Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'

[jha]

Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'​

The shocking rates of infant mortality and cancer in Iraqi city raise new questions about battle

By Patrick Cockburn


Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.


Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. "During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city," recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality. Hitherto the Iraqi government has been loath to respond to complaints from civilians about damage to their health during military operations.

Researchers were initially regarded with some suspicion by locals, particularly after a Baghdad television station broadcast a report saying a survey was being carried out by terrorists and anybody conducting it or answering questions would be arrested. Those organising the survey subsequently arranged to be accompanied by a person of standing in the community to allay suspicions.

The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

The US cut back on its use of firepower in Iraq from 2007 because of the anger it provoked among civilians. But at the same time there has been a decline in healthcare and sanitary conditions in Iraq since 2003. The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004. War damage was only slowly repaired and people from the city were frightened to go to hospitals in Baghdad because of military checkpoints on the road into the capital.

 

[jha]

---------- Post added at 02:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:44 AM ----------

---------- Post added at 02:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:45 AM ----------

 

[jha]

Did U.S. use neutron bomb in Battle of Baghdad?

By Gary Wilson

The U.S. military used neutron weapons in the Battle of Baghdad, says a former commander of Iraq’s Republican Guard. And at least one retired U.S. Army officer is backing up his charge.

In an April 9 interview reported by Al Jazeera, Saifeddin Fulayh Hassan Taha al-Rawi says that, “U.S. forces used neutron and phosphorus bombs during their assault on Baghdad airport before the April 9, 2003, capture of the Iraqi capital.”

The bombs incinerated about 2,000 elite Republican Guard troops but left the buildings and infrastructure at the airport intact, he added. (aljazeera.net)

The neutron bomb is designed to produce a minimal blast while releasing a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation, which can penetrate armor or several feet of earth. This radiation is extremely destructive to living tissue. (britannica.com) The bomb has been in the U.S. arsenal for decades but has never been used in combat before.

While no major U.S. media have reported on the neutron bomb charge, David Hambling, author of “Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World,” says there’s something to it. Hambling notes that the U.S. has already admitted to the use of phosphorus weapons in the Iraq invasion.

Writing on April 13 for the Danger Room blog at Wired, Hambling says that from the description al-Rawi gives in the Al Jazeera interview of a series of explosions that killed the occupants of buildings without destroying the structures, “Interestingly, there is a weapon in the U.S. arsenal designed to do exactly that. ... The AGM-114N.”

Hambling continues, “On May 15th, 2003, just a few weeks after the action at Baghdad airport, Donald Rumsfeld praised the new weapon. ... Although officially described as ‘metal augmented’ or even ‘hyperbaric,’ the new warhead is not distinguishable from thermobaric weapons which produce the same sort of enhanced blast with a lower overpressure and longer duration for more destructive effects. Like many thermobarics, the AGM-114N used finely powdered aluminum. The military are generally quiet about thermobarics because they have received such bad press. Human Rights Watch criticized them because they ‘kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area.’ “

Weapons that have been described as thermobaric include flame-throwers and napalm. A BBC News article on March 4, 2002, said the U.S. was using thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan, and described how they employ a combination of heat and pressure, “distributing a very fine cloud of explosive material throughout the target which is then ignited. The heat and pressure effects are formidable—soldiers caught in the blast could have the air sucked from their bodies and even their internal organs catastrophically destroyed.”
Too bloody to report

Retired U.S. Army Captain Eric May, a former intelligence and public affairs officer, believes that the U.S. military did use neutron weapons in the Battle of Baghdad. May was one of the participants in Cindy Sheehan’s original encampment outside George Bush’s Crawford, Texas, villa.

In an interview published by the Crawford, Texas, Lone Star Iconoclast (lonestaricon.com), May says, “The biggest story of the war became a non-event when the truth of the matter was that it was simply too bloody an event to report.

“The bogus rescue of Private Lynch was merely a distraction from the truth,” said May. “And the staged photo-op of the pulling down of Saddam Hussein’s statue was nothing more than a way to cement into people’s minds that it was an easy victory.”

Congressional hearings on April 24 heard testimony on “the histories of Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch and Cpl. Pat Tillman ... as egregious examples of officials’ twisting the truth for public relations in wartime.” (“Government Challenged on Lynch and Tillman,” New York Times, April 24)

Captain May says, “I think the Battle of Baghdad was emblematic of the whole misadventure in the Middle East. There is nothing that I thought then that I don’t think now has been validated by time. The American public still doesn’t know that there was a Battle of Baghdad because the media-military apparatus constructed the Private Jessica Lynch mess to hold attention.”

May continues: “The best evidence that I have from international sources, scientific sources, is that our position was becoming untenable at the Baghdad airport and we used a neutron warhead, at least one. That is the big secret of Baghdad airport.

“If one looks into international data, there are reportings of enhanced radiation of some livestock, and of human metabolic effects—death and disease. It explains why, after the Battle of Baghdad, we got fragmentary stories of things like truckloads of dirt being moved out and moved in. It made no particular sense at the time, until one puts it into perspective, as a decontamination operation. Again, that part of the Battle of Baghdad, the fact that we went nuclear, explains a lot of things that came out afterwards and also explains why it is that it had to be covered up.”

