Iraq War Wrecks the Ecological Environment: Analysis

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Iraq War Wrecks the Ecological Environment: Analysis

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In the meanwhile when the world attention is riveted on the war in Iraq people are worried about the ecological disasters brought about by the raging war there. By way of the modernized information media, people come to see plumes of black smoke over the sky of Baghdad, piece after piece of burnt soil on the ancient land of Babylon and traces of blood along the two river reaches.

From the day-and-night bombing, people can easily remember a scene, in which the communications building at Baghdad was hit by guided missiles with thick black columns of smoke rising into the sky, shading mercilessly off the sunshine. A few small birds flapped away in a great surprise and an Iraqi soldier stood blear-eyed up from heaps of ruins and debris, picking up a pigeon blown to death�� The noiseless picture expressed the strong wishes of the Iraqi people for peace and also accused the disastrous catastrophes brought about by the war onto the mankind and the environment.

Iraq is one of the transit spots for migrant birds between African and European continents. Every spring and autumn see groups of migrant birds migrate over the land and sky here. The great expanse of marshland and wetland in the south of Iraq proves to be one of the natural sanctuaries for tens of thousands of water birds in west Asia. However, the merciless fire of war is now swallowing the paradise of birds. According to statistics, over 40 species of rare water birds, crustaceans and mammals extirpated on the land of Iraq ever since the Gulf War in 1991.

The ecological disaster entailed from the war includes many aspects. The "Gulf War Syndrome" incurred by the war in 1991 features spiritual melancholy, headache and listlessness, cough and asthma, loss of weight due to diarrhea and dysgenesis, etc. that are so far nagging the 200,000 people dragged into that war, becoming their unshakable nightmare. Experts say, the "Gulf War Syndrome" was mainly caused by the leakage of chemical and biological preparations, environment pollution brought about by oil-well conflagration and the depleted uranium bombs dropped by the US armed forces.

The ecological disaster brought about by the hi-tech war is even more astonishing. All modern weapons such as the depleted-uranium, high-energy microwave and clustered bombs used by the US armed forces are the root-cause of the disasters detrimental to the health of human beings. Take the depleted uranium bomb for instance, the research data indicate that the micro-granules produced after the explosion of the depleted U-bombs will entail a longtime damage to the ecological environment. It will lead to an obvious increase of patients suffering from carcinoma, diseases in cardiovascular and neurological systems in the polluted area, and also possible to cause cataract, handicapped in hematopoitic system, decrease in fertility and even death, etc. French experts made a comment like this: the frequent use of the depleted U-bombs by the US armed forces is sure to cause new disasters in the Middle East.

What makes people feel worried is the conflagration of the oil wells. During the Gulf War period of 1991, the oil-well conflagration lasted for some 9 months before they were put out with the dust floating all the way to the southern foot of the Himalayas, therefore, causing a large-scale damage to the ecological environment. Aside from that the oil leakage during the war covered a sea-surface of over 1000 square kilometers and polluted more than 500 kilometers of seashores. The 60 million barrels of oil poured by the Iraqi army on the desert of Kuwait formed an oil lake large as 49 square kilometers, which eroded the depth of soil, making some 40 percent of the underground water resources in Kuwait polluted. Now, the oil-well fires have also been set ablaze day and night in Iraq. The oil-well fires will not only deteriorate seriously the environment in the Middle East but also the air over the whole globe, warned the experts.

By People's Daily Online

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