In what would have to rank as one of the most obscene public statements made by any US President, Barack Obama announced the end of America's combat mission in Iraq, notwithstanding the fact that 50,000 American troops & countless "contractors" will continue to occupy the country.

Obama acknowledged that the war had cost America in blood & treasure: 4,400 members of its armed forces killed, 34,000 wounded & maimed: all at a cost in excess of US$1.12 trillion.

"Ending the war was not only in Iraq's best interests but also in America's", he said. "We have met our responsibility; now is the time to turn the page."

Turn the page indeed.

America launched an unprovoked, illegal war of aggression against Iraq, based on deliberate lies; killing in excess of 100,000 innocent Iraqis & effectively destroying one of the oldest civilizations in history.

And Obama wants to "turn the page"?

He, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Howard & the rest of the criminal politicians who conspired to commit this massive crime against humanity should be tried & hung.

Seven years under occupation, Iraqis still cope with what Refugees International calls "a dire humanitarian crisis that sees huge numbers of displaced (and other Iraqis) struggling to survive," a situation "for which the US bears special responsibility" but does nothing to correct.

Recent UNHCR figures estimate around 4.5 million refugees, nearly 2.8 million internal ones (IDPs), a third of these in squatter slums in Baghdad, Diyala & Salah al-Din. Many fear returning home. Most are impoverished. Settlements lack basic services, including water, sanitation, electricity & health care. Education is difficult where available.

Camps are built in precarious places - under bridges, alongside railroad tracks & near garbage dumps. In 2009, they were ordered to vacate. They remain. The directive was postponed, but they fear eviction with nowhere else to go & little help for their needs & welfare.

Most get no government, US, UN or NGO aid given security's top priority. "The zero-risk mentality of the burgeoning security industry has hijacked more rational & creative thinking to provide vitally needed humanitarian assistance.

As a result, conditions continue to deteriorate, with 3,000 new individuals registering for refugee status each month, adding to a growing crisis. They lack proper shelter, food, health care & other essentials, living day to day fearing greater misery, disease or death.

In February 2010, the International Rescue Commission (IRC) issued a report titled, "A Tough Road Home" on uprooted Iraqis in Jordan, Syria & Iraq, saying since last visiting the region in February 2008:

"the needs of displaced Iraqis have become more acute, while international concern & assistance have diminished. In particular, assistance from European countries has begun to fall off," given concern for their own situation at home.

For their part, refugees and IDP's fear returning, citing persistent violence, insecurity & little access to housing, other services & jobs, as well as mistrusting the Americans, puppet government & fearing persecution.

Conditions for IDPs are precarious. International law guaranteeing no protection, nor can they get economic aid or the right to work where they live. They desperately want to go home, rebuild their lives, but need safe & stable conditions to do it as well as resolution of property disputes to allow it.

External refugees also want to return. Others fear persecution & won't, but sustainable reintegration structures & basic services don't exist, & no plans are in place to institute them. As a result, millions of Iraqis remain scattered internally, in neighbouring Syria, Jordan & other countries, trapped in poverty, fear & uncertainty under worsening conditions.

Like IDPs, external refugees face an ongoing struggle to survive without reliable incomes or safety. Besides lost loved ones, property & savings, they're traumatized, see no end to their suffering & feel hopeless, frustrated & desperate.

In his March 15 article titled, "The New 'Forgotten' War," Dahr Jamail noted Afghanistan getting most attention while the "Iraq occupation falls into media shadows," except briefly after significant violent events killing dozens or a prominent figure.

Yet hundreds die most months. Millions have been killed, irreparably harmed & displaced - victims of genocide.

Essential services are spotty or nonexistent & persistent depravation on October 11, 2009 got Iraqis in Baghdad streets to chant: "No water, no electricity in the country of oil & the two rivers," according to AP.

Exacerbating conditions, including a four year long draught "plagues most of Iraq. In the country's north," AP, on October 13, 2009, reported inadequate water "forced more than 100,000 people to abandon their homes since 2005, with 36,000 more on the verge of leaving."

