President of the Sixty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
October 12th 2009
Your Excellency,
RE DEFORMED BABIES IN FALLUJAH
Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented, for example in television documentaries on SKY UK on September 1 2009, and on SKY UK June 2008. Our direct contact with doctors in Fallujah report that:
In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.
This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.
Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, “a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage”.
As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.
She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.
Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography “Honorable Deception?” Clare Short says “The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie.”
We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas’s letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.
The use of certain weapons has tremendous repercussions. Iraq will become a country, if it has not already done so, where it is advisable not to have children. Other countries will watch what has happened in Iraq, and imitate the Coalition Allies’ total disregard of the United Nations Charter, The Geneva, and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Some countries, such as Afghanistan, will also come to experience the very long term damage to the environment, measured in billions of years, and the devastating effect of depleted uranium and white phosphorous munitions.
If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does “it do body counts”, how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of “proportionality” and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the “Storm Shadow” missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.
We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:
1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al – Najaf.
2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.
3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.
4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.
5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court. Please find enclosed a copy of our letter to Mr Gareth Thomas, dated 12th October 2009, and his letter to The Rt Hon Clare Short, M.P. dated 3rd September 2009, and enclosures relating to this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai ( Iraq Minister of Women’s Affairs 2006 -2009)
Dr. David Halpin FRCS (Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon)
Malak Hamdan M. Eng in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.
Dr Chris Burns-Cox MD FRCP
Dr. Haithem Alshaibani (Environmental Sciences)
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Author and Journalist)
Nicholas Wood MA, RIBA, FRGS Enclosures to follow by surface mail:
1: Copy of Sky Television Documentary 1 September 2009 “The Deformed Babies of Fallujah”:
2: Copy of Sky Television Documentary June 2008 “The Deformed Babies of Fallujah”.
3: Frieder Wagners’s film “Deadly Desert Dust” 2006.
4: Report by doctors in Fallujah 4 March 2008 ” Prohibited Weapons Crisis”
5: Film the “Dying children of Iraq”,compiled by Nicholas Wood.
6: US Army briefing on the use of White Phosphorous in Fallujah on “Shake and Bake Missions”
7: Report “Who Can Forgive the Crime of using Depleted Uranium Against Iraq and Humanity” by Dr Haithem Alshaibani, September 2009 .
8: Written Answer by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to Parliamentary Question. 10 March 2005.
9: Letter by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to The Independent, 20 January 2007, in reply to the 98 Doctors’ letter to the Prime Minister.
10:Letter by Rt.Hon. Des Browne, M.P. UK Former Minister of Defence to Rt. Hon. Tony Benn, November 2008
11: Black Country Coroner’s District ( Sandwell, Dudley.and Walsall: ) Coroner’s Report into death of Stuart Raymond Dyson. 18 September 2009.
12: Calculations of expected child abnormalities in a city the size of Cardiff or Fallujah using UK statistics , David Halpin FRCS
Letter from Mr Gareth Thomas M.P. Duty Minister, Department for International Development, 3 September 2009 to Rt. Hon. Clare Short M.P.
