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For years, I have been writing about the American use of chemical weapons
in the savage assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in late 2004. The
results of this deployment of WMD began emerging a few months later. The
clear evidence of chemical weapons damage among the civilians of the
city -- uncovered by Iraqi doctors working for the American-backed
government -- was scorned and dismissed at that time, including by many
stalwart anti-war voices, apparently frightened that such "extremist"
charges would somehow detract from their own "reasonable" opposition --
perhaps even cost them their perches in the mainstream media.
(Oddly enough, my own pieces on the matter were also appearing in the mainstream media -- the pages of The Moscow Times,
the decidedly centrist, pro-business, English-language newspaper in the
Russian capital, which supported my column from all attacks, including
heavy hints from the American embassy that it should be dropped.)
In any case, the evidence of American WMD in Fallujah kept mounting, year after year, until finally, in mid--2010, even the BBC's most respected voices were
reporting on the effects of the chemical weaponry -- primarily on the
children of Fallujah, some of whom were not yet born when the attack was
launched.
Even without the WMD, the attack itself was one of the
most horrific events of the still-unfolding act of aggression in Iraq.
Presented in the U.S. press as an old-fashioned, gung-ho, WWII-style
"battle," it was in fact a mass slaughter, largely of trapped civilians;
almost all of the "terrorists" and "insurgents" in the city had long
escaped during the months-long, oddly public build-up to the assault. It
seemed clear that the intent was not to quash an insurgent nest, as
stated, but to perpetrate an act of condign, collective punishment --
primarily against civilians -- in order to terrorize the rest of Iraq
into submission. As I noted at the time of the initial attack in 2004:
"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."
This was a voice from the depths of the inferno: Fadhil Badrani, reporter for the BBC and Reuters, trapped in the iron encirclement along with tens of thousands of civilians. ....
One of the first moves in this magnificent feat was the destruction and capture of medical centers. Twenty doctors -- and their patients, including women and children -- were killed in an airstrike on one major clinic, the UN Information Service reports, while the city's main hospital was seized in the early hours of the ground assault. Why? Because these places of healing could be used as "propaganda centers," the Pentagon's "information warfare" specialists told the NY Times. ...
So while Americans saw stories of rugged "Marlboro Men" winning the day against Satan, they were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city -- a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River -- including a family of five -- make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters -- and nearby civilians -- with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the "softening-up attacks" that raged relentlessly " and unnoticed " in the closing days of George W. Bush's presidential campaign, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports.
The wanton, unnecessary destruction of Fallujah is one of the central stories of our time. Yet it is almost entirely forgotten, especially among the people in whose name this vast crime was committed. But the marks of this atrocity live on in its victims. Over the holidays, while America's high and mighty were making merry, yet another detailed study was released confirming a major spike in birth defects in Fallujah following the attack. The Guardian reports:
A study examining the causes of a dramatic spike in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja has for the first time concluded that genetic damage could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults that took place six years ago.
The findings, which will be published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, come prior to a much-anticipated World Health Organisation study of Falluja's genetic health. ... The findings are likely to prompt further speculation that the defects were caused by depleted uranium rounds, which were heavily used in two large battles in the city in April and November 2004.
... One case documented in the report is of a mother and her daughter who after the 2004 battles both gave birth to babies with severe malformations. The second wife of one of the fathers also had a severely deformed baby in 2009. "It is important to understand that under normal conditions, the chances of such occurrences is virtually zero," said Savabieasfahani.
...Birth-defect rates in Falluja have become increasingly alarming over the past two years. In the first half of 2010, the number of monthly cases of serious abnormalities rose to unprecedented levels. In Falluja general hospital, 15% of the 547 babies born in May had a chronic deformity, such as a neural tune defect " which affects the brain and lower limbs " cardiac, or skeletal abnormalities, or cancers.No other city in Iraq has anywhere near the same levels of reported abnormalities. Falluja sees at least 11 times as many major defects in newborns than world averages, the research has shown.
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