Whether it was a neutron bomb or the AGM-114N, the Pentagon used some sort of Weapon of Mass Destruction on Baghdad airport.

 

[BATMAN]

The bombs incinerated about 2,000 elite Republican Guard troops but left the buildings and infrastructure at the airport intact, he added. (aljazeera.net)

I believe that was a display of WMD which will be used in any next war.
All Iraqi soldiers died (burned black) in a certain radius irrespective of their location.
One bomb and airport was neutralised.
It was a horrific afterscene as per the witnesses.

 

[jha]

Yes..but for them this was a live test of their technological superiority..who knows claps and cheers would have followed with champagne ...
No case of radiation detection, so you cant prove anything...what a shame..

 

[Truthseeker77]

I came across this while researching the assault on Baghdad airport;

The Americans were taken by surprise and withdrew when they encountered the SRG forces at the airport. Instead of engaging them in battle, U.S. troops went searching for other entrances and exits to the underground complex. One was found at Saddams opulent suite at the airport, another at the official palace. There were others. When these entrance-exit points had been sealed, and U.S. Commanders were certain of the exact locations of the Special Republican Guardsmen, the Americans detonated some kind of hi-tech bomb -- there were rumours that it was a neutron bomb, but this seems outrageous even by their standards -- in the airports underground complex, in the Southern palace, killing everyone in it and in the northern palace. Estimates are in the forty thousand range. With the SRG defeated the war was essenitally over.

From a book written by a Canadian reporter. Apparently a massive cleanup operation took place removing topsoil. Does anyone have any more information on this? General Al-Hamdani told Russia Today that his troops killed at least 600 Americans at the airport before something incinerated his entire army. The Americans claimed they lost less than 5.

 

[jha]

^^ Thanks Truthseeker for the article....

Well it seems atleast one country is always ready to detonate such bombs if they dont want to fight it out...

 

[no_name]

Do you think this might be a weapon of choice to be used on iran's nuclear facilities. (would be kind of ironic) Wouldn't this weapon be considered a nuclear weapon?

 

[jha]

^^^ This seems to have a controlled effect but as deadly as nuclear weapon...
Looks like the so called Black projects are really black in nature..

 

[rohailmalhi]

And American here in this forum talk abt humanity .........BS
All they care about is no ne except themselves .............

May Allah send them to hell in this life and in the after life for killing millions in Iraq a Afghanistan just cause they wanna show the world tht they can won any battle but alas even after killing so much innocent people they are losing the wars .................

 

[Truthseeker77]

Heres more;

The infamous battle of the Baghdad airport took place in the first week of April 2003. It was the final battle of the “official” conquest of Iraq. Even the Iraqi army admitted it was the deathblow. We call it the Battle of al-Hawasim (“the finals&#8221. The same phrase, since then, is used to refer to any thug, thief, or criminal in the chaos of life after Saddam.

Our entire army was concentrated in the south of Baghdad waiting for the American troops to come on land. But the American 101st Division of air-transported vehicles landed at the airport west of Baghdad and surprised Saddam’s army. The Iraqi response was to send the entire National Guard (the equivalent of the US Special Forces in training and skill) and all of Saddam’s freedom fighters directly to the scene. Many Arab men also voluntarily joined up to meet a certain death.

Very few Iraqis survived the airport battle, which made it a myth on the tongues of the entire country. Rumors swirled around, mixed with stories from the few survivors, about the epic fight that took place at Saddam’s international airport. But now even the earth cannot tell us the truth about what happened—the land was completely burned by mysterious American weapons. After the war, the American army brought many bulldozers filled with new soil to cover the evidence before the eyes of thousands of Iraqis and to bury the thousands of stories that took place on the famous airport road, aka the Highway of Death.

The most important things that survived are a few video CDs that I collected from friends and some photos that I took of the scattered bodies I found on the airport road. The CDs contained videos taken with small hand cameras by Fedayeen Saddam or Saddam’s freedom fighters. These brutal special warriors were trained from the early stages of their lives to do two things: Obey and kill. I still remember how I used to watch these videos of their training on the Iraqi national channel on TV, before the war broke out. They were exiled to the desert in camps with no food or water for weeks, and the cameras monitored how they managed to survive by eating raw desert animals. I still remember seeing them butchering a wolf and eating it raw. The Fedayeen were the Iraqi stars of the airport battle. The movies they recorded show how they were unleashed by the hundreds to kill and butcher American soldiers at the beginning of the battle at the airport. There is this part of the video showing a group of them standing to take a photo together while each of them is holding the head of an American soldier. So if they were winning the battle, how and why did they all disappear?

