Fallujah Birth Defects Raise Specter Of U.S. Chemical-Weapons Use In Iraq (VIDEO)

A large and growing number of Iraqi children are suffering from severe birth defects, as shown in the heartbreaking CNN segment embedded below, and their parents blame alleged U.S. chemical-weapons attacks.

Lawyers representing the families have sued the British government for complicity in the alleged war crimes. But Iraq's deputy minister of health tells CNN there isn't enough evidence to prove causality, and in any case, the U.S. boycott of the International Criminal Court makes direct prosecution of the case unlikely, as do the nation's federal immunity laws.

Please WATCH the CNN segment in its entirety:

Comments

[Renifer]

01:02 AM on 05/22/2010

[Halsey]

01:28 PM on 05/12/2010

“He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.”

Thomas Paine

[DrewDaugherty]

11:00 AM on 05/12/2010

Could it have something from all the chemical weapons Saddam used against their parents working its way into the offsprings' systems.

[mostlyharmless]

11:29 AM on 05/12/2010

saddam hussein used chemical weapons (which we supplied him!) against the kurds in northeastern iraq, not in fallujah

the problem in fallujah is most likely the depleted uranium ordinance used by our tanks . . . it's making our soldiers sick, too

[DrewDaugherty]

11:42 AM on 05/12/2010

We didn't supply the Iraqis with chemical weapons. We gave them information in the Iran-Iraq War, not weapons.

[JessCostello]

12:06 PM on 05/12/2010

He shelled the place before the Americans got there. There are whole neighborhoods that were leveled in reprisal for an assassination attempt.

[jttri]

07:24 AM on 05/12/2010

The murderers and terrorists deserved everything they got. We should of finished the job in 2004, and not have had to pull back. Just had to go back in again and take more American casualties.

[mostlyharmless]

11:26 AM on 05/12/2010

yeah, check those baby blankets for i.e.d.s!

the iraqis did not participate in 9-11 . . . we attacked them . . . some have tried to defend themselves against our occupation . . . most have simply tried to survive

[hallie5]

09:39 PM on 05/12/2010

you seem to be missing the point....do these children deserve everything their getting?

[jozzie]

03:57 AM on 05/12/2010

One more reason for one more young guy to try to do something to us.

[jrb35]

01:57 AM on 05/12/2010

To all those who say that Fallujah would have never become a safe haven for terrorists if the US had never invaded Iraq in March, 2003 I say... You're right. Of course it wouldn't. But so what? It's a moot point unless you're a historian debating whether or not we should have invaded.

In 2004, it was too late. By then Fallujah was a base for terrorists to launch suicide attacks that killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds (at least) of Americans. What would you have done? Leave them alone to continue killing Iraqi civilians? There wasn't a peaceful, nonviolent option that would end the slaughter. The local government in Fallujah was entirely beholden to the insurgents. The local police were either members of the insurgency or too scared for their lives to do anything about it. There was no other option but to go in and destroy the safe haven. To do nothing would have only resulted in thousands of more deaths (mostly Iraqi civilian) at the hands of the insurgents. So what would you have done in 2004? (Please note, saying that you'd go back in time and stop the 2003 invasion from ever happening is not a valid answer.)

[zingdaddy]

02:19 AM on 05/12/2010

I think the question is not "what should we have done then", but "what should we do now". I can understand the importance of denying responsibility; admit responsibility, and everything sticks to you. I leave it for the courts to decide what should and should not stick.

So we went into Fallujah to get rid of terrorists. Mission accomplished. But do we need to be responsible before we will help those left behind after the battle was over? Does it benefit us more to abandon them or to help them? Personally, I prefer to err on the side of helping.

And why would saying that one would stop the 2003 invasion be an invalid answer? Assuming one could go back in time and take that action, I think it would certainly be a valid answer. I think we would have done much better to focus instead on Afghanistan and al Qaeda. Bin Ladin wasn't in Iraq, and he was an ideological enemy of Saddam Hussein; Hussein would never have willingly aided al Qaeda. As it stands, we squandered opportunities and face greater threats today because we decided to divide our efforts then.

[jrb35]

02:26 AM on 05/12/2010

I agree with you 100%. The point I was trying to make (in response to others) was that at the time (November 2004) attacking Fallujah was the best of a lot of bad options. There are many people on this site who reuse to acknowledge what the reality on the ground was at the time. When I would point out the number of people killed by the terrorists based in Fallujah in 2004, their response would be along the lines of "they wouldn't be there if we never invaded!" Well, that's true. But in 2004, they were there. And something had to be done.

[frmadistance]

01:41 AM on 05/12/2010

Obama/Bush, war criminals. Both should get life in prison.

[Chazmania]

02:03 AM on 05/12/2010

I would like to see them off the planet now! they have done enough and caused enough suffering to deserve it

[jrb35]

02:07 AM on 05/12/2010

And who would you have replace Obama?

