Iraqi Children Are Harmed by the Environmental Legacy of War

By Kelly Hayes-Raitt

Baghdad, Fallouja, Basra – "I can’t wait to get back to LA and clean out my
lungs," I joked sarcastically while in Baghdad in July.

Three wars, twelve years of sanctions and two decades of rule by a cruel,
uncaring tyrant have left Iraqis -- especially children -- with high rates of
respiratory diseases, typhoid, chronic dysentery and leukemia.

Even before this year’s war, Iraqi children suffered from the unhealthful
environmental effects of previous wars and sanctions. In 1991, during the first
Gulf War, US-led forces bombed sewage treatment plants; 50 percent remained
unrepaired a dozen years later because sanctions held up the importation of spare parts and chlorine. (Chlorine, suspected of being used to build chemical weapons, was particularly difficult to import.)

Before this year’s devastating "shock and awe" bombing in March and April,
Iraqis daily dumped 500,000 metric tons of raw sewage into the Tigris, Euphrates and other rivers. These rivers are sources of drinking water.

We bombed water treatment plants in 1991, which remained unrepaired by the time we bombed again this spring -- once again, because sanctions held up the importation of spare parts and chlorine.

The result is that for years children drank non-potable water. Childhood
diarrhea quadrupled over the last decade; the average Iraqi child had diarrhea
14 days each month -- before this last war. The United Nations has estimated
that childhood diarrhea has tripled again over the last five months.

The immediate future doesn’t bode well for the few functioning water
treatment plants that still exist. For example, I visited a small water treatment
plant in Fallouja that serves 5,000 people with clean, chlorinated water.

Faiza Ahmed, the dynamic female chief engineer who overseas drinking water for 200,000 residents of Fallouja and its suburbs, said, "We have chlorine for two
months more. After that, who knows?"

While visiting a Croce Rossa Italiana (Italian Red Cross) emergency
M*A*S*H-style tent hospital erected on a vacant parking lot next to the old prison in Baghdad, I met Ebade, a fragile infant who had had diarrhea for 49 consecutive days.

"She came in more dead than alive," said Anna Prousse, a compassionate,
hard-working volunteer from Milan, Italy. "She screams regularly now, so she
will be OK."

The Italian volunteers distribute 8,000 one-liter plastic bags of filtered
water each day to schools, orphanages, and hospitals. Yet, pediatricians at the
dramatic tent hospital daily treat between 150 and 180 Iraqis -- primarily
children -- who suffer from malnutrition, hepatitis, meningitis and typhoid, Anna
explains over the sound of nearby gunshots.

"We see everything," says Anna, looking at the long line of Iraqis waiting in
the 120 degree afternoon heat. "Thousands of children with desperate
diseases, some we haven’t seen before. Some are congenital -- many families marry among themselves. Some of the congenital diseases are due to depleted uranium."

In 1991, we dropped 320 tons of depleted uranium on Iraqis. The United
Nations estimates we used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons -- between three and seven times as much -- during this recent war.

While there are no specific scientific studies linking depleted uranium exposure and incidents of cancer or birth defects, Iraqi doctors widely cite high incidents of childhood leukemias, birth defects and stillbirths in people who live near areas that were exposed to this nuclear waste. (American soldiers may also have been exposed to depleted uranium during both wars.)

In July, I toured a pediatric unit of the Basra Hospital for Obstetrics and
Pediatrics. "The situation was not good before the war," explains Dr. Mohammed Masser, head pediatrician, as he clicked his worry beads.

"Previously, there were no drugs, no sanitation, no electricity. I had one patient die every month because of cancer, but I have five people die every day from diarrhea, due to malnutrition."

The impact of this epidemic of childhood diseases is staggering: 50 percent of
Iraq’s population are children under the age of 16 -- that’s 13 million children.
Before this last war, every other family experienced the death of a child
under the age of five. Iraqi families will be living with the effects of this
most recent war for decades to come.

"Most patients have come from areas with heavy bombing," said Dr. Mohammed
Kamil, head of pediatric residents at the Basra Hospital for Obstetrics and
Pediatrics, when describing his young cancer patients.

"The children with cancer -- only one percent will live. We can’t get the chemotherapy. We cannot tell people their children will die; we just do our best."

Kelly Hayes-Raitt is a political consultant specializing in fundraising,
public relations and community organizing for campaigns and non-profit
organizations. She traveled to Iraq in February and July and has been addressing audiences throughout California about the people she met.