Cancer is another issue, the result of "more than 1,700 tons of depleted uranium" used during the war & invasion besides more during the Gulf War. "Literally every local person I've spoken with....during my nine months (in the country) knows someone who either suffers from or has died of cancer."

It's a war/occupation-inflicted plague that will claim many thousands more lives for years to come, including children born with DU-caused deformities, especially in heavily bombed areas.

After two decades of war, sanctions & occupation, Iraqis have suffered horrifically from one of the greatest ever crimes of war & against humanity - ongoing, destructive, devastating, unreported & unaccountable.

Of course, war takes its toll on both sides .....

Consider an April 24 Army Times report headlined, "18 veterans commit suicide each day," saying:

"Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department (VA)."

About 7% succeed. Another 11% try again within nine months. VA's hotline gets about 10,000 calls a month from current & veteran service members - troubled, desperate for help they're not getting, & in danger of taking their lives to escape.

On April 24, New York Times writers James Dao and Dan Frosch headlined, "In Army's Trauma Care Units (WTUs), Feeling Warehoused," saying:

"For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men & women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills & treated harshly by non-commissioned & commissioned officers."

They suffer from wounds, loss of limbs, depression, PTSD & despair, yet their treatment "has made their suffering worse." Since 2007, at least four WTU soldiers committed suicide. Coverups try to hide them & according to Lt. Col. Andrew L Grantham, WTU commander, "These guys are still soldiers & we want to treat them like soldiers." In other words, they're to blame, not the army, Pentagon or White House.

Not for Iraq's toxic environment either, affecting US forces like Iraqis, endangering their health, welfare & lives that for many will be lost, with or without physical wounds.

Twenty years of war, sanctions & occupation has left vast parts of the country's land, water & air contaminated by scores of pollutants, including depleted uranium, chemicals, toxic metals, oil, bacteria & other poisons.

The Gulf War was an environmental disaster. It destroyed power & chemical plants; factories; dams; water purification facilities; sewage treatment & disposal systems; oil wells, pipelines, refineries & storage tanks, besides bringing the entire country to its knees, the result of vast gratuitous destruction. In 2003, it was repeated, a "shock & awe" blitzkrieg intermittently continued.

Tigris & Euphrates river waters are contaminated & unsafe. According to Dr. Ibrahim Ali, a Baghdad laboratory owner, "It is definitely not good for human consumption & every time we analyze it we find something new that might, in time, cause death. Various kinds of bacterial pollution & germs we are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."

Imagine a cocktail of oil, gasoline, heavy metals, depleted uranium, pesticides, fertilizers, benzene, other chemicals, various other pollutants & the result is poisoned water & fish producing an epidemic of typhoid, dysentery, cholera, hepatitis, & diarrheal diseases if consumed, cancer & other diseases later.

Four years of drought added other woes, reducing food & feed grain crops by 40% or more, threatening as well to turn fertile farmland into a dustbowl. Lack of rain & dust storms dropped Tigris & Euphrates levels by half in some places, creating "a real serious disaster," according to agricultural experts.

The combination of war, pollution & drought wrecked Iraq's ecosystem, drying up fertile farmland & marshes, turning arable land into desert, killing trees & plants, & making a Garden of Eden a wasteland, much perhaps never to be reclaimed.

Empowering bio-pirates, agribusiness predators, is another crime, the result of (Paul) Bremer's Order 81 (April 26, 2004) - "Amendments to the Patents, Industrial, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits & Plant Variety Law."

It crippled traditional farming by protecting developer rights of new & improved plant varieties (GMO seeds), forcing farmers to plant them, prohibiting traditional seed saving & instituting Technology User Agreements, requiring annual royalties to companies like Monsanto.

Bremer's 100 orders turned Iraq into a giant free-market paradise, a hellish nightmare for Iraqis. They colonized the country for capital - pillage on the grandest scale, a cutthroat capitalist laboratory, weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqis got no role in the planning nor were given subcontracts to share the benefits. New economic laws instituted low taxes, 100% foreign investor ownership of Iraqi assets, the right to expropriate all profits, unrestricted imports & long-term 30-40 year deals & leases, dispossessing Iraqis of their own resources, so no future government could change them.

