Sky News is reporting that the number of Iraqi babies born with deformities has continued to rise since a heavy US-led bombing campaign in Fallujah.
An Iraqi doctor has told Sky News the number of babies born with deformities in the heavily-bombed area of Fallujah is still on the increase.
...Concerns were that the rise in deformities may have been linked to the use of chemical weapons by US forces.
...There are a wide range of problems - from abnormalities of the abdomen to facial disfigurements.
Part one
As there have been 200 recorded cases of Iraqi children born with deformities in Fallujah, the families have called for an independent investigation into the matter, which they believe is being caused by the US Army's use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium.
Sky News recently reported on families in the Iraqi city of Fallujah who are calling for an independent investigation into their concerns about a rise in the number of newborn babies suffering from deformities.
...Hikmat Tawfeeq, deputy chairman of the Fallujah-based human rights group Alakhiyar said: "We have around 200 cases of deformities recorded by our society. Most of these birth deformities started appearing after the war in Iraq."
...Campaigners say officials are reluctant to speak out publicly but at Fallujah's Children's Hospital one doctor told us in the past month she's seen one or two cases of birth deformities every day.
Part two
Iraqi doctors believe that depleted uranium is causing cancer and birth defects.
Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.
As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain. Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."
The documentary Beyond Treason, released in 2005, takes a look at the history of the use of depeted uranium munitions.
Update: A field investigation in Iraq by German and Canadian scientists found evidence of a new class of uranium weapons including "bunker buster" bombs which contain 236U. Their story was told in the German documentary The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children.
An award winning documentary film produced for German television by Freider Wagner and Valentin Thurn. The film exposes the use and impact of radioactive weapons during the current war against Iraq. The story is told by citizens of many nations. It opens with comments by two British veterans, Kenny Duncan and Jenny Moore, describing their exposure to radioactive, so-called depleted uranium (DU), weapons and the congenital abnormalities of their children. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Gunther, a former colleague of Albert Schweitzer, and Tedd Weyman of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) traveled to Iraq, from Germany and Canada respectively, to assess uranium contamination in Iraq.