Fallujah Doctors Claim Increased Deformities in Babies After ‘Special Weaponry’ Used by US

Another shameful legacy the United States may be leaving behind in Iraq – deformed children. Doctors and residents in Fallujah are saying that babies born there are showing increasing rates of deformities after the US began using ‘special weaponry’ in the two massive bombing campaigns in the city during 2004.

Though they denied it at first, the Pentagon admitted in 2005 to using ‘white phosphorous’, a restricted incendiary weapon. Depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were also used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon has admitted to using 1,200 tons of it in Iraq thus far.

From AfterDowningStreet.org:

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

“We saw all the colours of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles,” Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two U.S. sieges of 2004 told IPS. “I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus.

“The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations.”

“I had two children who had brain damage from birth,” 28-year-old Hayfa’ Shukur told IPS. “My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money.”

Shukur said doctors told her that it was use of the restricted weapons that caused her children’s brain damage and subsequent deaths, “but none of them had the courage to give me a written report.”

Doctors and the Fallujah General Hospital administration will not go on record about the deformities, fearing reprisal, so no official data is available – we can only go on anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, it may be many years before we find out the whole truth of how children in Iraq are being affected by this unnecessary war.

Shameful. We sent our troops to Iraq, to risk their own lives, for the wrong reasons – and as a result, who paid for it the most? Innocent citizens of Iraq. Families torn apart, lives destroyed – and for what?

Link [AfterDowningStreet.org]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

$23 Billion ‘Lost, Stolen, Mismanaged’ in Iraq by Private Contractors

As if we didn’t already have enough evidence that these companies are run by crooks, a BBC investigation has revealed that $23 billion in taxpayer funds has been ‘lost, stolen, or not properly accounted for’ in Iraq. The BBC was investigating how much private contractors have profited from the war in Iraq when they discovered the missing money, and a US gag order straight from President Bush has prevented further discussion of the allegations.

From the BBC:

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The president’s Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said: “The money that’s gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it’s egregious.

“It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.”

Excellent work, Bush and Co. Using private contracts has, as you promised, been far more cost effective. The Free Market really came through on this one.

Link [BBC] via [truthdig]
Photo credit: Micah Ian Wright at the Propaganda Remix Project

McCain Makes Big Crazy Promises About What He’d Accomplish in His First Term

Showing that the apple doesn’t fall far from the Bush, John McCain predicted yesterday that within 4 years of him as president, the war in Iraq would be over and Osama Bin Laden would be dead. He also promised rainbows every day of the week, chocolate rivers, marshmallow mushrooms and hugs from unicorns for all.

From MSNBC:

McCain, running in the November election to succeed Bush in 2009, described a scenario he thought he could achieve within his first four-year term.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,” McCain said in prepared remarks he was to deliver in Columbus, Ohio.

“The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced,” McCain said.

McCain also predicted that al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed within four years and the militant group’s presence in Afghanistan would be reduced to remnants.

Gee, Mr. McCain, don’t devalue yourself and your abilities, here. You can do so much more. I mean, if you’re capable of all that, why not go for the gold? You might as well also promise that you’ll bring the dodo bird back from extinction and find a way to live forever.

Go ahead and hold up a ‘Mission Accomplished!!!’ sign while you’re at it, since you’re so confident that all of this will happen. You know, to get your base psyched up for the election. We all know that conservative voters like to live in a world where global warming isn’t real and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will solve all of our oil problems, so why not throw these promises into the equation as well?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

If McCain Wins, What Happens in Iraq? “100 Years” a Frightening Prospect

At a town meeting in New Hampshire this election season, John McCain made a rather startling statement: when asked about how long he thought troops should stay in Iraq, he said it would be fine with him if troops remained for “maybe 100” years.

From MSNBC:

First, if McCain doesn’t envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of “a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state.”

McCain hasn’t said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain’s closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

Since his original declaration, McCain has repeatedly insisted he doesn’t foresee a century of American combat in Iraq but rather a military presence “after the war is over,” as the United States has maintained in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

As Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dead points out, we’re not exactly welcome in Iraq. They don’t want us there. People in the region don’t want us there. Why would they? We’ve destroyed a culture. We’ve killed hundreds of thousands (some put the figure at over a million) of their people, most of whom were innocent bystanders. We’re responsible for so much death and destruction. The danger to our troops isn’t going to magically disappear – people are angry, and rightfully so.

Hopefully statements like this will help prevent this guy from becoming president. Plenty of people are against the war in Iraq, but considering the ongoing battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the race and gender issues in play and the usual spate of conservative ‘value voting’ i.e. gays, guns & God, is it enough?

