Iraq is an Environmental Disaster!

[leftchick]

Is Environmental Destruction a War Crime?
In Iraq and elsewhere, it is not just guns and missiles that kill people. Yet international law seems powerless to heal nations ravaged by conflict.

http://nrdc.org/onearth/05win/briefings.asp





<snip>

Bechtel said that it would repair water treatment and distribution systems in 15 cities within six months; within a year, every town in Iraq was to have potable water. At the same time, Paul Bremer, administrator of the Coalition Authority, vowed that electricity production would rise from about 4,400 to 6,000 megawatts by the time the occupation ended in June 2004. None of this happened. Power output remained stalled at the depleted prewar levels, and Iraqis were forced to swelter through a second summer of rolling blackouts.

Clean water is directly related to the reliability of power supplies. Iraq's sewage treatment system, which relies on a network of pumping stations, breaks down when blackouts occur and the pumps stop running. When this happens in Baghdad, for example, huge quantities of raw sewage and industrial waste pour directly into the Tigris River, the city's only source of drinking water. The result, says Bathsheba Crocker, a post-conflict reconstruction expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., is "an increase in water-borne diseases, everything from cholera to hepatitis and chronic diarrhea."

Far from being the key to increased security, water and power supplies instead became a principal focus of roiling public discontent. By April 2004, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that just 11 percent of Iraqis believed "coalition forces are trying hard to restore basic services such as electricity and clean drinking water."

It's tempting to let Bechtel off the hook by citing the inevitable delays caused by violence, sabotage, and looting. But in fact Bechtel's problem was that it often moved too fast, not too slow. Above all, the company rode roughshod over AID's environmental regulations. In June 2004, on the eve of the transfer of sovereignty, the agency published a scathing audit of Bechtel's performance. In 60 of its 72 projects, Bechtel had failed to carry out an adequate environmental review before starting work. AID has the power to issue exemptions, but it had declined to do so in Bechtel's case, given the critical environmental importance of its projects.

[illflem]

1. Blowing up oil pipelines

every other day certainly isn't helping the environment.

[leftchick]

2. they were not being blown up....

before the US decided to make it the 51st state. :eyes:

[LuCifer]

5. Let's not forget the "benefits" of DEPLETED URANIUM

The Great Wall of China is the only human made thing visible from outer space, and not Iraq is visible night and day thanks to the TONS of radioactive crap our psycho gov't has dumped there.

Happy Hollidays and SLEEP TIGHT!

Lu
http://www.LU13.TK
http://www.MidnightCalling.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeftWingRadicals/join

[G_j]

7. "DEPLETED URANIUM WILL POLLUTE IRAQ FOR 4.5 BILLION YEARS"

http://www.casavaria.com/contour/updates/environment/04-0526-DU.htm

DEPLETED URANIUM WILL POLLUTE IRAQ FOR 4.5 BILLION YEARS
26 May 2004

The President of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute has called for a comprehensive cleanup initiative in Iraq, aimed at reducing the danger posed by Depleted Uranium, left over from artillery shells launched against Basra, Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of the NPRI, Uranium 238, the radioactive isotope present in Depleted Uranium, has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. That means that the level of radioactivity of the molecules in a mass of Depleted Uranium will be halved only after 4.5 billion years. This means that land contaminated with DU spilled from exploding artillery shells, used by the US military against enemy tanks, artillery depots and fortifications, will still be radioactive and uninhabitable 4.5 billion years from now.

Dr. Caldicott told C-SPAN's Washington Journal today that after DU was used against Basra in 1991, there has been a five-fold increase in childhood cancer rates, with a shocking increase in birth defects. She also said that food throughout Europe is still radioactive, due to Strontium 90 contamination from the Chernobyl disaster, highlighting the need to reduce the level of radioactive human products in the environment.

The NPRI release calls for an immediate cleanup effort in Iraq, for the Pentagon to directly fund and execute tests of buildings and to remove all radioactive materials and bury them underground. There has also been a growing chorus of calls for testing of military personnel who had served in the Gulf War, and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. To this day, according to Dr. Caldicott, the Pentagon has refused to test any of its combat veterans' urine for contamination by Depleted Uranium.

..more..

[G_j]

3. an important part of the story that rarely gets mentioned

the thought of all that depleted uranium is also horrifying.
We'll be killing children (and others) there for a LONG time it seems.

[Karenina]

4. Population reduction

proceeding as planned...

[OneBlueSky]

6. Bush and company should be prosecuted as war criminals . . .

of the worst kind for what they've done to Iraq . . . the DU contamination essentially makes large portions of the country uninhabitable . . . well, forever . . . unfortunately, Iraqis unaware of this will continue to live in these areas, consigning both themselves and their offspring to devastating diseases and early deaths . . . of all the things BushCo has done, this may be he one that most disgusts me . . . and that's saying a lot . . .

[leftchick]

8. in addition to the US soldiers!

I wonder if they think about that part of the job?

[Swamp Rat]

9. PNAC = 21st Century Nazis

[IHeart1993]

10. I think an enviromental disaster is a war crime.

Can we charge bush & co. for both the US and Iraq?

[leftchick]

11. Apparently not.... Remember bushco* doesn't do Geneva....

Conventions..

<snip>
The clearest prohibition of environmental abuse in wartime is contained in the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions. But the United States has refused to ratify the protocol, with the Pentagon claiming that its humanitarian tilt "would thwart quick victories in war." According to Ken Hurwitz, an international humanitarian-law specialist with Human Rights First in New York, "The problem is that although the United States has accepted many of the provisions of Protocol I in practice, it has specifically rejected Article 55." This bars "methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment."

If the Geneva Conventions offer no remedy, what about the laws that govern the postwar conduct of a victorious occupier? "You're more or less stuck with the Hague rules," says Hurwitz, referring to the 1907 Fourth Hague Convention, which makes no mention of the environment. Yet while occupying forces often take a minimalist view of their responsibilities, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq did exactly the opposite. It demanded sweeping legal powers to remake Iraqi society, arguing that peace and security depended on reviving the economy and guaranteeing the provision of basic services. In the process, the coalition -- unintentionally, no doubt -- assumed broad responsibility for protecting key elements of the Iraqi environment.