Iraq war ‘appalling episode’ of biological warfare
The coalition’s bombing of Iraq’s water supplies, sanitation facilities, and the power plants that supplied them, constituted a form of biological attack, according to Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Widening the definition of a biological weapon, generally accepted as a micro-organism that causes infectious disease, Prof Roberts suggests that any action which impinges on a population’s ability to resist infection should be regarded as biological warfare.
In a letter published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, he argues that while biological agents such as anthrax are difficult to manufacture and deliver, conventional attacks on vital sanitation and waste disposal systems can wreak a similar scale of devastation.
And the biological assault on Iraq’s population is continuing, Prof Roberts claims, as a failure to restore the necessary water, sanitation and health infrastructure hastens the progress of epidemics.
“The full extent of civilian casualties resulting from the war on Iraq will become clear in the coming weeks and months”, he explains.
“An effective humanitarian response must be mounted urgently to reduce the death toll from this appalling episode in the history of biological warfare.”
Even before the war, the nation was under biological attack, he maintains, in the form of economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. These restricted access to essential medicines and medical equipment resulting in a situation where treatable mild respiratory viruses became fatal.
Professor Roberts concludes: “Any malevolent intervention that impairs the ability of a civilian population to resist infection constitutes biological warfare”.
The co-editor of the International Journal of Epidemiology, Prof George Davey Smith, has defended the journal’s decision to publish this rather political piece, explaining the publication’s aim is to “understand the factors which affect the health of populations”.
“It is thus vital that we consider the full range of the determinants of health, not shying away from those with political dimensions”.
