Blockade

The real true wake up screaming horror of the plague struck after the shooting and bombing ended. You may have noticed that during the Gulf "War" the U.S. also bombed Iraq’s infrastructure. This does not sound like much when you put it that way. The other way to put it was presented in a Defense Intelligence Agency paper from January of 1991. This was, please note, 2 days into the Gulf “War”:            

"IRAQ WATER TREATMENT VULNERABILITIES"

U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document of 28 key judgments, from the 2nd day of the Gulf War, available through the Department of Defense GulfLINK declassification project. For the full document, click here. For related documents, see http://progressive.org/mag_nagysanctions. Excerpts (emphasis added):

    FM: DIA WASHINGTON DC
    TO: CENTCOM
    INFO: CENTAF; UK STRIKE COMMAND; MARCENT; 18 ABC; NAVCENT; SOCCENT; 7TH CORPS; ANKARA
    
    SUBJECT: IRAQ WATER TREATMMENT VULNERABILITIES (U)
             AS OF 18 JAN 91 KEY JUDGMENTS.
    
    1. IRAO DEPENDS ON IMPORTING-SPECIALIZED EQUIPMENT-AND SOME CHEMICALS TO PURIFY ITS WATER SUPPLY, MOST OF WHICH IS HEAVILY MINERALIZED AND FREQUENTLY BRACKISH TO SALINE.
    
    2. WITH NO DOMESTIC SOURCES OF BOTH WATER TREATMENT REPLACEMENT PARTS AND SOME ESSENTIAL CHEMICALS, IRAO WILL CONTINUE ATTEMPTS TO CIRCUMVENT UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONS TO IMPORT THESE VITAL COMMODITIES.
    
    3. FAILING TO SECURE SUPPLIES WILL RESULT IN A SHORTAGE OF PURE DRINKING WATER FOR MUCH OF THE POPULATION. THIS COULD LEAD TO INCREASED INCIDENCES, IF NOT EPIDEMICS, OF DISEASE….

  You could go and read this thing if you want to- it’s not as if it were a big secret, or a leftist attack on your country. This is straight from the Defense Department..
Anyway, this document goes on to spell out in fine detail how the U.S. will knock out water treatment facilities, and then, through U.N. imposed sanctions, make sure they cannot be repaired, and furthermore  no chemical treatment will be possible. The intended result will be, as stated in the above document,  “…a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics of disese…”
 So now at least we finally learned the purpose of that carpet bombing of Iraq’s infrastructure. It was phase one of what they planned from the very beginning. They meant to wage baceriological warfare on the Iraqi civilian population. When their efforts succeeded, maybe even beyond their hopes, humanitarian organizations told them what harm was being done, they  explained that making the people suffer was the whole objective.
  And suffer they surely did. For the next twelve years epidemics of water borne diseases  killed over a million and a half people, mostly children under five years old. If anyone went to a hospital for treatment, they found the hospitals incapable of helping them. They had no medicines, banned by the sanctions, no equipment, no electricity. All of this has been thoroughly documented by the U.N. as well as many independent organizations and individuals.
 
The magnitude of this atrocity is difficult to exaggerate. All those children, over all those years not just being killed, but dying the most horrible and painful deaths imaginable. If the U.S. had had the mercy to just line the toddlers up against a wall and shoot them, the world must surely have risen up to stop them. But by torturing them to death with deliberately inflicted diseases, while denying them even the most rudimentary medical care and with, as usual, the ever helpful wall of silence put up by the mainstream media,  they avoided effective criticism or complaint.

 .


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate

once married,2 daughters, 2 grndsons. in Japan 1947 with u.s. army. went to Paris to stdy French 1950-52.

taught junior high art about 12 yeras. Last 30 years teachng ESL and literacy- first to Southeat Asian refugees, then in public high school, still doing this a s a volunteer.

Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors682
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors682
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version