Maybe they can go to the 'Laura Bush' hospital

Here is a story not likely to see the light of day on our non-stop cable chatter channels: the huge spike in radiation-related cancers among the children of Fallujah, six years after the massive assault on the city by its American conquerors.

Fallujah was targeted in 2004 in Operation ‘Vigilant Resolve’ after insurgents there killed four civilian contractors working for the Blackwater security firm and publicly burned their bodies. The incident made a lot of people on the U.S. side very angry, and most of the population was evacuated in preparation for a major battle, which duly ensued and reduced the Sunni stronghold to rubble.

The British Independent reported on an epidemiological survey that was conducted there in response to anecdotal evidence that something pretty terrible was happening to the city’s newborns. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that cancers of all sorts had mushroomed after the city was turned into a free-fire zone.

Among the main findings of the study, entitled ‘Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009’:

-infant mortality rose to 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 10 in Kuwait.

-female breast cancer increased 1,000%

-the sex ratio between boy and girl babies dropped from 1,050/1,000, which is normal, to 850/1000, suggesting genetic damage affecting male fetuses more than females. A similar change was discovered in Hiroshima in the 1940s.

-rates of leukemia rose 3,800% (the increase at Hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped on it was 1,700%)

The survey included nearly 5,000 people, and the statistical evidence that this is not a coincidental result is overwhelming. While epidemiologists usually celebrate significance if their numbers show no more than a 1 in 20 chance of randomness, the Fallujah cancer figures were in the range of 1 in 100 million.

The report does not shy away from the obvious conclusion: the pattern is ‘similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionizing radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout’.

The logical explanation is that American troops included depleted uranium (DP) weaponry in their assault on the town. Aside from the brief controversy over their use in tank battles involving troops, one can only imagine the cynicism that went into the decision to deploy them against civilians.

Stay tuned to hear a thorough airing of this pertinent outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom on CNN, Good Morning America, Nightline and the PBS News Hour. Also, anticipate a chapter on this topic in Christopher Hitchins’ next book, sandwiched between praise for the courageous and talented neocons who engineered the invasion.