We liberated Iraq and covered the country in uranium
One of our lingering gifts to the Iraqi people--besides freedom and a never-ending civil war--is that one in eight kids are born with massive birth defects due to our use of radioactive ammo in both the wars we've fought in Iraq.
DU rounds are made from depleted uranium. It's heavier than ordinary ammo and does much more damage on a hit. It also tends to powder on impact, covering everything in a fine layer of cancer.
But, hey, at least Saddam Hussein isn't running the joint, right?
Of course, we still haven't discussed the birth defects and cancer.
Yeah, see, during the war, the coalition (or, you know, the United States) used depleted uranium munitions, including, literally, billions of bullets (or, as one Pakistan newspaper put it, "That is 250,000 bullets per 'insurgent' killed in Iraq and Afghanistan." So, you know, no points for accuracy there). And that's not to mention the bombs used this time or the DU left behind after the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
This has created a legacy for the people of Iraq that will long, long outlive whatever good or other ill the war might have done. In Fallujah, the city that we bombed back to the pre-Stone Age, the number of birth defects is staggering: "the incident rates of congenital malformations remained around 14 percent." That includes "babies born with cleft pallets, elongated heads, a baby born with one eye in the centre of its face, overgrown limbs, short limbs, and malformed ears, noses and spines." And this is not to mention the birth defects to the heart at a rate 13 times that of Europe and to the nervous system at 33 times Europe. Parents in Fallujah are reported to be afraid to have children. And if you had a better than 1 in 10 chance of giving birth to a cyclops, you'd be scared, too. In Basra, the rate of birth defects increased by seven times between 1993 and 2004. And then there's the cancer. Between 1993 and 2007, the rate of leukemia in children increased fivefold in Basra.
Essentially, we turned large areas of Iraq into Hiroshima and Nagasaki when it comes to the long-term effects of our bombardments. And, remember, we're just a decade from the start of the war, not the end. The peak of the effects occurring won't be for another few years. Happy anniversary.
