Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has been pressing for Apache attack helicopters, as well as F-16 warplanes, since before the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. Credit: US Govt/public domain

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 9 2014 (IPS)

Two years after the last U.S. combat soldiers left Iraq, the past week’s takeover of the western city of Fallujah by the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has refocused Washington’s attention on a country that it had hoped to put permanently in its rear-view mirror.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which has ruled out any direct military intervention, has rushed Hellfire missiles and other military equipment to the Iraqi army, which has reportedly surrounded the city, the second-largest in the Sunni-dominated western Al-Anbar province and the centre of the Sunni insurgency against the eight-year U.S. occupation."We are not contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their fight, but we’re going to help them in their fight." -- Secretary of State John Kerry

It is also pressing at least one key lawmaker, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Robert Menendez, to release his hold on the delivery of a fleet of Apache attack helicopters sought by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. The Iraqi leader, who heads a Shia coalition, has been pressing for the helicopters, as well as F-16 warplanes, since before the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, most recently during a visit to Washington in November.

But some critics of both Maliki and the Obama administration are urging Washington to condition additional assistance on the Iraqi leader’s firm commitment to show greater flexibility toward demands by the country’s Sunni minority.

“It is important to kill and capture al-Qaeda militants, to be sure, but absent political reconciliation with the Sunni population, AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) will have no trouble regenerating its losses,” wrote Max Boot, a military analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) who strongly opposed Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq after its parliament declined to offer U.S. soldiers legal immunity for their actions there.

“Indeed the indiscriminate application of firepower by Maliki, while it may play well among the prime minister’s Shiite constituents …, is likely to simply arouse more Sunni opposition,” he wrote on the neo-conservative ‘Commentary’ blog Wednesday.

But others analysts here disagree, insisting that ISIS must be defeated, hopefully with the help of local militias aligned with the Iraqi army, and that blaming Maliki for the current situation “confuses cause and effect.”

“The fundamental problem is that significant numbers of Anbaris have not yet reconciled themselves to the loss of power – and the privileges that came with it – after the fall of Saddam Hussein,” according to Douglas Ollivant of the New America Foundation (NAF) and a key adviser of Gen. David Petraeus during the 2007-08 U.S. “surge” of troops into Al-Anbar and Baghdad that reduced the sectarian killing that brought Iraq to the brink of all-out civil war by 2006.

“This has spawned two results: demonstrations to express demands that are politically impossible outside an authoritarian system and a return to the violence that Al Qaeda has been trying for years to precipitate,” Ollivant wrote on the foreignpolicy.com website.

There were some reports late Wednesday that ISIS was withdrawing its forces from Fallujah under pressure from local leaders who fear precisely the kind of destruction that befell the city during a bloody siege by U.S. forces in 2004. However, the fact that the group was able to gain control over it — as well as parts of the province’s capital, Ramadi, for a brief period late last week – has underscored the threat of civil war similar to that which has wracked Syria over the past nearly three years.

Indeed, ISIS, which, until this week when it came under attack by other rebel factions, had emerged as the dominant insurgent force in neighbouring Syria, has declared its intention to establish a trans-national emirate as part of a larger goal of expelling the influence of Shia-led Iran of which Maliki – as well as Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — is seen as a mere puppet.

Obama himself has made clear that, in his words, he wants to avoid “taking sides in a religious war between Shia and Sunni,” whether in Syria or elsewhere in the region.

That was echoed with regard to Iraq by Secretary of State John Kerry last weekend in Jerusalem. “This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis,” he stressed repeatedly during a news conference, although he also noted that Washington would do “everything possible” to help Baghdad defeat ISIS which he called “the most dangerous players” in the region.

“We are not, obviously, contemplating returning [to Iraq]. We are not contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their fight, but we’re going to help them in their fight,” he said.

In addition to Hellfire missiles, which are currently attached by Iraq’s small air force to light fixed-wing aircraft, Washington has promised to speed the delivery of surveillance drones which may require U.S. training of Iraqi personnel, either in the U.S. or in Iraq.

Some officials have reportedly urged the administration to offer armed drones on the condition that they are operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as they have been in Pakistan and Yemen. But Maliki is considered unlikely to agree to such a condition.

Most analysts agree that the Apache helicopters, dozens of which Baghdad has placed on order, would be particularly effective against suspected ISIS units in the open desert in Al-Anbar.

Delivery, however, has been held up by some lawmakers who have expressed concern that they could be used against the legitimate political opposition. Iraqi forces have used lethal force several times against initially peaceful protests, and U.S.-trained counter-terrorist units have also been accused by human rights monitors of serious abuses, including arbitrary arrests and even assassinations, against prominent Sunni leaders and activists over the past year.

The administration has also deplored what is seen as Maliki’s increasingly sectarian agenda and pressed the Iraqi leader to take a more conciliatory stand toward the Sunni community, especially in Al-Anbar where the U.S.-backed “Awakening”, or “Sahwa” militia movement played a decisive role in defeating AQI during the surge in 2007-08. Washington has complained that Maliki largely failed to follow through on commitments to integrate movement members into the Army and security forces.

