"Nobody has any idea how many Iraqis may have developed leukemia or fallen ill"

From the few credible reports, from very few news agencies around the world that are keen on presenting truth, we know that Iraq is now descending into a black hole, thanks to the decadent, bloated, demon-possessed, Neo-Con followers, who might now be sitting on their easy chairs, cheering the death of over a hundred thousand innocent people.

An Iraqi reporter and a Japanese human rights activist have recently warned against the distorted image the world has about what’s happening in Iraq. They also warned against an imminent health catastrophe, with Iraqis now more vulnerable to cancer as a result to the exposure to depleted uranium shells the U.S.-led occupation forces had been using in Iraq, Uruknet wrote recently.

During the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. blasted vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium, which helped bring the war to a swift conclusion. The U.S. was the first country to introduce such deadly weapons. The war ended, but the devastating impact remains.

About 15 years have passed since the Persian Gulf War ended; but the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland.

While the Pentagon refuses to speak clearly about the true effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors say that using it led to significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers have also suggested that depleted uranium played a major role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

Depleted Uranium is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium.

DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.

Last week, Isam Rasheed, a freelance journalist, and Fumikazu Nishitani, head of Osaka-based NGO Rescue the Iraqi Children, briefed a public gathering in Osaka on the true situation in Iraq.

"It is now virtually impossible for foreign journalists to move around independently in Iraq," Nishitani said.

"Most (journalists) are embedded with U.S. forces or operate from the Green Zone, a walled fortress in central Baghdad. As a result, few people in the West, or in Japan, have seen the true extent of the damage and suffering in Fallujah, while the U.S. government continues to deny responsibility for the cancer and leukemia outbreaks."

"The world has seen little of the devastation wrought by U.S. troops on the city of Fallujah," Rasheed, also a photographer, said. "Entire neighborhoods were destroyed and the number of innocent civilians killed and maimed by the bombing was quite high."

The situation was a "major problem for Japan", Nishitani said, adding that the Japanese public, like the rest of the world, is kept in the dark about the true picture of what is going on in Iraq due to the fact that very few Japanese journalists are there, unlike Vietnam War, where many Japanese reporters were present at the battlefield and showed what was really going on, according to Nishitani.

"What are they doing in Iraq? The Iraqis don't know. When we heard the Japanese were coming, many Iraqis were happy because they thought this meant Japanese companies would be coming to Iraq and provide jobs and technology training," the journalist said.

"That hasn't happened, and there is a sense of bitter disappointment."

The two men presented photos of the U.S. offensive in the Iraqi city of Fallujah that took place in November 2004, and left thousands of Iraqis dead, and sent many others homeless.

According to U.S. and Iraqi officials, between 70 and 90 percent of Fallujah's population fled the city before the offensive broke out on Nov. 8 2004.

The two men also showed photos of Iraqis with cancer they had interviewed.

Many experts and Iraqi doctors say that the spread of cancer, particularly leukemia, is the result of exposure to depleted uranium shells from U.S. and British occupying forces that have contaminated the ground.

"Nobody has any idea how many Iraqis may have developed leukemia or fallen ill (with other diseases), because of the depleted uranium shells," Nishitani said.

"It's a major health catastrophe in the making." Rasheed said.

In Vietnam War it was the chemical poison Agent Orange. Today in Iraq it is plain old processed uranium. The U.S. Army must appreciate uranium hugely, for it is permanent. Uranium is radioactive- It kills people and contaminates their land - forever.

But how can the world know about the true extent of the devastation in Iraq, if reporters, who complain that harassment and intimidation by American soldiers in Iraq is growing, can’t do their job well. Journalists are the only people who’re able to transfer the Iraqis’ sufferings to the entire world.

The International Federation of Journalists had previously accused the U.S. government of hiding behind a "culture of denial" over the deaths of journalists in Iraq, and said the U.S. had to take "responsibility for its actions."

Too many journalists are dying "at the hands of the hands of US soldiers because of negligence or indifference ... And when journalists are killed, the military often seems ... unwilling to launch an adequate investigation or take steps to mitigate risk," Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists was once quoted as saying.

“U.S. military fire is the second-leading cause of death. At least nine journalists and two media support staff have died as a result of US fire in Iraq in the last 23 months."

Has killing become part of the Pentagon “Press Policy”?

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