Our Bombs Turned Iraq Into A Toxic Wasteland

By James Donahue

What was our military thinking when it lobbed bombs and shells tipped with depleted uranium into the heart of Iraq?

This once beautiful country, the “Golden Crescent” and place where the human race was said to have had its origins, has been turned into a toxic wasteland unfit for human habitation.

We have done the same thing in Afghanistan and the Balkans during recent conflicts, I am told. The effects of what we did there have yet to be revealed.

A recent story in a web publication IslamOnline.net, said cancer and birth defects have been spreading like influenza across Iraq ever since the first bombing of that country in 1991.

An estimated 120,000 to 140,000 Iraqis have been affected according to estimates released by the Iraqi health ministry.

The Al-Quds Press news agency noted that the number of birth defects and cancer cases has been rising daily since Iraq was turned into a radioactive toxic wasteland. Dr. Abdul Kaximi, director of a hospital in Baghdad that specializes in nuclear medicine, said 7,500 Iraqis are being diagnosed with cancer every year.

Abdul Hamid Khalifa, an Iraqi specialist on carcinogens, said most of the cases are affecting people in the southern portion of Iraq that took the brunt of the bombing attacks during the 1991 Gulf War. He said women and infantry troops are identified as receiving the highest exposures to DU radiation.

Khalifa said contaminated water, expired imported foods, and a devastated health infrastructure caused by the crippling 13-year-old US sanctions against Iraq following the war, have created an “out-of-control” disaster in that nation.

The jury is still out on the effects of the latest bombing attacks on that nation. Most of the bombs and shells lobbed into Iraq since the start of the conflict contain depleted uranium.

What is frightening is that US troops on the ground in that country are getting as much, or more, exposure to the radioactive toxic smoke and dust as the people who live there.

Rather than returning home with Gulf War Syndrome this time around, America may be welcoming home veterans stricken with cancer.

Are we insane?