IRAQ: Pollution causing cattle deaths in marshlands?

Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 23 June 2008 (IRIN) - Local officials in southern Iraq warned on 23 June that pollution in the marshlands of southern Iraq was responsible for the spread of an unknown disease which had led to the deaths of dozens of cows and buffaloes.

"We call upon the Iraqi government and the Ministry of Agriculture to declare a state of emergency in the marshlands as we can't determine the disease which has been affecting cattle since April," said Mohammed Arif Mohammed, a veterinary officer in Dhi Qar Province.

"It is a cross between foot and mouth disease and a fever known locally as `rotten blood bleeding’. Our first guess at an explanation is that the disease is caused by pollutants in the marshlands and the lack of vaccines," Mohammed told IRIN.

Mohammed could not confirm the number of cattle deaths but estimated that 100-300 cows and buffaloes had died as a result of the disease since April.

Nassiriyah, the capital of Dhi Qar where some of the cattle deaths have occurred, is about 400km south of Baghdad and has over 50 percent of the country’s marshlands.


Read more: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=78880

We have now officially trashed two countries.

WMD's? We brought them to Iraq !

Damn fuck ding asscarrots ...I hate the military ! :evilfrown:

sometimes with poison, sometimes with depleted uranium, and always with a pack of stinking lies.

In this case, the "pollution" is almost certainly the remnant of a years-long effort to destroy the marsh habitat of southern Iraq, specifically to destroy the way of life of the so-called "Marsh Arabs" after their uprising in 1991.

Chemical defoliants were reputedly used, as well as attempts to divert the course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The front-man for the operation was none other than Ali Hassan Al-Majid, better known to Americans as the "Chemical Ali" who the Americans gleefully killed, then captured--in that order--and then turned over to the Iraqis, who gave him at least five death sentences.

It's sad that we sometimes forget that the previous ruler of Iraq was also an asshole.