The United States Takes the Matter of Three-headed Babies Very Seriously

The iraqi goverment had toxic chemicals all over there country.
Here is a case of them haveing hexavalent chromium at a water treatment plant.
There is no reason to have it there as hexavalent chromium is not used for ant legament water treatment.
So what was saddam planing to use it for. KILLING OFF HIS ENEMIES??????

www.wvpubcast.org...

he is another case of a toxin at a water treatment plant this time it was sodium dichromate.
abcnews.go.com...

The UN found a chemical weapons factory in Fallujah in the 1990s.
could that have caused birth defects. you bet.

Under Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq from 1979 to 2003, Fallujah came to be an important area of support for the regime, along with the rest of the region labeled by the US military as the "Sunni Triangle". Many residents of the primarily Sunni city were employees and supporters of Saddam's government, and many senior Ba'ath Party officials were natives of the city. Fallujah was heavily industrialised during the Saddam era, with the construction of several large factories, including one closed down by United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in the 1990s that may have been used to create chemical weapons. A new highway system (a part of Saddam's infrastructure initiatives) circumvented Fallujah and gradually caused the city to decline in national importance by the time of the Iraq War.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Milleresque


I think CObbz may have been referring to the use of white phosporous, which was used on Fallujah. All these sick children break my heart, I have a very hard time watching those kinds of videos. You get all this pent up emotion and no way to get rid of it. To know that we are responsible as a nation for these illnesses is another difficult issue. Damn shame we will never prosecute the people that started this war.

reply to post by C0bzz


Sorry, i think I misunderstood what you were trying to say. I agree, it is both chemically and radiologically toxic. But it's still bloody bad for you. It can damage pretty much all internal organs and that's just in fully grown adults. We can only guess at what it could do to a developing foetus.

Originally posted by SassyCat
This issue is similar to pollution in China, official corporate statements go like this:

- Our hazardous waste is safely processed, independent studies were done by agents paid to disrupt China's economic prosperity.
- Our waste is not hazardous and in fact can be healthy, we adhere to the standards proposed by government laws.
- There are no studies indicating that [insert chemical here] causes cancer, deformities and sickness. Our waste is in no way whatsoever related with a hundred-fold increased rate of cancer and drastically lowered immunity of nearby residents.
- Nefarious photographers ruining our corporate reputation are eco-terrorists and should be brought to justice...
- etc.

Anyway, it should be fully expected that having children in Iraq is risky business...

That's delusional man!

Many of the corporations which now are polluting in China are Multinational corporations and often American owned, who fled the tight regulated western world for less regulations and cheap labour in China.

Suck on that one for a minute!

The damage has been done by the war.

We, meaning the west, need to remain in Iraq, and face up to some of the mounting horrors that many in Iraq face.

IMO we, if we are to be looked upon as a "historical conqueror" need to provide the people of Iraq with hospitals, clean water and a future.

To destroy a country and then leave it to suffer and die would bring on dire consequences [imo] which would in turn destroy the West.

Disease and birth defects are easily caused by many substances that are non-radioactive...why does depleted uranium have to be the cause? If it is, does it really matter since the source of the agent is the problem? Thank you C0Bzz for keeping your mind open to all possibilities.

I think it is easy for superficial people to dismiss or ridicule the point that the OP is making. Or maybe it is because this is happening thousands of miles from most Americans, out of sight out of mind, to post a picture of a conjoined twins and say look at them they get on just fine is a seriously misguided or bad attempt at making people think it is ok.

Do you have children? If you say no then you cannot ever begin to empathise or feel the terror and anguish a parent would if their new baby boy or girl was born with these defects.

If you do have children then take another look at them and imagine the worst, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Imagine if a dirty bomb went off in a major American city and for years later birth defects were rampant what would you all do then? Wait I already know find a scapegoat and massacre them.

reply to post by bharata


Scapegoats...

Remember Israel actually has a real scapegoat.

lol

Anyhow yes....I fully agree except that this is in our own backyard so to speak.

This...Iraq...is part of the American Empire so we need to educate, build and prosper Iraq.

Shows who I imprinted with...lol...inside joke.

YAY! An apologist for the crimes of empire.

