...the more they stay the same?
Iraq. Balad Airbase, 68 kilometers north of Baghdad and east of Fallujah, is one of the largest bases housing about 25,000 U.S. military personnel and several thousand contractors.
In June 2008 it had three clean-burning incinerators handling about 120 tons of waste each day. Additionally, the burn pit consumes 147 tons of waste per day: styrofoam, unexploded ordnance, petroleum products, plastics, rubber, dining facility trash, paint and solvents, and medical waste that " according to those performing the burns " includes amputated limbs.
This concoction is set alight with jet fuel, a substance that releases chemicals known to increase the risk of leukemia. Just burning plastic water bottles creates elevated levels of highly toxic dioxins, which can contaminate food chains by landing on plants that are consumed by animals and accumulate in fatty tissue.
A plume of black, tacky smoke hangs over the region when waste is burned. Air Force Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, former bioenvironmental flight commander for Joint Base Balad, wrote in a memo dated Dec. 20, 2006:
"In my professional opinion, there is an acute health hazard for individuals. It is amazing that the burn pit has been able to operate without restrictions over the past few years. There is also the possibility for chronic health hazards associated with the smoke.
In June 2009 three military servicemen from Charleston filed a class-action lawsuit against Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR). The lawsuit alleges that KBR burned hazardous waste in Iraq and Afghanistan that included human corpses, biohazardous medical supplies, styrofoam, tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, paint, and items containing pesticides and latrine waste.
Since then, dozens of U.S. military personnel have filed 34 lawsuits against KBR for allegedly incinerating toxic waste and releasing it into the atmosphere in Iraq and Afghanistan. A KBR spokeswoman responded via email that the "general assertion that KBR knowingly harmed troops is unfounded. KBR, she says, did not operate most of Balad's burn pit, and that the others are operated at the direction of the military.
According to the June 12, 2009 Post and Courier article, "Burn pit caused injuries, suit says: Disposal of toxic wastes improper, servicemen claim, there is also an Iraqi-run recycling center on the Balad base. Iraqis sort through recyclables tossed into the burn pit " such as the roughly 90,000 aluminum cans produced daily by the base " and resell them on the local market.
Are emissions from these burn pits and material from the recycling center simply adding to the toxic cocktail already flooding Iraq?
Fallujah's hospitals are experiencing a wave of newborns with chronic deformities and early life cancers. Dr Bassam Allah, the head of the Fallujah's children's ward, urges international experts to take soil samples across the region, and for scientists to mount an investigation into the causes of so many ailments. "Such abnormalities, he says are "acquired by mothers before or during pregnancy.
The UK Guardian reports that Fallujah's doctors, "are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting....from two [hospital] admissions a fortnight a year ago to two a day now. Most deformities are in the head and spinal cord.... and "there is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of [children] less than two years [old] with brain tumours.
Pediatrician Samira Abdul Ghani's kept detailed records over a three-week period and revealed 37 babies born with anomalies, many of them neural tube defects that result in brain matter found in the spine and dysfunctional lower limbs.
Abnormal clusters of infant tumors have also been cited in Basra and Najaf - areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.
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