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Iraq’s Poisoned Water

Allies deliberately poisoned Iraq public water supply in Gulf War investigation

Sunday Herald (Scotland)
Sept. 17, 2000

The US-led allied forces deliberately destroyed Iraq’s water supply during the Gulf War — flagrantly breaking the Geneva Convention and causing thousands of civilian deaths.

Since the war ended in 1991 the allied nations have made sure that any attempts to make contaminated water safe have been thwarted. A respected American professor now intends to convene expert hearings in a bid to pursue criminal indictments under international law against those responsible.

Professor Thomas J Nagy, Professor of Expert Systems at George Washington University with a doctoral fellowship in public health, told the Sunday Herald:

“Those who saw nothing wrong in producing [this plan], those who ordered its production and those who knew about it and have remained silent for 10 years would seem to be in violation of Federal Statute and perhaps have even conspired to commit genocide.”

Professor Nagy obtained a minutely detailed seven-page document prepared by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, issued the day after the war started, entitled Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities and circulated to all major allied Commands. It states that Iraq had gone to considerable trouble to provide a supply of pure water to its population. It had to depend on importing specialised equipment and purification chemicals, since water is “heavily mineralised and frequently brackish”.

The report stated:

“Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidents, if not epidemics, of disease and certain pure-water dependent industries becoming incapacitated.”

The report concludes:

“Full degradation of the water treatment system probably will take at least another six months.”

During allied bombing campaigns on Iraq the country’s eight multi-purpose dams had been repeatedly hit, simultaneously wrecking flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation and hydroelectric power. Four of seven major pumping stations were destroyed, as were 31 municipal water and sewerage facilities — 20 in Baghdad, resulting in sewage pouring into the Tigris. Water purification plants were incapacitated throughout Iraq.

Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states:

“It is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” and includes foodstuffs, livestock and “drinking water supplies and irrigation works”.

The results of the allied bombing campaign were obvious when Dr David Levenson visited Iraq immediately after the Gulf War, on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He said:

“For many weeks people in Baghdad — without television, radio, or newspapers to warn them — brought their drinking water from the Tigris, in buckets.

“Dehydrated from nausea and diarrhoea, craving liquids, they drank more of the water that made them sick in the first place.”

Water-borne diseases in Iraq today are both endemic and epidemic. They include typhoid, dysentery, hepatitis, cholera and polio (which had previously been eradicated), along with a litany of others. A child with dysentery in 1990 had a one in 600 chance of dying — in 1999 it was one in 50.

The then US Navy Secretary John Lehman estimated that 200,000 Iraqis died in the Gulf War. Dr Levenson estimates many thousands died from polluted water.

Chlorine and essential equipment parts needed to repair and clear the water system have been banned from entering the country under the UN “hold” system. (American sanctions)

Ohio Democrat Representative Tony Hall has written to American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, saying he shares concerns expressed by UNICEF about the “profound effects the deterioration of Iraq’s water supply and sanitation systems on children’s health”. Diarrhoeal diseases he says are of “epidemic proportions” and are “the prime killer of children under five”.

“Holds on contracts for water and sanitation are a prime reason for the increase in sickness and death.” Of 18 contracts, wrote Hall, all but one on hold were placed by the government in the US.

Contracts were for purification chemicals, chlorinators, chemical dosing pumps, water tankers and other water industry related items.

“If water remains undrinkable, diseases will continue and mortality rates will rise,” said the Iraqi trade minister Muhammed Mahdi Salah. The country’s health ministry said that more than 10,000 people died in July of embargo-related causes — 7457 were children, with diarrhoeal diseases one of the prime conditions.

In July 1989, the figure was 378. UNICEF does not dispute the figures. The problem will not be helped by plans for the giant Ilisu Dam project (to which the British government is to give £200 million in export credit guarantees), which will give Turkey entire control of the water flow to Iraq and Syria.

Constructors Balfour Beatty write in their environmental impact report, that for the three years of construction, water flow to Iraq will be reduced by 40%. Iraq has also suffered a three year drought, with the Tigris the lowest in living memory.

Related pages

Bibliography:
American Sanctions Against the Iraqi People

Satanic American/British Babykillers: State Terrorism of the Iraqi People

The 3 BIG LIES About Iraq
by John Pilger

The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark

Desert Slaughter: The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League

Neighborhood Bully: American Militarism
interview with Ramsey Clark

American/British Terrorism and Genocide of the Iraqi People

The Highway of Death

America: the Ultimate Terrorist
by John Pilger

Related sites

Fire and Ice:
The Devastation of Iraq by War and Sanctions
by Ramsey Clark
http://www.iacenter.org/fireice.htm

“There was no war. No combat. There was only a deliberate, systematic genocide of a defenseless population while barely setting foot on Iraqi soil. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1967, ‘The greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own government’, he could not have dreamed in his worst nightmare what the U.S. did to Iraq.”

U.S. Bombing Watch
When was the last time the U.S. Bombed Iraq?
http://www.ccmep.org/us_bombing_watch.html

A huge list which provides information on the latest bombings of innocent civilian people in Iraq in the last two years.

Ten years since the Gulf War — US and Britain insist sanctions continue against Iraq
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jan2001/gulf-j19.shtml

A good overview of the Desert Storm terror campaign, subsequent sanctions and the present situation.

Defying the Sanctions: A Flight to Iraq
by Michael Parenti
http://www.michaelparenti.org/DefyingSanctions.html

“...on the second day of our visit [in November 2000], US warplanes fired four missiles at the village of Hmaidi in the southern province of Basra, one of which struck the Ali Al-Hayaini school, wounding four children and three teachers. Several homes were also hit.”

International Action Center — Iraq Sanctions Challenge
http://www.iacenter.org/iraqchallenge/

The courageous people at the International Action Center have completed their fourth trip to Iraq. Each time they bring donated medicines to Iraq that are blocked by the American/British sanctions, and then report back on the conditions suffered by the Iraqi people — conditions routinely covered-up by the mainstream corporate mass-media.

Bibliography

The Fire This Time:
U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark

Desert Slaughter:
The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky

Rogue State:
A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum

Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum

Apocalypse 1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving

What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky

The Beast Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee

Against Empire
by Michael Parenti

The Sword and the Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race
by Michael Parenti

Western State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others

Terrorizing the Neighborhood:
American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
by Noam Chomsky
Pressure Drop Press, 1991

The Culture of Terrorism
by Noam Chomsky

The Real Terror Network:
Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda
by Edward S. Herman

Bloody Hell:
The Price Soldiers Pay
by Daniel Hallock

Derailing Democracy:
The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
by David McGowan

Dying For Growth:
Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor
Edited by Jim Yong Kim, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin and John Gershman

Eyes of the Heart:
Seeking a path for the poor in the age of globalization
by Jean-Bertrand Aristide

The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media:
Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
by Norman Solomon

Inventing Reality:
The Politics of News Media
by Michael Parenti

Manufacturing Consent:
The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

War, Lies & Videotape:
How media monopoly stifles truth
edited by Lenora Foerstel; multiple authors