One of them is oil, ahead of passing the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law, what former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said he'll do quickly if his coalition forms the new government as well as honour all signed deals in place.

Its provisions include a radical restructuring of Iraq's oil industry, shifting the country's reserves from public to private hands with locked in deals as long as 30 years. If enacted, it will be theft on the grandest scale, legalized plunder of most of the nation's oil & all yet to be discovered. Big Oil will be free to expropriate all profits with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq's economy, nor partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies.

With or without it, foreign investors are signing deals, ExxonMobil the first US company in 35 years last November. Others are being finalized & more will follow - on favourable terms for the giants to the detriment of Iraqis. Based on current negotiations, foreign companies will produce most Iraqi oil, whether on grand or grandest theft terms to be determined.

Under Bremer laws, free-market pillage was sanctioned. Mass layoffs followed, social services cut & local infrastructure rebuilding ignored. Corporate interests alone were addressed. Iraq became a metaphor for everything wrong with cutthroat capitalism, showing it to be predatory, heartless & bankrupt.

The 2007 launched Global Peace Index (GPI) ranks countries annually according to peacefulness, identifying key peace or violence drivers. Of the 144 countries in its 2009 report, Iraq ranked last, Afghanistan second last.

On a 1 - 5 scale, 1 the most peaceful, Iraq scored 5 on:

- number of deaths from organized internal conflict;

- level of organized internal conflict;

- perceptions of criminality in society;

- respect for human rights;

- potential for terrorist acts;

- number of homicides per 100,000 people;

- level of violent crime;

- ease of access to weapons of minor destruction; as well as

- low scores in numerous other categories, showing the country to be violent & dysfunctional, the result of war, occupation, & an internal struggle to free Iraq to sovereign control.

Notably unmentioned is that Iraq, the cradle of civilization, no longer exists - destroyed, balkanized & colonized for capital, planned genocide murdering its people.

Annually, Transparency International (TI) ranks 180 countries on their perceived level of public sector corruption, claiming a 90% confidence of accuracy. Its latest 2009 lowest scores went to Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq.

Not addressed were free and open elections, impossible under occupation. Those held are media hyped and manipulated for stability. A democratic process is absent.

As a result, US choices govern, puppet leaders, not democrats & rampant corruption follows, the kind New York Times writers Marc Santora & Riyadh Mohammed highlighted in their October 28, 2009 article headlined, "Pervasive Corruption Rattles Iraq's Fragile State," saying:

"Corruption is a phenomenon that forms a real threat to the structure of the state," according to interior minister Jawad Bolani. His report detailed corruption throughout his ministry employing one in four public sector employees:

- money skimmed from salaries;

- contracts manipulated and fudged for personal gain;

- ghost police officers on payrolls so commanders can take their pay & other officers fired to steal theirs;

- criminals freed by well-placed bribes, their records expunged for payment;

- detainees abused by guards to extort money from relatives; &

- political corruption to secure loyalty of large portions of the security apparatus.

Corruption runs from top officials to street corner cops, according to investigators without listing names.

But in early 2009, a fraud scandal related to food distribution forced the trade minister to resign & the deputy transportation minister was arrested after being caught trying to bilk a security firm for more than $100,000 to get a contract for Baghdad International Airport.

"Going after corruption (can exact) a high cost," said The Times writers. One official, "after issuing an audit report on the Iraqi Supreme Criminal Court, which examines (Saddam Hussein-era crimes), was informed - through the local media, he said - "that a judge on that court had issued an arrest warrant for him." It first read for "the extermination of the human race, (then) changed to an accusation of fraud.

