10 Reasons Environmentalists Oppose an Attack on Iraq

As organizations and individuals working for the environment and
environmental justice, we have watched with increasing concern as the US
government moves closer to an all-out attack on Iraq. We raise our voices
in opposition to this war and invite others to join us in support of peace.
We oppose an attack on Iraq for the following reasons:

1. An attack on Iraq could kill nearly 500,000 people. Most of the people
killed would be innocent civilians.

In November 2002, Medact, the British health professional organization,
warned that as many as 260,000 Iraqis could die immediately from a US
attack, while another 200,000 deaths would result from famine and disease.
The UN fears that an attack would create a flood of 900,000 refugees.

2. War destroys human settlements and native habitats. War destroys
wildlife and contaminates the land, air and water. The damage can last for
generations.

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) has documented lasting
damage from the 1991 Gulf War. Oil, chemical and radiological pollution
still contaminates the region. More than 60 million gallons of crude oil
spilled from pipes. Some 1,500 miles of coast were tarnished with oil and
cancer-causing chemicals. The deserts were scarred with 246 "lakes" of
congealed oil. More than 700 oil wells burned for nine months, producing
toxic clouds that blocked the sun and circled the Earth.

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, more than a dozen countries submitted
environmental claims to the United Nations totaling $48 billion.

3. US clusterbombs, thermobaric explosions, electromagnetic bursts and
weapons made with depleted uranium are indiscriminate weapons of mass
destruction.

In the 1991 Gulf War, US forces reportedly fired nearly a million rounds of
depleted uranium (DU) bullets and shells, leaving 300 tons of DU scattered
across Kuwait and southern Iraq. According to the Army Environmental Policy
Institute, ingesting DU "has the potential to generate significant medical
consequences." The World Health Organization (WHO) warns "children could
receive greater exposure to DU when playing in or near DU impact sites.
Typical hand-to-mouth activity could lead to high DU ingestion from
contaminated soil." In the aftermath of the profound chemical and
radiological contamination released during the 1991 war, cancer and
leukemia rates in southern Iraq have increased six-fold.

4. Bombs pollute, poisoning the land with unexploded shells and toxic
chemicals. Bombs can't locate or neatly destroy hidden chemical or
biological weapons (CBW), but they can cause the uncontrolled spread of
deadly CBW agents.

According to Saudi Foreign Policy Advisor Adel al-Jubeir, the 1991 US
attack on Iraq destroyed "not a single chemical or biological weapon." That
may have been fortunate. On March 10, 1991, after the Gulf War had ended,
US troops destroyed several weapons bunkers at Khamisiyah in southern Iraq.
Five years later, the Pentagon admitted that the explosion released a cloud
of CBW agents, exposing 100,000 US soldiers to mustard gas and sarin nerve
gas.

5. Fighting a war for oil is ultimately self-defeating.

Our fossil-fuel-based economy pollutes our air, fouls our lungs and
contributes to global climate change. The world needs to burn less oil, not
more. Earth's remaining recoverable oil reserves are expected to peak soon
and decline well before the end of the century. Waging wars to control an
energy source that is finite will never achieve long-term national
security. Oil-based economies must be replaced by technologies powered by
clean, sustainable, renewable fuels.

6. Pre-emptive attacks are acts of aggression.

A "pre-emptive attack" would constitute an attack on the rule of
international law, the dream of world peace embodied in the United Nations
Charter, and the promise of environmental security enshrined in a host of
global treaties. Attacking a city of 5 million people with hundreds of
cruise missiles would constitute a war crime and a crime against humanity.

7. Aggression invites retaliation.

The CIA has concluded that Saddam Hussein would only be provoked to use
chemical or biological weapons in self-defense - if the US launched an
invasion bent on replacing him. Attacking Iraq would increase the
probability of chemical, biological, and radiological attacks directed
against US cities.

8. Increased military spending (to control access to the fuel that powers
our oil-based economy) drains funds from critical social, educational,
medical and environmental needs.

The war (and subsequent occupation of Iraq) is projected to cost as much as
$200 billion. Meanwhile the economy teeters and unemployment soars while
the administration cuts funding for environmental stewardship and basic
human needs.

9. Militarization and the war on terrorism are eroding America's freedoms
at home.

The US PATRIOT Act has been used to persecute immigrants and fuels an
atmosphere of racism and fear. The terrorist threat has been used to
justify removal of public information databases that provided communities
with critical data on industrial hazards. There has been a clampdown on the
Freedom of Information Act, a valuable tool that had been used to hold
polluting corporations accountable for their actions. The PATRIOT Act
criminalizes legal forms of political opposition to controversial
government policies, thereby threatening legitimate political and
environmental activism.

10. The US has threatened to strike Iraq with nuclear weapons - the
ultimate weapons of mass destruction.

In December 2002, a US strategy report claimed that the US "reserves the
right to respond with overwhelming force - including through resort to all
out options - to the use of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) against the
US, our forces abroad, and friends and allies." Bush administration
officials stated that the threat of a nuclear first-strike did not
constitute a policy change.

Bush's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review called for development of new nuclear
weapons including earth-penetrating "bunker busters" and five-kiloton
"mini-nukes" (four "mini-nukes" would contain the explosive force of the
atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima).

If nuclear weapons are used in Iraq, Medact fears that 3.9 million people
would die. The radioactive fallout would eventually circle the planet,
dooming even more people to an early death.