The Horrors of War: An Anti-Nuclear Activist’s Story

Washington, March 20 – The echoes of the crimes committed by the US military during the years of the war in Iraq, as well as the abnormalities and physiological defects among the local population that became more frequent after the end of the campaign, will haunt the Iraqis forever, against nuclear weapons. Activist and peace activist Helen Caldicott told the News Agency.

Exactly 20 years ago, an international coalition led by the United States launched a military operation code-named “Iraqi Freedom”.

The operation continued until May 1, 2003 without UN sanctions. The official reason for the invasion was the association of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with international terrorism, as well as the CIA’s version of the presence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was later recognized as unconfirmed.

She noted that the US military used ammunition filled with depleted uranium-238, which, when decomposing air and soil pollution with its particles, is then carried by the wind “for the rest of the time.” In total, during the years of the campaign, the United States and Great Britain dumped more than 1,700 tons of depleted uranium on Iraq.

“Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have been sounding the alarm since 2005 about the number of children born with serious defects, from a two-headed baby girl to paralysis of the lower extremities, as well as more cancer cases than were recorded before the battle for Fallujah between US and Iraqi forces.”

In Fallujah, she said, where fierce fighting took place, a quarter of all newborns were born with severe deformities. It turned out that the number of cases of leukemia here is 38 times higher, and children’s cancer – 12 times higher than in neighboring Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait.

According to the US Department of Defense, during the war in Iraq, 4,431 soldiers were killed, and about 32,000 were injured.

According to the World Health Organization, between 2003 and 2006 alone, up to 223 thousand Iraqis became war victims. According to international experts, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of between 1 million and 1.4 million of its citizens.