Appendix: Iraq

Self-Adoration, Narcissiflorus.

"Narcissus was the beautiful son of Cephissus and the nymph Leiriope, incessantly adored, but never able to return emotion. The nymph Echo was among the first to be spurned by Narcissus; she pined for him until only her voice remained.

When Artemis finally heard the cry of Ameinius who had killed himself on Narcissus's threshold, she revealed Narcissus's reflection in a limpid pool, and allowed him to fall in love with himself. When she denied him consummation, he stabbed himself by the pool of water, and the flower Narcissus sprang from the blood-soaked ground."

~ Bill Neal, Gardener's Latin, 1992

1991 U.S. forces blast Iraq and Kuwait with 320 tons of Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions.

DU ammunition has the following consequences, especially for children:

• Considerable increase in infectious diseases caused by severe immunodeficiencies

• Frequent occurrence of massive herpes and zoster (shingles) afflictions

• AIDS-like symptoms

• Renal and hepatic dysfunction

• Leukemia, aplastic anemia (bone marrow failure to produce blood cells), and malignant tumors

• Congenital heart deformities caused by genetic defects

From an Associated Press / US NAVY photo:

"Lt. Carol Watts, from the Strike-Fighter Squadron Three-Seven, the "Ragin' Bulls", discusses her mission into Iraq, after returning to the USS Enterprise Thursday, December 17, 1998 in the Persian Gulf.

After Cruise missiles were launched, Navy fighters flying off the carrier hit Iraqi air defense radar with HARM missiles. Once those air defenses are down, some of the 246 combat planes now in the Gulf will launch follow-up strikes."

The United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization, along with many independent authorities, assert that at least 500,000 Iraqi children under five have died since 1990, in part as a result of economic sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War.

An August 1999 UNICEF report found that the under-five mortality rate in Iraq has more than doubled since the impositions of sanctions. Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Denis Halliday has remarked that the death toll is "probably closer now to 600,000 and that's over the period of 1990-1998. If you include adults, it's well over 1 million Iraqi people."

A genetic study found an increase of birth malformations in southern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, in particular limb reduction abnormalities of the sort once associated with thalidomide, the morning-sickness drug responsible for severe birth defects between 1956-61. Other frequent birth defects include deformed or missing eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and genital organs.

Robert Fisk, a respected British journalist on the Middle East, reported in 1998 a cancer "epidemic" of leukemia and stomach cancer in southern regions of Iraq claiming the lives of thousands of Iraqi civilians, including children so young that they were not even born when hostilities ended. This cancer epidemic is slowly moving from the south to the north of the country as if it was an infectious disease. Between 1997-98, doctors in the southern city of Basra registered a 4-fold rise in new cancer cases per year compared to 1988-90, including a high proportion of childhood leukemia and lymphoma.

Most of the new cancer cases came from areas immediately to the east of the main Gulf War battlefields. The farms producing most of the city's food are also located in this area. Doctors fear that the farms have been contaminated by depleted uranium shells, and also by fumes from burning oil refineries.

• The Folly of Proof | Appendix: KOSOVO

• The Folly of Proof | Appendix: SUDAN