BAGHDAD, IRAQ - At first glance, Saddam Pediatric Hospital is a dark, grim place: the walls need painting, less than a third of the lights work, and the hallways are overflowing with parents seeking medical treatment for their children. According to UNICEF reports, at least 500,000 Iraqi children have died over the last 11 years as a result of Gulf War bombings and sanctions.
Dr. Thomas Nagy, a Holocaust survivor and professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C., claims that hospitals like Saddam Pediatric are on the frontlines of a modern-day Holocaust. After analyzing recently declassified U.S. military documents that describe plans to destroy Iraq’s civilian water supply during the Gulf War, Dr. Nagy now believes he has the evidence to make his charges stick. In a controversial paper presented to the Association of Genocide Scholars in the United States last summer, Dr. Nagy argued that the purposeful destruction of Iraq’s water treatment facilities amounted to “a plan for achieving extermination without the need of constructing extermination camps.”
Dr. Rania Masri, an environmental scientist at the U.S. Institute for Southern Studies, also believes that the United States is waging what amounts to biological warfare against Iraqi civilians. Says Dr. Masri, “When the United States bombed water and sewage treatment centers throughout Iraq during the Gulf War, and then blockaded their repair with the sanctions, it was entirely predictable that massive numbers of people would get sick and die. This is a form of biological warfare, and it is both illegal and profoundly immoral.”
Dr. Thomas Nagy, a Holocaust survivor and professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C., claims that hospitals like Saddam Pediatric are on the frontlines of a modern-day Holocaust. After analyzing recently declassified U.S. military documents that describe plans to destroy Iraq’s civilian water supply during the Gulf War, Dr. Nagy now believes he has the evidence to make his charges stick. In a controversial paper presented to the Association of Genocide Scholars in the United States last summer, Dr. Nagy argued that the purposeful destruction of Iraq’s water treatment facilities amounted to “a plan for achieving extermination without the need of constructing extermination camps.”
Dr. Rania Masri, an environmental scientist at the U.S. Institute for Southern Studies, also believes that the United States is waging what amounts to biological warfare against Iraqi civilians. Says Dr. Masri, “When the United States bombed water and sewage treatment centers throughout Iraq during the Gulf War, and then blockaded their repair with the sanctions, it was entirely predictable that massive numbers of people would get sick and die. This is a form of biological warfare, and it is both illegal and profoundly immoral.”