In an effort to overcome these concerns, Vice President Joe Biden has been in virtually daily consultation with Maliki and key Sunni leaders over the past week.

In a phone call between the two men Wednesday, Biden “encouraged the Prime Minister to continue the Iraqi government’s outreach to local, tribal, and national leaders and welcomed the Council of Ministers’ decision to extend state benefits to tribal forces killed or injured in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS),” according to a statement released by the White House.

Maliki also sent a letter to Menendez, reportedly the remaining holdout against the helicopter sale, outlining steps he intends to take both to engage the Sunni community and ensure that U.S. weapons will be used only for counter-terrorism, according to Wednesday’s Daily Beast.

Meanwhile, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday expressed growing concern about the humanitarian situation inside Fallujah amidst reports that food and water were running short. More than 10,000 residents have reportedly left the city since fighting began Jan 1.

HRW charged that government forces have used indiscriminate mortar fire in civilian neighbourhoods, while ISIS fighters and allied militias have deployed in and carried out attacks from populated areas.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com

A man holds his ill son in Basra, Iraq shortly after his young daughter had died of cancer. The picture was taken in February 2011. The boy died of cancer a few months later. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Sudeshna Chowdhury
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 17 2013 (IPS)

A long-awaited study on congenital birth defects by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Iraq is expected to be very extensive in nature.

According to WHO, 10,800 households were selected as a sample size for the study, which was scheduled to be released early this year but  has not yet been made public."There is reason why a group of very smart scientists are not exploring the 'why' question in their study.” -- Susanne Soederberg, Canada research chair at Queen’s University

Many scientists and experts have started questioning the time delay in publishing the study, but there is another aspect that is a cause for concern among some health experts.

The report will not examine the link between the prevalence of birth defects and use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions used during the war and occupation in Iraq, according to WHO.

A by-product of the uranium enrichment process, DU is prized by the military for its use in ammunition that can punch through walls and armoured tanks. The main problem, experts say, is that DU munitions vaporise on contact, generating dust that is easily inhaled into the lungs.

The WHO study will also not consider pollutants such as lead and mercury as factors or variables, Syed Jaffar Hussain, representative and head of mission for the WHO in Iraq, told IPS.

According to WHO, establishing a link between the prevalence of congenital birth defects and exposure to DU would require further research by competent agencies or institutions.

Discussion and preparation for the study that started in mid-2011 was conducted in the wake of reports and individual studies conducted in Iraq which found a significant increase in the prevalence of congenital birth defects, says WHO.

Previous studies also pointed at some kind of correlation between metal pollutants, possibly DU used in 2003 and 2004 during the U.S. military attacks in Fallujah, with congenital birth defects in the region.

However, the causes will not be part of the MOH and WHO study. And this is what has invited criticism from some health experts and scientists.

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Michigan, who along with her team had published papers on congenital birth defects in Iraq, said that for the WHO to not consider uranium and metal pollutants as a causal element of birth defects is “worrying”.

“I think this is going to be one of the big weaknesses of the report given that previous studies have shown links between pollutants and birth defects,” she said. “It would have been very logical for them to have carried out the analysis by collecting human samples and environmental samples and analysing if they have metals or pollutants.”

Previous studies

Large quantities of DU weaponry were used in Iraq during the war by the US and UK armed forces, according to a report released earlier this year by a Dutch NGO.

Another report titled “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities” suggests that the bombardment of Al Basrah and Fallujah may have “exacerbated public exposure to metals, possibly culminating in the current epidemic of birth defects”.

The genetic damage and cancer rates in Fallujah is worse than that seen among survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, according to another report published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

In one study, uranium and other contaminants were found in hair from the parents of children with congenital anomalies in Fallujah.

To not look into uranium “is an important omission”, said Keith Baverstock, a former health and radiation adviser to the WHO.

There is absolutely no doubt that DU is toxic if it becomes systemic and gets into the bloodstream, Baverstock told IPS. The question with respect to its military use is “under what circumstances can it become systemic?” he said.

As far as risk posed by DU in general is concerned, Baverstock believes that WHO has miserably failed to assess risks posed by DU. “There is no doubt in my mind that the upper management of WHO failed to fulfill their obligations to examine the public health implications of DU,” he said.

In another study, Human Rights Now (HRN), a Tokyo-based international human rights organisation, conducted a fact-finding mission in Fallujah earlier this year. The mission recorded birth defect incidences first-hand over a one-month period in February 2013, and conducted interviews with doctors and parents of children born with birth defects in Fallujah.

“[The] epidemic of congenital birth defects in Iraq needs immediate international attention,” Kazuko Ito, secretary general of HRN, told IPS.

“DU is one of the possible causes, even if it has not yet been proved as the very cause of problem,” Ito said. “WHO does not provide a reasonable explanation why it is fair to opt out of this issue.”

