Global Policy Forum

By Karen Button

"Iraq is really going down the drain," Roland Huguenin-Benjamin, spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), flatly stated in his assessment of the US-occupied country. "It is a dead end; if new ideas don't come, I don't see much opportunity there for change," he added. Huguenin-Benjamin was participating in a panel discussion on "Health Needs in Iraq: Where Shortages are Manmade" at the first-ever World Peace Forum in Vancouver, BC. He wanted people to understand the current situation in Iraq against the backdrop of its recent history. "The ICRC is in 80 countries, which are mostly poor and underdeveloped. Iraq is special case," he said, because it was once a donor nation. "They used to give money to UNICEF," and other international programs. "Iraq was very modern in the '70s." It had a high "level of technology, state of the art medical care, and a high level of proficiency with the doctors." Iraqis "lived with top medical facilities…[and now] suddenly Iraq has been bombed to the middle ages." He said that since sanctions were imposed during the 1990s, over 30% of babies are now born under 2 kilos.

This June the ICRC said they were alarmed by a "very acute" water, fuel, and power "crisis" in Fallujah, Ramadi and Sadr City, a poor neighborhood of Baghdad. In Fallujah and Ramadi the shortages are exacerbated by US-led troops restricting access to the cities. Under the US-led occupation, Huguenin-Benjamin continued, there is a serious lack of clean drinking water and "large portions of sewage flowing into rivers. You can imagine the medical result." People are dying from "medical diseases that are easily solvable. Many children die of diarrhea." He also pointed out that since "there is fighting on major roads, there is no way to get to medical facilities. Some medical facilities are under operation of armed gunmen. Roadside bombs, air raids, snipers…all these [factors] lead to a high number of causalities. "Now there are even unclaimed bodies in the morgue due to the danger of just going to the morgue."

US-led troops have also contributed significantly to the casualties, frequently occupying hospitals, said Rana Al-Aiouby, an Iraqi humanitarian aid worker based in Baghdad who was also on the panel. Al-Aiouby was in Fallujah during the April 2004 US siege. "I saw 15-20 [US] snipers on just one roof," she said. "I was with a medical team in an ambulance and the ambulance was shot at. They also killed an old woman who was holding a white flag." By now an infamous photograph, Al-Jazeera News shot on-the-scene footage at Fallujah General Hospital when US troops arrested several doctors and patients at that time, claiming the facility was an "insurgent stronghold." They are shown handcuffed and lying on the floor, US soldiers with assault rifles standing guard over them. Al-Aiouby was also able to enter Fallujah after the second siege in November 2004 where she saw the city all but destroyed and most of its residents reduced to refugees. "It is normal for [the US] to use cluster bombs in the cities," she said sadly. US air strikes flattened the Nazzal Emergency Hospital during that siege.

But, Fallujah is not an isolated situation. In Ramadi, where US-led troops are currently conducting a huge military operation, Al-Aiouby said residents are very worried. "Many in Ramadi couldn't leave. And they have learned from the hard situation in Fallujah about the refugee camps." In March 2005, US troops stormed a women and children's hospital in Ramadi, ordering medical staff and patients alike to leave, while detaining other staff members. On Wednesday of this week, hundreds of US troops raided the Saddam Hospital in Ramadi, claiming it was being used by "insurgents" to treat their injured and to fire upon them.

Al-Aiouby said US-led troops also raided Haditha's hospital, not for the first time, last November. "They beat the director, Walid Al-Hadithi, and arrested him, accusing him of supporting the 'insurgents'. But he answered that [as a doctor] he should give medical treatment for anyone…if it is an American soldier, an 'insurgent,' anyone. Patients in the surgery were arrested." "What we're seeing is most clearly deliberate violations of the most fundamental conventions of international law," said Huguenin-Benjamin, specifically of US military actions in Fallujah in 2004.

Al-Aiouby, who delivers medical supplies to conflict areas, said there is a also a serious lack of medical supplies throughout Iraq. In Haditha, for example, "they have two incubators, but one is not working. After [an incubator] is used once have to leave it for three days, so if you receive another case like this you cannot put the baby inside." She said, in Haditha, "they really don't have anything." Huguenin-Benjamin, underscoring how Iraqis have had to cope with a serious deterioration in their heath care, said that the World Health Organisation life expectancy is now 51 years for Iraqi men and 61 years for women. "Look back 20 years and it was as high as anyone in the West. Iraqis are living with the memory of having quality medical services….now Iraqis are stuck in deep shit. [The country] is a catalogue of international faliures."