Link [MSNBC]
Photo credit: Flickr user sskennel

What Would You Buy with the $3 Trillion Spent on the Iraq War?

When all is said and done, the Iraq war will cost America $3 trillion dollars. That’s a figure that’s difficult to fully comprehend, and some may wonder how it was calculated. The Washington Post broke it down:

Some people will scoff at that number, but we’ve done the math. Senior Bush administration aides certainly pooh-poohed worrisome estimates in the run-up to the war. Former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey reckoned that the conflict would cost $100 billion to $200 billion; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld later called his estimate “baloney.” Administration officials insisted that the costs would be more like $50 billion to $60 billion. In April 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, the thoughtful head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said on “Nightline” that reconstructing Iraq would cost the American taxpayer just $1.7 billion. Ted Koppel, in disbelief, pressed Natsios on the question, but Natsios stuck to his guns. Others in the administration, such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, hoped that U.S. partners would chip in, as they had in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or that Iraq’s oil would pay for the damages.

The end result of all this wishful thinking? As we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion, Iraq is not only the second longest war in U.S. history (after Vietnam), it is also the second most costly — surpassed only by World War II.

Why doesn’t the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month — $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense budget, the money we’ll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to refurbish a military whose equipment and materiel have been greatly depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed $1.5 trillion.

Have you ever thought about how much $3 trillion dollars really is? Like, in terms of what else you could buy with that money? Well, 3trillion.org has, and they’ve created an awesome website where you can add hundreds of items to your shopping cart and still not even come close to spending that much.

The concept is simple: you browse their website for items to add to your cart. They can be as large in scale as wind turbines to power all of the United States ($1,000,000,000,000.00), or as small as a copy of the ‘Inconvenient Truth’ DVD ($10.00). You can even buy yourself a boob job, the New York Yankees, a custom rollercoaster or launch your ashes into space. The possibilities are endless, and if you don’t see something you want, you can add it.

It’s seriously very hard to spend $3 trillion. I still didn’t end up making it all the way; after over an hour on the site my grand total was $2,885,172,839,274.00 for all of the following:

• Universal Health Care for Every American
• Fight AIDS in developing nations
• Search for a cure to cancer
• Switch to solar power (all of America)
• Fund research for alternatives to oil
• National rapid transit system
• Clean up pollution (in major cities)
• Achieve universal literacy
• End hunger and poverty related diseases
• Increase sustainable organic produce in the US
• Finish repairing the damage done by Hurricane Katrina
• Cure a deadly disease
• Sustainable agriculture education, worldwide
• Non-violent leadership training (1 year) for 10 million leaders
• Food, shelter & vet care for unwanted pets
• End animal testing
• K-12 arts and music education
• New clothing, shoes, coats and schools supplies for 10 million children
• Build 100 new schools
• Pay 1,000 teachers’ salaries
• Give all firefighters a raise
• Plant 1,000,000 trees
• National Park Service Annual Budget
• Help rebuild Iraq
• Send Bush to Mars (1 way ticket)

After all that do-good spending, I still had over three billion dollars left over for things like homes for myself and all of my friends and family, organic vegetarian groceries for a year, home brewery equipment, a hammock and the Essential Leonard Cohen CD. You know, after expending so much energy on helping the world, you really want to kick back and relax a little.

It’s staggering to realize how much could have been achieved with that money. Instead of putting it to use actually doing all of the things that we dream about doing to make the world a better place, that money is funding pointless carnage and destruction. The Bush administration wants us to believe that this money was well spent, but we should know otherwise.

Maybe putting a price tag on the steaming bag of shit we’ve been sold as a nation will help people wake up and realize how much this war is affecting the world. If over 1 million dead Iraqis and 4,000 dead Americans isn’t enough for you - not to mention the destabilization of an entire region - perhaps what Americans really need to come to grips with the reality of this situation is to see how that money could have solved all of their complaints. Snowed under by hospital bills? We could have a whole new system in place by now! Nervously living in a region where a natural disaster could easily wipe out your entire community? You could have levees, shelters and emergency backup plans galore!

So please, everyone, buy away. Send $3 trillion gift certificates to everyone you know via the 3trillion.org website and urge them to fantasy-shop to their hearts’ content. The point isn’t gluttony and greed, though by all means have fun shopping: the point is awareness. We as a nation are letting our government get away with this. The power of the people is stronger than we realize, whether it’s put in motion through protests, boycotts, the purchasing decisions we make or simply exercising our rights as citizens of a democratic nation to vote accordingly.

Link [3trillion] + [Washington Post]

Photo Credits: Flickr user FredoAlvarez, Wikimedia Commons + Wikimedia Commons