by Karen Button, insurgent49

     Two years after the US-sponsored media event where Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Firdaus Square, Iraqis gathered last weekend to pull him down again in effigy. This time the event was for real; Bush and Blair were also toppled while 300,000 Iraqis called for the true liberation of their country through the immediate departure of foreign forces.

     Even the mainstream U.S. media, which attempted to portray the demonstrations as viciously anti-American, had to admit that the "mostly peaceful" march called for an immediate end to the occupation. Posters and flyers with the slogan "USA Out!" were the most prominent message. Iraqis want the U.S. out of their country, and for good reason.

     After decades of rule under Saddam Hussein and twelve years of some of the most brutal sanctions imposed in modern history, Iraq was a devastated country when the US invaded in March 2003. Five hundred thousand children had died under the sanctions from easily preventable diseases and the UN’s Iraq Program director Denis Halliday had resigned in 1998 in protest, calling the US-led program “genocide."

      A country that was once arguably the best-educated in the Middle East now bears the distinction as the only country in the world whose literacy rate dropped during the 1990s.

     This is the Iraq the Anglo-American Coalition of the Willing was going to free, although from whom was not clear. They would have better served Iraqis to stay at home and just call off the sanctions they themselves had imposed.

     Under the US “Shock and Awe” (a term borrowed from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”) strategy to liberate Iraqis from their despotic leader, more than 100,000 have been killed, liberating them only from their bodies.

     Malnutrition has nearly doubled in children since the US invaded Iraq in 2003 - from 4 percent to 7.7 percent – the level of some African countries – according to a study released in November by the Norway-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science. Keep in mind that before the invasion, twelve years worth of sanctions had already severely impacted the health of Iraq’s children. In a country where childhood obesity had been a problem, roughly a quarter of children were now malnourished. Thus, it was not a healthy population of children who were the baseline for this study. Adult populations are less studied, but it’s been widely reported that without food rations, many Iraqis would now be starving.

      Security in Iraq is at its worst ever, with women and children hardest hit. For fear of rape and kidnapping, most stay at home now when previously – ironically under Saddam Hussein’s rule – they could walk the streets at any time without fear.

     Prison torture, disappearances, house raids and collective punishment by George Bush’s Anglo-American military have replaced prison torture, disappearances, house raids and collective punishment by Saddam Hussein’s military.

     Cancer rates post-Persian Gulf War soared 400 times the norm after approximately 375 tons of depleted-uranium munitions were used. As a result, babies born without brains and with organs on the outside of their bodies have increased dramatically since 1990, or pre-Gulf War.

     According to a report from Project Censored 2005, the incidence of anophthalmos (being born without eyes) in Iraqi babies in 2002 was 250,000 times greater than the norm. These are the results of the brief 1991 war. During the first two months of the current war alone, the UN and the Pentagon estimate up to 2,200 tons of depleted uranium munitions were used. (Current figures are unavailable, but let’s just say that after Mr. Bush declared “mission accomplished” in May 2003, the rate of bombing fell to half, that would put the amount of UM used thus far at 12,650 tons.) These munitions have a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

     Two years after the Anglo-American forces destroyed the electrical system during the invasion, electricity is on a sporadic basis only; in Baghdad, for example, six hours per 24 is the average.

     Fuel prices have skyrocketed as well. In a country that is oil-rich and had never known gas shortages, two-day long queues are now the norm.

     The unemployment rate was about 30 percent under Saddam Hussein.  It is now 50 – 70 percent.

     No wonder 300,000 mostly Shi’a Iraqis, those who were most repressed under Saddam Hussein, turned out last weekend to call for an end to America’s illegal occupation.

    Happy Anniversary, Iraq.

Karen Button is a freelance journalist and peace activist. She can be reached at kbutton@insurgent49.com