Some people described it as a blue light; others just said that they saw an unbelievably strong glow that made them go blind for minutes afterward. The stories vary, but the truth is one. There were thousands of fierce Iraqi warriors with strong German and Russian artillery and tanks at that field, and they were all killed in one day. The stories that we received say that the Americans were horribly defeated in the first two days. Saddam’s Fedayeen made small hills of American bodies spread around the field, burned some, ate the livers of some, and celebrated on their bodies. Then on the third day the American troops started to retreat, and the absentminded warriors who had no commanders above them (by that time the high commanders of the army, along with Saddam and all his gang, had managed to escape and disappear forever) thought that they won the battle. They moved further to take over the airport buildings, which were occupied by the marines. Soon after that, US aircraft came and bombed the hell out of everyone. No one could add any details to this part of the story because no one survived. But there were two important pieces of evidence on which I can guess that the American aircraft did use illegal weapons in that shelling.

One: I was a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. Our job during the war was to collect the bodies of Iraqis and bury them where they fell. Only two days after the Iraqi troops were defeated in the airport battle, we went to the airport road. Luckily, I had my camera with me. The bodies had not shed one drop of blood and they were wearing clean clothes, but they were all either completely charred, or nothing but a skeleton wearing a uniform. I hurriedly took as many pictures as I could and then we buried the bodies and left the place.

Two: After the war, I joined several other international activists doing research on 50 houses adjacent to the airport road. Each of the 50 houses had at least one resident who had started to suffer from skin disease, respiratory diseases, or other symptoms of cancer. We ordered a Geiger-Müller counter to measure the local radioactivity, and it indicated levels way higher than what a human being can take. Once the American Army started to change the soil of the airport road less than a week after the war was over, we became certain that some kind of radioactive bomb was used.

The truth about whatever happened in that battle died under the new soil of the airport road. All I have now to remember it are the pictures of those burned bodies and the videos of Saddam’s fighters.

BAGHDAD, July 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Several mysterious diseases were reported among a number of American troops within the vicinity of Baghdad airport, a military source closely close to NATO unveiled.

U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin, the source, who refused to be named, said in statements published Thursday, July 17, by the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper.

He asserted that three soldiers who suffered these symptoms did not respond to medical treatment in Iraqi hospitals and were flown to Washington for medication.

The military source reported a media blackout by U.S. officials to hide such information from the public.

The Americans claim the symptoms and the mysterious diseases were resulting from exposure to the scourging sun, which the U.S. troops are not used to, he added.

And just one example of a US soldier dying from 'mystery illness' after moving topsoil away from the airport;

Contrary to the “pneumonia” and “mystery illness” labels, enlightening information surfaced today on “THE POWER HOUR” radio show in an interview with Mark Neusche, father of Josh Neusche, one of the GW II troops to lose his life from the “mystery illness” while serving in Iraq. The father stated that his 20-year-old healthy son, a former track star and non-smoker, had written home on June 26th explaining that he would be going on a 30-hour “hauling” mission, but that he could not disclose what they would be hauling. The son had stated that he had been to the Palace of Sadaam Hussein, and it was later learned that he was “hauling” at the Baghdad Airport.

I read another article recently, but I can't seem to find it - they US forces dug up a T-72 at Baghdad Airport, the guy who found it was very excited. But he was told he couldn't go near it again untill experts in radiation examined and 'cleared' it.

Also, wouldn't all of this explain the hasty 'de-Ba'athifcation' programme? An integral part of that operation should've been using the Iraqi army, but they forcibly disbanded it. Maybe they did that because when it would've been re-organised, huge questions would've appeared about massive losses, specifically at the airport?

Edit: Sorry, can't post urls untill I have 15 posts.

Do you think this might be a weapon of choice to be used on iran's nuclear facilities. (would be kind of ironic) Wouldn't this weapon be considered a nuclear weapon?

Its already been ironic. They invade Iraq under the false pretense of removing WMD's, then at the first hurdle use WMD's of their own. If that got out, especially then, it would've been catastrophic. Theres a retired US Captain who writes about this, Captain Eric May. He has said that the survivors of the US troops who were slaughtered at the airports families were severely intimidated and even poisoned - through fear of not mentioning what happened.

As for Iran nuclear facilities, they'd probably need something more powerful. Whats to stop them using tactical nukes? They'd just blame any blast or fallout on the Iranians, plus the reactors are 100 feet below ground. They'll probably use these 'neutron' weapons on their infantry and proxy armies though.

 

[zagahaga]

Dose al khalid And l zarra have special kits to help in these kinds of weapons NBK nuclear biological kits? Or we might be doned for if we come into a war

 

[su-47]

Dose al khalid And l zarra have special kits to help in these kinds of weapons NBK nuclear biological kits? Or we might be doned for if we come into a war

well i dont think standard NBC protection takes neutron bomb into consideration. so the effect of such a bomb on an NBC protected tank will remain to be seen.

However, i think the use of a neutron bomb is equivalent to using a nuke, and should it have been used on a nuclear power, nuclear retaliation would have been a certainty.

 

[zagahaga]

yeekkksss so that mean US did this in the fear of a nuclear retaliation from iraq kinda cowardely but yeh... but i think they can be protected beaucse come on it a NBC OR NBK they ghotta work with nuclear threaths but who know !>!>!>!>!> that for the reply