And of course, someone who's trying hard to ignore the relevant facts offered in the OP source... Let's just quote the relevant part again, shall we? And for the hard of thinking, let's just bold the important details...

One doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 — when she saw about one case every two months — with the situation now, when she saw cases every day.

Originally posted by ANNED
The iraqi goverment had toxic chemicals all over there country.
Here is a case of them haveing hexavalent chromium at a water treatment plant.
There is no reason to have it there as hexavalent chromium is not used for ant legament water treatment.
So what was saddam planing to use it for. KILLING OFF HIS ENEMIES??????

www.wvpubcast.org...

Nice caps, Anne. A little unnecessary, perhaps. And according to Wiki,

en.wikipedia.org...

HC is used for:

Hexavalent chromium is used for the production of stainless steel, textile dyes, wood preservation, leather tanning, and as anti-corrosion and conversion coatings as well as a variety of niche uses.

And I love the link you posted, which (to the careful reader, probably not you, Anne) doesn't even support your case!

Who is the soldier suing? The Iraqi government? Saddam Hussein? No... Kellog, Brown and Root. And had you actually bothered to read what you posted, you'd have seen that, no, it wasn't being used to KILL HIS ENEMIES!!!???? it was being used, as Wiki might have suggested,

Hexavalent chromium is a toxic chemical Iraqis used to prevent pipe corrosion at the water treatment plant.

That's from your source:
www.wvpubcast.org...

Originally posted by ANNED
The UN found a chemical weapons factory in Fallujah in the 1990s.
could that have caused birth defects. you bet.

Just check what the doctor said... things started to go off the scale after the battle of Fallujah! That's 2003. It featured the use of DU weapons, white phosphorus, and napalm, according to eyewitnesses.

www.newstatesman.com...

While visiting Yarmouk Hospital looking for more information about Fallujah, I came across several children from areas south of Baghdad. One of these was a 12-year-old girl, Fatima Harouz, from Latifiya. She lay dazed in a crowded hospital room, limply waving her bruised arm at the flies. Her shins, shattered by bullets from US soldiers when they fired through the front door of her house, were both covered by casts. Small plastic drainage bags filled with red fluid sat upon her abdomen, where she took shrapnel from another bullet. Her mother told us, "They attacked our home, and there weren't even any resistance fighters in our area."

Fatima's uncle was shot and killed, his wife had been wounded, and their home was ransacked by soldiers. "Before they left, they killed all our chickens." A doctor who was with us looked at me and asked, "This is the freedom. In their Disneyland are there kids just like this?"

Wow, those chickens must have been insurgents too, huhs?

more...

There were also stories of soldiers not discriminating between civilians and resistance fighters. Another man, Abdul Razaq Ismail, had arrived from Fallujah one week earlier and had been helping with the distribution of supplies to other refugees, having received similar help himself. Loading a box with blankets to send to a refugee camp, he said, "There are dead bodies on the ground and nobody can bury them. The Americans are dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates River near Fallujah. They are pulling some bodies with tanks and leaving them at the soccer stadium." Another man sat nearby nodding his head. He couldn't stop crying. After a while, he said he wanted to talk to us. "They bombed my neighbourhood and we used car jacks to raise the blocks of concrete to get dead children out from under them."

For those interested enough (not you, ANNE, you'll be too busy putting your fingers in your ears and singing "la, la la laaa!" as loud as you can), here's a link to more thorough accounts of the atrocities visited on Fallujah:

www.brusselstribunal.org...

Originally posted by whiteraven
The damage has been done by the war.

We, meaning the west, need to remain in Iraq, and face up to some of the mounting horrors that many in Iraq face.

IMO we, if we are to be looked upon as a "historical conqueror" need to provide the people of Iraq with hospitals, clean water and a future.

To destroy a country and then leave it to suffer and die would bring on dire consequences [imo] which would in turn destroy the West.

Whiteraven, I know you mean well, but ultimately this is patronising garbage. Sorry to be so blunt, but there it is.

Let's be realistic for a moment: the issue was never Saddam being evil, or having mythical WMDs. He was selling his oil in Euros, not dollars; and the US administration always wanted to get into Iraq and asset-strip it for the corporations. This has been done.

