. Trainee interrogators were told they should aim to provoke humiliation, disorientation, exhaustion, anxiety and fear in the prisoners they are questioning.

Lawyers representing the former JFIT inmates now argue there needs to be a public inquiry to establish the extent of the mistreatment, and to discover at which point ultimate responsibility lies, along the chain of military command and political oversight.

Yesterday’s hearing marked the start of a judicial review intended to force the establishment of an inquiry. Fordham said: “It needs to get at the truth of what happened in all these cases. It needs to deal with the systemic issues that arise out of them, and it needs to deal with the lessons to be learned.”

The Ministry of Defence is resisting such an inquiry, however.

USA: In his memoir to be released next week, former US President George W. Bush boasts of having personally given the order to the CIA to employ the torture method of waterboarding: here.

Unlawful detainment of US contractor whistleblowers possibly detailed in Iraq War Logs: here.

Our Iraq War Helped Displace Millions – Who We Now Shut Out: here.

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• British soldiers in Fiji to train military
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• Britain’s wars make veterans with PTSD
• Could High-Ranking UK Officials Face Charges for War Crimes in Iraq?
• Confronting Barbarism: ISIS, the United States and the Consequences of Torture

Four British soldiers killed in Basra, Iraq

This October 2017 video is called British policy weakens secular forces in Basra.

From British daily The Guardian:

Four British servicemen have been killed and three injured in an attack on a patrol boat in Basra, southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The brief statement from the MoD said the servicemen were part of a multinational force, patrolling the Shatt al-Arab waterway in Basra.

Neither their names nor the unit they served with were released, pending the notification of their families.

The condition of the wounded was described by the ministry as either “very serious or serious.”

They were evacuated by helicopter to the field hospital at nearby Shaibah Logistics Base.

US soldiers’ families against the war: here.

Also: What was the British SAS doing in Basra in Iraq?

And here.

And: War protestors acquitted on federal conspiracy charges in New York.

Iraq, more British, US, soldiers die

From London daily News Line:

BRITISH SOLDIER KILLED IN BASRA ATTACK

A British soldier has been killed and another injured during an attack at a UK base in Basra, southern Iraq, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported yesterday.

The two soldiers were said to have been hit in an ‘indirect fire attack’ at the Shatt Al-Arab Hotel after mortars landed inside the base perimeter.

The dead soldier was from the Royal Army Medical Corps. The soldiers’ names have not yet been released by the MoD.

The death on Sunday brings the British death toll in Iraq to 119.

A British military spokesman in Basra said that about 15 mortars were fired at the base, with three or four landing inside the perimeter.

The soldiers were taken to hospital, where one later died. The other suffered a broken arm, the Army spokesman said.

The US military reported on Monday that three marines died in separate incidents in Iraq’s insurgent western province of Anbar.

Two of the marines were killed Sunday in enemy action while a third died in a ‘non-combat related’ vehicle accident.

The latest fatalities bring the number of US servicemen killed since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by US-led forces to 2,712 according to Pentagon figures.

British soldiers in Afghanistan: here.

Rare Basra reed warbler breeds in Israel

From BirdLife:

Rare warbler breeds in Israel

11-07-2006

One of the Middle East’s most threatened species, the Basra Reed-warbler, has received a welcome boost.

Normally restricted as a breeding bird to the Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq (and probably also southwest Iran), a research team from SPNI (BirdLife in Israel) trapped and ringed four birds in Israel’s Hula Valley in June 2006.

The two males, a female with a brood patch, and an almost fully-grown juvenile, are the first of the species ever to be discovered breeding in Israel.

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Iraq: Basra: two British soldiers killed

From British daily The Guardian:

Basra blast kills two UK soldiers

Staff and agencies
Monday May 29, 2006

Two British soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in Basra, the Ministry of Defence said today.

The soldiers, from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, were killed as they took part in a routine patrol in support of operations intended to disrupt militant activities.

Their deaths took the British toll in Iraq to 113.

Two soldiers were injured in the blast, which happened at 10pm local time (1900 BST) in the Gizaya area of Iraq’s second-largest city.

See also here.

British soldiers deserting from Iraq war: here.

Doctor Salaam Ismael on Iraq war: here.

And here.

Haditha massacre by US soldiers in Iraq: here.

Anti Iraq war action in the USA: here.

Basra, Iraqis protest British occupation

From London daily News Line:

Saturday, 28 January 2006

BASRA TENSIONS FLARE!

Basra governor Mohammed al-Waili yesterday warned the British occupiers he will break off all relations and called on Iraqis to demonstrate outside the British consulate in the southern Iraqi port city tomorrow.

The bust-up between the puppet governor and the UK occupying authorities has erupted amidst mounting tensions over the arrest and detention of five Iraqi policemen as suspected insurgents by UK troops.

Announcing tomorrow’s demonstration, an enraged Al-Waili said Basra’s provincial council and all government offices ‘will suspend all kinds of dealings with the forces at all levels if they don’t release the detainees’.

The row first erupted on Tuesday following an operation by UK and Danish troops.

Fourteen men were arrested following an increase in roadside bombings in what British officials described as a drive ‘to root out corruption in the Iraqi police service’.

Nine men were later released but five are still being detained.

In a bid to ease tensions, British army officials claimed the puppet Iraqi Interior Ministry had ordered the arrests and local officials were aware of the British-led operation.

But this has had no effect, and tensions in the city are reaching boiling point.

Several hundred angry Basra citizens demonstrated outside governor al-Waili’s office last Wednesday to demand the detainees’ release.

Last October, al-Waili said UK forces had destabilised security following the arrest of 12 Iraqis over alleged attacks against UK troops.

A month earlier, he had accused the British army of ‘aggression’ after it used tanks to rescue two British SAS soldiers held by militias.