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by Ron Forthofer
April 4, 1999
Also published in the Colorado Daily, April 19, 1999.
The U.S. says these bombings are in self-defense and no one challenges this perversion of the language. When Iraqi planes enter 'no-fly' zones, areas where we say Iraqi planes should not fly, our planes engage them. Even if there are no Iraqi planes in these zones, if Iraqi radar is turned on, we attack the radar. Pentagon officials recently said that Iraqi facilities with dual military and civilian uses such as "passive-aggressive" communication towers are also subject to attack.
With regard to the idea that US and British planes are actually threatened by Iraq, Reuters recently reported that a US Air Force officer said Iraq is "now down to using ineffective anti-aircraft guns." Not to downplay the risk to U.S. and British pilots, how can the above situations really be self-defense?
Allegedly, we established these zones to protect the Kurdish population in northern Iraq and the Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq. However, whenever Turkey, our ally, invades Iraq to attack the Kurds, we turn a blind eye. Regarding the Shiites in southern Iraq, our depleted uranium (DU) continues to harm the very people we claim to be protecting.
During the Gulf War, allied forces used DU in their shells. Upon impact, up to 70% of the depleted uranium contained in a given round or shell was aerosolized into tiny particles (uranium oxide) that can be breathed in or ingested. When lodged in the body, these particles (U238 and its decay products) emit damaging radiation indefinitely, and can poison chemically through their effect as a heavy metal. The following quote taken from the June, 1995 Army Environmental Policy Institute report on DU is relevant. "If depleted uranium enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with depleted uranium are both chemical and radiological." Although this effect was known before the war, US planners did not warn our forces. Indeed, DU exposure may have played a major role in some of the health problems faced by Gulf War veterans.
Perhaps as many as 300 tons of DU, mostly in the form of toxic and radioactive dust, have been left behind in southern Iraq. It's feared that uranium particles seep into the ground water and finally reach the food chain. Many DU projectiles spread over the battlefields have been collected by children and used as "toys" with possibly devastating consequences. As an example of these consequences, it is thought that DU has played a major role in the large increase in childhood leukemia and other childhood cancers in southern Iraq. If we were really concerned about the Iraqis in the southern part of the country, would we have left tons of DU to poison these people, their children, their land, water and food? We have since done nothing, nor have we allowed Iraq, to clean up this environmental disaster. Talk about your weapons of mass destruction!
President Clinton says that we must maintain economic sanctions because Iraq hasn't fully complied with UN Security Council Resolution 687. What about the other countries that haven't complied with this resolution? Clinton has conveniently ignored the part of Resolution 687 that addresses the goal of making the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and missiles for their delivery.
Our elected officials avidly support the sanctions even though this policy has resulted in the deaths of over 1.3 million civilians, 600,000 of whom were children under six. Most of these deaths were due to a shortage of food and medicine and a lack of clean water. The U.S. claims that the oil for food program is dealing with this shortage. However, according to Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the UN oil-for-food program, there's currently a $900 million shortage for funding of the humanitarian program. To make matters worse, we have recently bombed two oil pumping stations causing a short-term reduction in Iraq's ability to fund the program!
We the people cannot say that we don't know what is happening. How long are we going to allow this criminal behavior to be done in our name? When are we going to say 'enough'? Our policy does not hurt Saddam Hussein. Our policy is a war crime! Even Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector recently said, "I have always believed economic sanctions to be morally reprehensible. I do not support sanctions in Iraq." For the sake of the Iraqi people (especially the children) and for the sake of our future relations in the Middle East, let's call for strict enforcement of the weapons embargo and an end to economic sanctions.
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