The best thing the US could do would be to get out and pay the Iraqis a lot of compensation.

Under Saddam, believe it or not, the Iraqi people were some of the best-educated in the region, and the infant mortality rate (always a good indicator of overall soundness) by far the best in the region - rather better than US inner cities in many cases.

When the "reconstruction" was going on, the Iraqis noticed that all the work was going to US corporations who would do a poor job and pocket an enormous sum: Iraqi firms were offering reasonable bids but would be shut out, surprise surprise.

Part of the propaganda the US is labouring under is the idea that they (the Iraqis) are barely civilised enough to be sitting on chairs. Even under sanctions, Saddam kept his people fed. I'm not saying the guy's a saint: he wasn't. But it was more complex than the cartoon picture most Americans have in their heads.

[edit on 8-4-2010 by rich23]

reply to post by rich23


By pointing out that the source of such defects may not be depleted uranium makes one an apologist for the empire? Really now. Hexavalent chromium is used for a variety of purposes, one of which is steel pipe electrochemical corrosion control. It's nasty stuff, just ask Erin Brockovich.

Now the OP...I don't condone anything that we have done imperialistically in the middle east. I'm a US citizen. Don't generalize my country and stereotype my fellow citizens. Don't Tread On Me. We had to clean house once in this country and we can do it again.

The doctor mentions that a girl with an eye in the middle of her forehead and one with a nose was born. Produce evidence of this and this merits further investigation. Just not understanding the contrived idea of the OP posting something when he is already convinced the US must pay Iraq compensation. Money means nothing to a person with a birth defect.

[edit on 8-4-2010 by ibiubu]

[edit on 8-4-2010 by ibiubu]

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
reply to post by rich23

 

Well I 've heard the expression "two heads are better than one" and there may be some truth in that. The Hensel sisters think having two heads makes them a safer driver:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6f0be1da2c55.jpg[/atsimg]

If you only have one head you can only look one way at a time before crossing a street. The Hensel sisters can look two ways at a time which is safer.

But if you think about it, when you cross a street while driving, it might help to actually look in 3 directions, to the left, to the right, and forward. So having three heads might be ideal for such visibility, (or else evolving some extra eyes on the same head).

So if two heads are better than one, are three heads better than two?

That said I don't think I'd like sharing the same body with one of my siblings, I kind of like having my own body, so having extra heads could be a disadvantage too.

I don't think the Hensel sisters were exposed to any DU so this condition can obviously occur without such exposure. I would have thought things like higher cancer incidence would be a more prevalent symptom of exposure to uranium, based on the training I was given to be able to handle radioactive materials in compliance with federal regulations.

I would just as soon see them fire larger lead pellets instead of DU pellets, then there wouldn't be the question about the safety of DU.

Making a joke out of birth deformities? You even provided a pic of conjoined twins to bring home the punch line. Classy. ATS content is not suppose to be bigoted or discriminatory.. so what made you think making fun of those girls was okay?

On topic. Remember Saddam gassing his own people?

(btw. I'm not for US being there still but they are not the only possible cause)

[edit on 8-4-2010 by riley]

Anned made a good point with sources, and everyone seems to be shrugging it off... you're all on the death to america band wagon and you all scramble for new ways to make america look like the nazis...kinda makes me sick...

www.jointogether.org...

Drug Use Soars in Iraq
October 12, 2005

Share Email Print Subscribe News Summary



Use of heroin and other hard drugs, virtually unknown in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime, has increased dramatically since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, IRIN reported Oct. 11.
A combination of lax anti-drug enforcement and the trauma of war and insurgency have led to a flood of drugs on the streets of Baghdad and other communities and an increase in use, especially among young people. Many users also work as dealers to support their habit.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health says drug use is rising among men and women of all ages, particularly in Baghdad and in the southern part of Iraq. Heroin is smuggled in from Afghanistan via Iran, while coc aine comes in from Turkey. Police and soldiers are too busy fighting the insurgency to worry about drugs; there is only one drug-sniffing dog in the country, and the Interior Ministry only recently launched an anti-drug squad.