In April 2010, Amnesty International released a report titled, "Iraq: Human Rights Briefing," covering major media suppressed crimes, including:

- thousands detained without charge or trial, some for years in overcrowded conditions, gravely affecting their health & safety;

- torture, ill-treatment & other abuses against men, women & children, including beatings with cables & hosepipes, prolonged suspension by their limbs, electric shocks to sensitive parts of their bodies, breaking of limbs, removal of toenails with pliers & rapes, among others;

- unfair trials, with low quality court appointed lawyers, using torture extracted confessions to convict;

- the death penalty, increasingly imposed in the last five years; currently, at least 1,100 detainees have been sentenced to death; over 900, including 17 women, have exhausted all means of appeal or clemency; government supplied information on executions is suppressed, many carried out secretly;

- killings & other human rights abuses by armed groups, including kidnappings, torture, bombings & other attacks;

- impunity for prison guards, US and Iraqi security forces, & security contractors after whitewashed or no investigations of their crimes;

- violence against women (domestically and on streets), given little or no protection by authorities,

- refugees & internally displaced people enduring severe hardships as explained above;

- human rights abuses in Kurdistan, including those explained above; &

- future prospects.

AI's conclusion - "the human rights situation in the country remains grave. All parties to the continuing conflict have committed gross abuses & the civilian population continues to bear the brunt of the ongoing violence. The security situation is still precarious despite some improvement in 2009. Attacks on civilians, arrests, kidnapping, armed clashes" happen daily.

AI covers vital issues without explaining their cause:

- an ongoing war and genocide;

- Iraq illegally occupied;

- a US approved puppet government in place;

- a proxy army doing America's bidding;

- no concern for vulnerable civilians;

- the absence of vital infrastructure;

- a longstanding humanitarian crisis;

- the inability of millions of Iraqis to cope; &

- a brutal colonizer addressing none of the above issues or the right of Iraqis to sovereign freedom, peace & security - only possible free from occupation.

In February 2010, the Brussels Tribunal published Professor Souad Al-Azzawi's report titled, "Violations of Iraqi Children('s) Rights Under the American Occupation," saying:

"Numerous violations to Iraqi children's rights have continuously & systematically been committed under the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq," including:

- targeting them & other civilians during the invasion;

- American forces murdering them, sometimes by massacres, during raids in Fallujah, Haditha, Mahmodia, Telafer, Anbar, Mosul & most other Iraqi cities;

- killing them by bombings & other attacks;

- detaining, torturing & raping them;

- impoverishing them;

- starving them, causing acute malnutrition;

- starving whole cities as collective punishment;

- killing one in eight children (650,000) by microbial pollution, lack of sanitation, & clean drinking water;

- inflicting grave harm through chemical & radioactive munitions;

- a failed health care system by design, including by "the international assassination of medical doctors;

- a dysfunctional education system, available only to 30% of Iraqi children;

- a crippled economy, ongoing violence & killings, American troop raids on civilians & horrific hardships gravely harming Iraq's men, women & children; &

- a 4.5 million orphan population, according to a Ministry of Labor estimate; others say five million; 500,000 live on streets with no institutional help; others are in US & Iraqi-run prisons or internally or externally displaced.

Al-Azzawi concludes saying that since 1991, US administrations committed "genocide amongst the Iraqi population, including the children." After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait & the Gulf War, imposed genocide began with crippling sanctions, then continued during war & occupation.

"The (ongoing) excessive & unnecessary use of power against the civilian population & the intentional targeting of even unborn children (through chemical, radiological & other weapons as well as other means reveals) a premeditated plan to depopulate Iraq."

As a result, children live in "an environment of total chaos, violence & terror." Genocide will only stop when US forces leave, but their crimes will affect Iraqis for generations. The historic record will last forever, including in the collective public memory.

History will acknowledge that the criminal policy of the US-Britain & the illegal invasion of Iraq led to the current tragedy of the Iraqi people. In addition, history will have to acknowledge that the Iraqi people, alone, have resisted the genocidal sanctions & the US-British Occupation of their country.

A detailed study by the UN & Iraqi officials found that life in Iraq has decayed significantly since US-led foreign forces invaded & occupied the country, following a general trend seen in most sectors since the imposition of the genocidal sanctions in 1990. Iraqi civilians, mostly children, have suffered the consequences of this criminal tragedy.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducted the survey (study), titled "Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004," (ILCS) in cooperation with Iraq's Ministry of Planning under Occupation. It should be noted that the study is not independent. The survey was conducted by Iraqi officials, who are serving the Occupation, with officials from the UN.

