The Environmental Legacy of War
We are now out of Iraq, at least sort of. So now everyone can start putting their bad memories of the American occupation behind them, right? Of course, Americans forgot this yesterday, after all Real Housewives of Lubbock is on. But the Iraqis have a lot of reminders. Among them–massive and unmitigated pollution.
“Open-air burn pits have operated widely at military sites in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Department of Veterans Affairs notes on its website. On hundreds of camps and bases across the two countries, the U.S. military and its contractors incinerated toxic waste, including unexploded ordnance, plastics and Styrofoam, asbestos, formaldehyde, arsenic, pesticides and neurotoxins, medical waste (even amputated limbs), heavy metals and what the military refers to as “radioactive commodities.” The burns have released mutagens and carcinogens, including uranium and other isotopes, volatile organic compounds, hexachlorobenzene, and, that old favorite, dioxin (aka Agent Orange).
The military pooh-poohs the problem, despite a 2009 Pentagon document noting “an estimated 11 million pounds [5,000 tonnes] of hazardous waste” produced by American troops, the Times of London reported. In any case, it says, the waste isn’t all that toxic, and there is no hard evidence troops were harmed. Of course, one reason for that lack of evidence, reports the Institute of Medicine (which found 53 toxins in the air above the Balad air base alone), is that the Pentagon won’t or can’t document what it burned and buried, or where it did so.
The little media attention that has been paid to this massive pollution has dimly illuminated its potential impact on U.S. troops. Left in mephitic darkness are the contractors, often impoverished South Asians, who did the dirty work at the bases, as well as Iraqi civilians who live and farm nearby. The Times of London reported that “open acid canisters sit within easy reach of children, and discarded batteries lie close to irrigated farmland,” causing people to sicken and rats to die “next to soiled containers.”
The environmental issue is a hearts-and-minds thing. When Iraqis babies are dying of cancer, they will remember why this is happening. I realize that environmental considerations are never going to be a top priority during wartime, proper mitigation of pollution is a very important issue, both for the ecosystem and for the people who live in it.
Burn pits are a problem, but probably a fairly minor one. I’d start with the widely dispersed depleted uranium contamination from large caliber rounds. I’d also want to look at all of the large scale bulldozing and land work around all of the bases and emplacements.
On the plus side, water seems to have been returned to the Euphrates wetlands, though it has been out of the news for years now. But there’s also the ongoing historic loss of the damage to Ur and the sack of the museum to be reckoned with.
Depleted uranium has been extensively studied. It just isn’t that dangerous. It’s insignificant compared to all of the spilled fuel and diesel exhaust. I believe the only unanswered question about it is whether vitrified particulates in the lungs of those who survive in proximity to a strike cause damage.
The wierd stuff gets studied. It’s the mundane things handled poorly in large quantities which pose the biggest risk.
So if some prankster scattered DU in your hometown, the authorities reaction would be “Meh, no biggie. Its littering at worst.” and not “ZOMG radiological attack!!1!”?
I think it’s obvious that most people, including “authorities” would overreact.
The environmental issue is a hearts-and-minds thing. When Iraqis babies are dying of cancer, they will remember why this is happening.
The single best thing Hitchens ever wrote. Not for the weak of heart. Does not change the fact that he died a moral cretin.
Maybe we can get the 10,000 or so mercenaries we left in Iraq to work on this.
I feel terrible for the Iraqis. First they had Saddam and murder, then they had chaos and murder. Now they have pollution and murder.
OT, but the other casualties of this war are the US soldiers. First, you have those who sacrificed their lives. But then you have those who will never live a day in their lives without remembering some horror from their time in Iraq. And some go beyond remembering to the point of paralyzing mental illness. And I imagine it’s much the same for Iraqis who have lived through the trama.
These are the things that occur to me when I hear the GOP presidential candidates talking about Iran. Hell, it’s what I think about when I hear administration officials talking about Iran. However often and deeply these people think and talk about the casualties such as those from Iraq, it’s not hardly deep or often enough.
er, trauma
I suspect this is mostly right. But who cares if the military burned amputated limbs? What damage could that possibly do? Should they get their own little burial? I hate it when journalists put bits of nonsense like that into a story.
When millions of Iraqis are killed in a zombie apocalypse featuring charred zombified limbs animated by radiation and other toxic wastes, you’ll see that was actually the most important part of the story.
It’s not the burning as such, it’s the burning in an open pit along with other medical waste.
Cry me a river for the troops who invaded and raped Iraq. They can suffer. It’s their victims for whom I feel.
Selective compassion is so fulfilling. I bet you sleep really well at night, wrapped in the warm blanket of your self-regard.
We must burn this material over there so it does not follow us back to the Homeland.
I have more than a hunch that buried in a lot of Black World activities is an equally cavalier attitude to safe & appropriate handling of exotic materials, both during manufacture and disposal. I remember reading that investigations into employee complaints about burn pits at Area 51 were stone-walled and deflected by “that’s classified”.
You create black holes and bad things follow.
When some Iraqis come over here and orchestrate a mass casualty terrorist attack, who will be so naive to look up with tear-stained cheeks and ask why?
Pollution, you say?
Try “the Iraq War collapsed the world’s climate,” contributing to the mass extinction of biodiversity, starvation, flooding, wildfires, drought, etc . . .
The Iraq war polluted the entire earth — it sucked moneys away that could have been used to create green infrastructure.
The war machine fought for the oil that runs the war machine — it is the most polluting entity on earth.