Welcome to Liberated Iraq

Editor's Note: The following are the remarks of Dr. Entissar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist from Yarmook Hospital who is part of an Iraqi women's delegation touring the U.S., organized by CODEPINK and Global Exchange. She spoke on March 18 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

I came on this speaking trip to the U.S. because when I was home in Baghdad, I watched on TV what President Bush was telling the American people about democracy, freedom, security, and the help that the U.S. is giving the Iraqi people, and I couldn't believe the lies. So I decided to take the risk to come to the U.S. and share with you what's really going on. I do not represent any political organization or ethnic group. I come only as a mother of five, a pharmacist and a human being.

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Many people thought that after the U.S. occupied our country and the sanctions were lifted, the health care of the Iraqi people would improve. But the occupation has made it worse. Many of the Iraqi hospitals in cities like Baghdad, Al-Qaim, and Fallujah were bombed and destroyed. Many ambulances were attacked and health workers killed, despite the fact that it is illegal under international law to attack hospitals, ambulances and health workers.

After our hospitals were bombed and looted, millions of dollars were given to contractors to repair them. We suggested that this money be used to buy things that we urgently need, but the contractors refused and instead bought furniture and flowers and superficial things. Meanwhile, we suffer from a critical shortage of medicines, emergency supplies and anesthesia, and there is no sterilization in the operation rooms. As the director of the pharmacy department in my hospital, I refused to sit on a new chair while there were no sterile operating rooms.

Diseases that were under control under the regime of Saddam Hussein, diseases such as cholera, hepatitis, meningitis, polio, have now returned to haunt the population, especially the children. Death due to cancer has increased because treatment programs stopped and medicines are not available. The health of the Iraqi people is also devastated by environmental contamination due to the destruction of our water and sewage systems.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/33771/

A term that almost makes me want to put it on my vacation criteria for this year. If I didn't realize how f**ked up it is.

...dearest Halliburton, and all the other Executive Branch welfare corporations, are using their tax money...for chairs for bombed out, unsterile, medication-less hospitals.