"In the present circumstances we have to choose our priorities and the insurgency is killing more people than the drugs are," said Saruwad Haeezid, an Interior Ministry official.

Dealers say foreign troops, notably Italian soldiers, have also driven up demand for drugs.

"There has [been] a huge increase in the consumption of drugs since last year," said Kamel Ali, director of the Ministry of Health's drug-control program. "The numbers have doubled. In most cases the users are youths who have become addicted and are now working as drug dealers under pressure from the traffickers in order to keep themselves supplied."

Under Saddam, anyone caught with hard drugs faced execution. Now, few dealers fear police, and some officers are users themselves. "They cannot do anything to us," said dealer Abu Ali. "Sometimes you even find members of the Iraqi army or the police looking for us to buy some of this great white powder which makes you fly to another planet."

Could drugs cause the problem?

news.bbc.co.uk...

Drug crisis grips Baghdad


Iraqi police want tougher sentences for drug dealers
A drugs epidemic and accompanying crime wave is sweeping Baghdad.
A boom in supply of hallucinogenic tablets has been coupled with the release of tens of thousands of criminals from prison before the US-led invasion to create a huge problem for the fledgling Iraqi police force.

As well as the tablets, drugs like Valium and sleeping pills - in common use in Iraqi jails - are being used. The euphoria and lack of fear provided by the drugs, the police say, is giving desperate criminals the courage to carry out more crimes.

"The release of those prisoners was a crime - a crime against me, against all Iraqis," Omar Zahed, the leader of the Iraq police's anti-drugs squad, told BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"There has been a big increase in crime, and the released prisoners have started involving other people as well.

"Most of our criminals take these tablets before they act. It stops them feeling any scruples or fear.

"When the effects wear off, they forget what they did. It has caused a huge increase in crime."

""They only appeared in this country about two years ago," he stated.

"We did a study and discovered it was a sabotage operation from outside Iraq. It had to be - because at first the tablets were coming in at a totally uneconomical price, just a few US cents per strip.

"Most of the tablets came in over our Eastern boarder with Iran. Our people used them and they have become part of a very profitable trade.

"There is an enormous mark-up on the price."

Mr Zahed said there were around 10-15 types of tablets. He added that some marijuana also came in, but it was not commonly used as it was very expensive.

.

One type of tablet is called Lebanon - when I take it I see Lebanon. I've never been there, but it's in the tablet," he told Outlook.

"I used to see bad things as well. I used to have terrible nightmares and be filled with fear.

"I dream of sex. When you take a tablet it makes you desperate. I attack women.

"You get a friend or a neighbour, or you get a weapon and kill someone, but you are not aware of your actions."

.

Collapsed system

Among the users, some of the street addicts are very young.

Teenagers and younger children sniffing paint thinner or correction fluid is a common sight.

"The other day I saw a five-year-old child on the street carrying a bag of correction fluid - it was awful," one Baghdad cafe owner said.

"But he was just copying the older children."

The cafe owner said that the explosion in drug use was due to the anarchy that had hit some parts of the capital after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"You didn't see gangs of children on the streets before the war," he said.

"Some of them come from homes and orphanages, because the whole system has collapsed."

This is sad to me...probably the worst effect of the war in Iraq IMO.

I know people area all upset about the wikileaks video of the helicopter shooting...but to me it doesn't compare at all to this.

But I bet you won't get as many replies as the wikileaks video...because that whole wikileaks thing was more about government cover up/conspiracy then it was about the actual deaths...like it or not...people seem to only be compassionate when it helps push their own personal agenda.

We should of never been there...and why are we shocked when we find out that these people hate the United States????

If it were white phospherous, then sadly we will soon see it in Gaza too, if there are enough able people there left to reproduce....

Yes, it could have been caused by chemicals THEY had put in those areas. I'm sure that's why there's just a RECENT rise.

Seriously, a good study could be done looking at the timing. Who would want to do that study? If you don't, you can say, oh, it was these chemicals saddam had in the water plants. I think they call that plausible deniability?

I personally would rather us have never been there in the first place, or at least since we were not to have used chemical weapons against the populace.

Oh, we didn't, you say? We just used it to light up the night sky? I see, I didn't realize it was so light it would float up and disappear.