Iraq had one of the best national health-care systems in the Middle East. For example, Saudi Arabia with all her petrodollar earnings had just a fraction of that of Iraq's.

Iraq boasted a modern social infrastructure with a first-class range of health-care facilities & the Iraqi people enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East. In 1991, there were 1,800 health-care centres in Iraq. More than a decade later, that number is almost half & almost a third of them require major rehabilitation.

Iraq had used its oil revenues, which accounted for 60% of its gross domestic product (GDP), to build a modern health-care system with large Western-style hospitals & modern technology. Iraqi medical & nursing schools attracted students from throughout the Middle East, & many Iraqi doctors were trained in Europe or the US. Primary health-care services reached about 97% of the urban population & 78% of the rural population in 1990.

But the Gulf war of 1991 & more than 13 years of US-Britain sponsored genocidal sanctions have left the country's economy & infrastructure in ruins.

UNICEF reported on March 28, 2003 that, "The Education system in Iraq, prior to 1991, was one of the best in the region, with over 100% Gross Enrolment Rate for primary schooling & high levels of literacy, both of men & women. The Higher Education, especially the scientific & technological institutions, was of an international standard, staffed by high quality personnel". In the 1980s, a successful government program to eradicate illiteracy among Iraqi men & women was implemented.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO),

"Iraq had a modern sanitary infrastructure with an extensive network of water-purification & sewage-treatment systems. Water networks distributed clean, safe water to 95% of the urban population & to 75% of those in rural areas. In 1990, Iraq was ranked 50th out of 130 countries on the UNDP Human Development Index, which measures national achievements in health, education & per capita GDP".

It has fallen to 127, one of the most dramatic declines in human welfare in recent history, as a result of the U.S-Britain-sponsored sanctions & wars, which needlessly killed civilians en mass.

The UN ILCS study , which took less than five months to complete & covered all of Iraq's provinces, reveals that some 24,000 Iraqis, 12 per cent of them children under the age of 18 years old, died as a result of the US-British invasion & the first year of Occupation. The three volumes report, which was based on interviews conducted with some 22,000 Iraqi households in 2004. The report estimates that the total number of Iraqi deaths is between 18,000 & 29,000. However, this estimate is misleading & does not take into account households where all members were lost, crimes that occurred very often in the indiscriminate bombings of population centres.

The most credible study so far was published in November 2004 in the Lancet, the highly reputable British medical journal. It shows that US occupation forces in Iraq have killed more than 100,000 civilians between March 2003 & October 2004, the great majority of them are women & children. The estimate is considered "conservative" because it excludes the high death toll in areas such as Fallujah, where the US committed crimes against humanity by obliterating the entire city of 300,000 people. Further, the Lancet study also shows that 14 per cent of US soldiers & 28 per cent of US marines had killed a civilian: US-authorised war crimes ignored in the ILCS Report.

Consistent with other studies, the ILCS study reveals that Iraqi civilians, mostly children, have suffered from lack of health care & adequate nutrition. The Data shows that 23 per cent of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition & 12 percent suffer from general malnutrition, 8 per cent suffer acute malnutrition.

In a study published in November, the Norwegian-based Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science found that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months & 5 years has increased from 4% before the invasion to 7.7% since the US invasion of Iraq. In other words, despite the 13-years of sanctions, Iraqi children were living much better (by 3.7%) under the regime of Saddam Hussein than under the Occupation. Officials from the Institute revealed that the Iraqi malnutrition rate is similar to the level in some hard-hit African countries. A generation ago, obesity was the main nutrition-related public health concern, today at 7.7 per cent, Iraq's child malnutrition rate is roughly equal to that of Burundi, an African nation ravaged by more than a decade of war. The study was substantiated by new study prepared for the UN Human Rights Commission by the reputed Swiss professor of Sociology & expert on the right to food, Dr. Jean Ziegler.

