While we may spend our time fighting amongst ourselves whether or not Robert Gibbs was right in what he said, and whether or not the accomplishments of the President are deemed to be important and successful, and held to his campaign promises, there remains a larger and yet often ignored stain on the American conscious. The legacy of George W. Bush. The legacy of neoconservatives.
Yes, the man and philosophy that started two wars, launched unprecedented expansion of the military industrial complex, ensured the long term survival of a private mercenary group, ignored intelligence reports boldly titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack United States", and falsified intelligence to lead us into an illegal war in Iraq, has a larger and yet largely unknown and disturbing fact attached to their name.
Fallujah.
In an important and yet extremely disturbing article from Patrick Cockburn at the Belfast Telegraph, Cockburn writes,
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia 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.
Deep, deep, deep sigh. Am I surprised by this? Kind of. But then again, I suppose I no longer should be.
This survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers earlier this year of 2010, and the team visited a total of 711 houses in Fallujah. Householders were given a questionnaire and asked to give details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality.
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.
That is the girl born with two heads.
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.
Disturbing indeed. Before neocons dismiss as nothing but provocative, and unprovable, and untrue, and written by someone with a leftist agenda...let us take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?
In a November 26, 2004 article from IPS News Dahr Jamil detailed the days following the Fallujah offensive.
"Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. "They used everything - tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground."
...
"They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. "People suffered so much from these," he said.
But if that seems bad enough, there is more...
A November 5, 2005 article from Peter Popham writing for the Independent News detailed the Fallujah attack:
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
...
a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete.
"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."
Let us also not forget the detailed recalling’s from Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, an official at Iraq’s health ministry:
"I absolutely do not exclude their use of nuclear and chemical substances, since all forms of nature were wiped out in that city. I can even say that we found dozens, if not hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses."
...
During the attack on the city, eyewitnesses described horrific scenes that analysts have attributed to attacks with napalm, a poisonous cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel that has the capacity of melting human flesh and bones.
Inter Press Service reported eyewitness accounts describing bombs that created mushroom clouds and explosions that caused skin to burn even when water was thrown on it. Some eyewitnesses saw indiscriminate shooting and the use of tanks to drag dead bodies to mass graves.
Having gone down memory lane, I am sorry neocons but the Belfast Article written 6 years later and in the present day is not something that can be loosely ignored as having nothing in terms of facts to be backed up. The facts are there.
What was the ultimate conclusion, of the study?
...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.
THAT is the legacy of George W. Bush. I suspect the day will come where everyone and anyone will truly see that Administration for what they were. War criminals.
Next time we all decide to have a pie fight about whether or not President Obama is liberal enough, or not liberal enough, let us remember what was once in power.