[jrb35]

02:06 AM on 05/12/2010

If you were President, what would you do? If you say "withdraw immediately" you need to know that it's not physically possible to withdraw every soldier in less than several months. What should they do while waiting to leave? Let people shoot at them and not defend themselves?

What has Obama done that deserves prison for life? He hasn't broken any laws.

[Chazmania]

02:21 AM on 05/12/2010

people that write the "laws" can write them any way they want to be unjust and they are just some arbitrary scribbles on a piece of paper!
His crimes are not on paper they are in his hart! and in the suffering of others by his decisions that are being managed by other people who seem to have him as an ali! this war was unjust even if the "laws" got written to justify it! no maybe not criminal in the paper sense but criminal in the human sense

[Chazmania]

02:23 AM on 05/12/2010

And i was not referring to Obama as much as Bush and Cheney. they started this mess and they deserve punishment.

[johnsonc20]

12:57 AM on 05/12/2010

Depleted uranium. It has been harming our soldiers, too, since the first Iraq War. This has been covered up by our government and is a wretched scandal.

[khanti]

11:30 PM on 05/11/2010

It is ironic that the US went there to look for WMD and chemical weapons and couldn't find any. So they brought some there.

[Paula Ann]

11:47 PM on 05/11/2010

don't know if i should laugh or cry

[khanti]

04:42 PM on 05/12/2010

feels like scratching a festering sore

[mostlyharmless]

11:35 AM on 05/12/2010

the u.s. supplied saddam hussein with all kinds of chemical and biological weapons agents . . . we wanted him to use them against the iranians, which he did, but he also used them against the kurds . . . he was a bad, bad puppet

[khanti]

04:42 PM on 05/12/2010

yeah where else can they get these stuff

[Rambutt]

08:01 PM on 05/11/2010

Depleted Uranium is a culprit as well.
I've grown numb to it.
There is NO such thing a Karma.
Paul Warfield Tibbets, Enola Gay pilot, lived to a ripe old age of 92.
And so will Bush, Clinton, and all of us.

[Paula Ann]

08:05 PM on 05/11/2010

karma doesn't begin and end in this life

[jrb35]

08:35 PM on 05/11/2010

Dropping the A-Bomb saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of Japanese lives (including my future in-laws) not to mention hundreds of thousands of American lives. That is fact.

[Progressneeded]

08:38 PM on 05/11/2010

In fact that is a bunch of crap! Tell that to the families that died.

[research]

07:48 PM on 05/11/2010

The whole Iraq war is a a war crime, so why not do more?

[Zanubiyah]

07:44 PM on 05/11/2010

Americans wonder why these people are angry at them.

[Paula Ann]

08:04 PM on 05/11/2010

paraphrasing chris rock:

they don't hate me, they don't even know me. it's bush they hate, stompin' on his picture, burnin' him in effigy......they just messin' with me to get to him

[jrb35]

09:16 PM on 05/11/2010

"These people" get angry at cartoons and novels. They seem to have the emotional maturity of my two year old nephew. Why should any rational adult care what "these people" think?

[Paula Ann]

09:49 PM on 05/11/2010

9/11 (if you believe the commission report) didn't happen because of cartoons and novels. and it didn't happen because "they hate our freedom" either.

[Digeeedad]

09:51 PM on 05/11/2010

"These people" for the most part want to be left the H alone, just as you and your family do! Do you remember 9/11? Do you remember the outrage and the initial emotional response by many in this nation to "bom into the stoneage" the country responsible?

If another nation flew drones over your neighborhood and took out a house filled with enemies to their nation, but in the processalso killed all the members of your family, next door, except for you who was at work.... do YOU think you would react casually, realizing that "collateral damage" was for the greater good?

"Why should any rational adult care what "these people" think?"...... RATIONAL HUMAN BEINGS care! Neandrathal bigots, who have ZERO place among rational human beings, are an embarassment to and blight upon humanity!

"They seem to have the emotional maturity of my two year old nephew".... and YOU can't even match that!

[morchid]

07:24 PM on 05/11/2010

by the way you will find more comments about such thing like burka than about issue like that it gives an idea about the american people

[morchid]

07:22 PM on 05/11/2010

and then you cry why there are people who want to target civilian in USA?

[gakabani]

07:03 PM on 05/11/2010

Is this what America is all about, is this? Are we the land of the free and brave? We are cowards! That is what we are, cowards! We are silent for the sake of a buck! IF you think that this all over for these people, you are wrong. Out soldiers are now suffering. I met a 23 year old soldier from Ft. Hood with bone sarcoma last day, he has no chance! We all pay at the end.

[JessCostello]

12:31 PM on 05/12/2010

Oh shut up. You don't even know if the U.S. caused this.