HRN sent its report to both the U.S. and UK governments. The British Ministry of Defence, in its reply, said that there is no reliable scientific evidence to suggest that DU is responsible for post-conflict incidences of ill health among civilian populations and that DU can be used in weapons, according to UK policy.

Remediation measures

Immediate intervention in the affected areas is paramount at this point, said Saeed Dastgiri, Department of Community and Family Medicine School of Medicine, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

Neural tube defects in Fallujah and Al-Ramadi are about 2.6, 3.4, 3.8, 4.7 and 6.7 times higher than that reported from Cuba, Norway, China, Iran and Hungary, respectively, Dastgiri told IPS. They are also 3.2 times higher than that estimated for the global population, he added.

However, John Pierce Wise Sr, director of the Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health at University of Southern Maine, is of the opinion that WHO’s decision to first determine the prevalence before delving into the cause is not illogical.

“Such a design would be slow as it would take a while before one got to the root cause, but it is not illogical as logic does say one has to identify that there is a problem before one seeks to identify what the cause of the problem is,” he said.

While DU’s impact in causing birth defects is still not clear within the scientific community, Wise said that if there is data that point towards elements that are causing the birth defects, it seems more humane to design the study to tackle both issues together.

If the problem is identified then those children who are conceived can be protected by avoiding the problem, Wise added.

But Susanne Soederberg, a professor and Canada research chair at Queen’s University who is also waiting for the study to be published, did not mince words.

“I strongly believe that the WHO, like most international organisations, is not a neutral body, but is influenced by the geopolitical powers of its members,” she told IPS. “So, yes, there is reason why a group of very smart scientists are not exploring the ‘why’ question in their study.”

By Julia Kallas
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 2012 (IPS)

A new study confirms what many Iraqi doctors have been saying for years – that there is a virtual epidemic of rare congenital birth defects in cities that suffered bombing and artillery and small arms fire in the U.S.-led attacks and occupations of the country.

Courtesy of Mozhgan Savabieasfahani.

The hardest hit appear to be Fallujah (2004), a city in central Iraq, and Basra in the south (December 1998, March and April 2003).

Records show that the total number of birth defects observed by medical staff at Al Basrah Maternity Hospital more than doubled between 2003 and 2009. In Fallujah, between 2007 and 2010, more than half the children born there had some form of birth defect, compared to less than two percent in 2000.

Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a lead author of the latest study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, entitled “Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,” reports that in the case study of 56 Fallujah families, metal analysis of hair samples indicated contamination with two well-known neurotoxic metals: lead and mercury.

IPS correspondent Julia Kallas spoke with Savabieasfahani about Iraq’s  health crisis  and the long-term consequences of exposure to metals released by bombs and munitions.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: You focused on Fallujah and Al Basra. Is there any indication that this problem could be affecting other Iraqi cities as well?

A: There is one other paper that has come out from another city and I think that there are similar things. I think that it is possible that anywhere could be affected. Some other places are seeing similar situations but there are no publications to indicate it. There is a great possibility that other places that have been bombed are also showing similar things.

Q: Your study found serious deformities in infants as late as 2010. How many years will the health effects of the war continue to be felt?

A: Speaking as an environmental toxicologist, I think that a long as the environment is not cleaned, as long as the source of this public contamination is not found and as long as people are exposed to it periodically on a daily basis, I think this problem will persist.

And what we can see is that they are actually increasing. I think that the best step right now is to do large-scale environmental testing – test water, air, food, soil, everything that comes in touch with people. Test them for the presence of toxic metals and other things that are in the environment. And once we find the source, then we can clean it up. Unless we do that, this is going to continue to happen because people are getting exposed.

Q: What kind of munitions would be responsible for this type of large-scale contamination?

A: We have referenced a couple of U.S. military documents and it is the kind of things that could lead to this version of metal as indicated in the references. Various metals are contained in small arms ammunition.

But it could be anything from bombardments, from the bombs that come down on the place, or bombs that exploded from the tanks, or even bullets. They all have similar metals in them, including mercury and lead poisoning, which is what we have found in the bodies of the people who live in these cities, Fallujah and Basra.

Q: Have you collaborated at all with the World Health Organisation researchers who are conducting similar research, with their findings due out next month?

A: No, I have not been in touch with the World Health Organisation or any other organisation. We have just worked with a collection of scientists.

Q: Are you aware of any formal reaction to your research by the Iraqi, U.S. or UK governments?

A: There has been some. The U.S. Defense Department responded to the report by saying that they do not know of any official reports that indicate any problems in Al Basrah or Fallujah. But I think that is the only thing that comes to my mind.

Q: How is the local health care system coping with an emergency like this? And how can contamination management and medical care procedures be provided in these areas?

A: I know that the hospitals in the two cities that we studied are overstretched and as far as that is a concern there are ways to help these hospitals. We need to organise doctors, scientists and people who are professionals in this area to help clean up. Organise them, bring them to these two cities and get them to start working. However, all of that requires financial and other kinds of support. Financial and political support together will help to make that happen.

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