Infant mortality & malnutrition findings show clearly that, ''the suffering of children due to war & conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities",' says the study. With children under the age of 15 make up 39 per cent of the country's total population of 27 million, the ILCS study notes that, "Most Iraqi children today have lived their whole lives under sanctions & war". In other words, most Iraqi children today have lived their lives in constant fear of US-British sponsored terrorism. "We find record of not a single significant demonstration protesting the wholesale destruction of Iraqi children," wrote Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado.

A detailed study by the British-based charity organisation (Medact) that examines the impact of war on health, revealed cases of vaccine-preventable diseases were rising & relief & reconstruction work had been mismanaged. Gill Reeve, deputy director of Medact, said, "the health of the Iraqi people has deteriorated since the 2003 invasion. The 2003 war not only created the conditions for further health decline, but also damaged the ability of Iraqi society to reverse it".

And as a consequence of the war, "Hundreds of thousands of children born since the beginning of the present war [March 2003] have had none of their required vaccinations & routine immunization services in major areas of the country are all but disrupted. Destruction of refrigeration systems needed to store vaccines have rendered the vaccine supply virtually useless", writes Dr. César Chelala, an international public health consultant. "Even antibiotics of minimal cost are in short supply, increasing the population's risk of dying from common infections. Hospitals are overcrowded & many hospitals go dark at night for lack of lighting fixtures. The Iraqi minister of health claims that 100 percent of the hospitals in Iraq need rehabilitation", added César Chelala. The "current major problems" includes "lack of health personnel, lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipments & destroyed hospitals & health centres", the study reveals. It is a US-made & a US-accelerated tragedy.

After health, Iraq's education system has also deteriorated. Again, Iraqis youngsters are hard hit under Occupation. The literacy rate among Iraqis between the ages of 15 & 24 is just 74 per cent, which is according to the study is only "slightly higher than the literacy rate for the population at large". The figure is lower than that for those 25-34, "indicating that the younger generation lags behind its predecessors on educational performance", said the study. As a result of high unemployment (over 70 per cent), males have neglected their education & are in search of work to support their families. Contrary to the ILCS study, like males, women literacy has declined markedly.

In reference to the past, the study acknowledge that while the previous regime (of Saddam Hussein) built up many of the country's service networks, like electricity grids, sewage systems & water, the systems are widely in disrepair, the study reveals. However, in scathing over the sanctions & war, the ILCS study fails to condemn & attribute the causes of Iraq's current conditions to the deliberate & systematic US-British bombings campaign (since 1991) to destroy the entire of Iraq's civilian infrastructure, including water purification plants, sewage treatment plants, electricity grids & communications.

The deliberate destruction of Iraq's water & sewage systems by US bombings has been the major cause (for a decade) of an outbreak of diarrhoea & hepatitis, particularly lethal to pregnant women & young children. Diarrhoea killed two out of every 10 children before the 1991 Gulf War & four in 10 after the war. The study indicates that only 54 per cent of households nationwide have access to a "safe & stable" supply of drinking water. An estimated 722,000 Iraqis, the report also notes, rely on sources that are both unreliable & unsafe.

Conditions are worse in rural areas, with 80 per cent of families drinking unsafe water, the report says. According to researchers, "the situation is alarming" in the southern governorates of Basra, Dhiqar, Qadisiyah, Wasit & Babel, located near the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers. A large percentage of the population in this region relies on water from polluted rivers & local streams.

Although 98 per cent of Iraqi households are connected to the electrical grid, 78 per cent of them experience "severe instability" & low quality in the service, according to the survey. One in three Iraqi families now relies on electricity generators, most of which are shared between households. In all, daily living conditions under the Occupation have deteriorated markedly.

According to Barham Salih, Iraq's minister of planning, "This survey shows a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq". Staffan de Mistura, the UN secretary general's deputy special representative in Iraq, said the study "not only provides a better understanding of socio-economic conditions in Iraq, but it will certainly benefit the development & reconstruction processes".

And Barack would simply "turn the page" on all this .....