Originally posted by ibiubu
By pointing out that the source of such defects may not be depleted uranium makes one an apologist for the empire? Really now. Hexavalent chromium is used for a variety of purposes, one of which is steel pipe electrochemical corrosion control. It's nasty stuff, just ask Erin Brockovich.
[edit on 8-4-2010 by ibiubu]

Your casual attitude towards dismissing what is an obvious connection between birth defects and the concentrated use of US weapons is despicable.

Even in cases where Chromium-6 was used, there aren't nearly the number of birth defects as there are in Fallujah. I'm not saying that Chromium-6 doesn't cause cancer, because I'm sure it does. I'm saying I didn't see any 3 headed babies in Erin Brockovich... there weren't hundreds of babies dying every month in Hinkley, where Erin Brockovich found out people were getting sick.

The people of Basra, Iraq have increased rates of cancer and birth defects, just like Fallujah. A lot of DU was used in Gulf War 1 in Basra, and now many of those people have increased cancer rates as well. Does anyone ever wonder what Gulf War Syndrome was?

Doctors from Basra have been reporting a rapid rise in the number of cases of cancers and birth defects since the mid-1990s. They strongly suspect that the environmental damage from pollutants - including DU contamination - released during conflicts may be responsible.

Ibiubu, you might as well be the guy in the 1970's getting on TV and explaining that Agent Orange is perfectly safe.

www.americanfreepress.net...

www.bandepleteduranium.org...

stopthedrugwar.org...

Three years after the US invasion of Iraq, drug trafficking and addiction are on the rise, officials at the country's Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told the United Nations' humanitarian news agency, IRIN, Monday. The remarks were prompted by large drugs seizures in recent weeks.

The primary illicit drugs being used are heroin, coc aine, and marijuana, with grams of heroin or coc aine going for $20 to $30 dollars, ministry officials said. (Previous reports have noted widespread abuse of prescription drugs as well.) They said the heroin is coming from Afghanistan and Iran and the coc aine is somehow arriving from South America.

"We estimate that more than 5,000 Iraqis are consuming drugs in the south today, especially heroin, compared with 2004, when there were only around 1,500," said Dr Kamel Ali, a senior official in the health ministry's anti-narcotics program. "We fear the number could be as high as 10,000 countrywide."

Officials singled out the Shiite south as a problem area. It is unclear what effective authority the Baghdad government or its anti-drug ministries have in the restive Sunni parts of the country. Police have carried out more than 50 raids since September in Kerbala, 70 miles south of Baghdad, alone, they said.

"Kerbala and Najaf are the biggest consumers of drugs," said Sinan Youssef, a senior official in the social affairs ministry's strategy department. "We believe the drugs [heroin/marijuana] are brought into the country by visitors from Iran and Afghanistan every month."

According to Major Salah Hassan of Kerbala's crime unit, more than 100 kilos of heroin, 40 kilos of coc aine and 160 kilos of marijuana have been found by local police in Kerbala and in Najaf. "We're very concerned that the situation is getting worse, and the seizures on the borders are increasing," said Major Salah Hassan of the Kerbala police, citing the seizure of more than 220 pounds of heroin and 100 pounds of coc aine in recent raids. "We arrested more than 20 Iraqis carrying drugs since last year and we're proceeding with careful investigations to discover the source," Hassan added. "Urgent action should be taken by the Ministry of Interior to prevent more drugs from entering Iraq."

For Youssef, the reasons for the increase in drug use and trafficking are clear: insecurity, terrorism, and lack of employment. "The number of addicts is increasing, particularly among young people from conservative families, where there are more religious restrictions," he said. "This makes them look for another way to forget about the pressure that the society puts on them."

.

[edit on 8-4-2010 by JBA2848]

reply to post by JBA2848


First of all, you double posted two huge quotes, which is against the TC.

Second of all, no, drugs would not do that. Drugs are done all over the world, all the time, including in Europe, and the rate of birth defects and cancer are 13 times higher in Fallujah than in Europe.

In Fallujah, it's not drugs, it's not Chromium-6.

DEPLETED URANIUM CAUSES CANCER AND BIRTH DEFECTS