The Full Extent of the Horror

There is lingering controversy over the US military's use of depleted uranium. The "liberation" of the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004 has resulted in an abnormal number of birth defects in that city. Some of them are extremely gruesome: children born with severe deformities such a multiple limbs, two heads or even three. There are also reports similar birth defects from other Iraqi cities.

The official Pentagon story is that depleted uranium is harmless. The Pentagon has not adequately explained the relationship between depleted uranium and the Gulf War syndrome from the war of 1990-91. It seems reminiscent of the massive cover-up the Pentagon conducted about the effects of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Then the Pentagon insisted that the defoliant Agent Orange was safe for humans even as evidence mounted of the devastating harm that AO had upon the Vietnamese population as well as on US veterans. But if the Pentagon doesn't care about its own troops it probably won't care about the "natives."

More research probably has to be done about the relationship between depleted uranium and birth defects and other health problems. But this should be at last be the end that any good came out of the Iraq War.