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hatrack

(59,436 posts)
Sun Jan 2, 2022, 10:48 AM Jan 2022

Iraq An Environmental Basket Case After Decades Of War, Corruption And Ecocidal Oil Development

EDIT

As far back as 2005, the United Nations had estimated that Iraq was already littered with several thousand contaminated sites. Five years later, an investigation by The Times, a London-based newspaper, suggested that the U.S. military had generated some 11 million pounds of toxic waste and abandoned it in Iraq. Today, the country remains awash in hazardous materials, such as depleted uranium and dioxin, which have polluted the soil and water. And extractive industries like the KAR oil refinery often operate with minimal transparency. On top of all of this, Iraq is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, which has already contributed to grinding water shortages and prolonged drought. In short, Iraq presents a uniquely dystopian tableau—one where human activity contaminates virtually every ecosystem, and where terms like “ecocide” have special currency.

According to Iraqi physicians, the many overlapping environmental insults could account for the country’s high rates of cancer, birth defects, and other diseases. Preliminary research by local scientists supports these claims, but the country lacks the money and technology needed to investigate on its own. To get a better handle on the scale and severity of the contamination, as well as any health impacts, they say, international teams will need to assist in comprehensive investigations. With the recent close of the ISIS caliphate, experts say, a window has opened.

While the Iraqi government has publicly recognized pollution stemming from conflict and has implemented some remediation programs, few critics believe these measures will be adequate to address a variegated environmental and public health problem that is both geographically expansive, and attributable to generations of decision makers—both foreign and domestic—who have never truly been held to account. Repeated requests for comment on these issues from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, among other leaders in Baghdad, went unanswered.

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The impacts are not only airborne. Roughly 100 miles northwest of Agolan is the Kwashe landfill, a monster dumpsite surrounded by agricultural land and, workers estimate, dozens of oil companies. Used for both domestic and industrial waste, the landfill is leaking oil and industrial waste into the surrounding environment. And like the residents of Agolan, those living in villages near Kwashe say they are suffering from an array of health problems, including migraines, fatigue, skin conditions, miscarriages, cancer, and respiratory problems such as shortness of breath and asthma. “In Iraq, we often say that every family includes someone with cancer,” says 43-year-old Yasin Omar, who lives less than a mile from the landfill in the village of Moqeble. Omar used to work at an oil company himself until health problems arose. “This village is almost 60 years old and was here long before the oil companies moved in. There used to only be 10 companies here and now there are more than 100,” he says.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29122021/iraq-ecocide/

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Iraq An Environmental Basket Case After Decades Of War, Corruption And Ecocidal Oil Development (Original Post) hatrack Jan 2022 OP
I'm sure our government will take responsibility for cleaning up any environmental degradation Magoo48 Jan 2022 #1
Thanks to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld Mickju Jan 2022 #2

Magoo48

(4,655 posts)
1. I'm sure our government will take responsibility for cleaning up any environmental degradation
Sun Jan 2, 2022, 11:14 AM
Jan 2022

we have caused. Right? We simply haven’t gone publicly with the restoration plan and the schedule yet, right?

Killing for freedom is messy business all around; a little damage is to be expected.

But look, they have Democracy now, right?

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