In his just-released book The New Rulers of the World, Australian journalist John Pilger recounts conversations with Iraqi doctors like Jawad Al-Ali, a cancer specialist in Basra. Before the Gulf War, Dr. Al-Ali told Pilger, “We had only three or four deaths in a month from cancer. Now it’s 30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that’s just in my department. That is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our studies indicate that 40 to 48 percent of the population in this area will get cancer. That’s almost half the population.”

Not only are Dr. Al-Ali’s patients suffering, but his own family members are ill as well. “Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease,” he told Pilger. “We strongly suspect depleted uranium.”

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Kathy Kelly, director of the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness and three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, has visited Iraq repeatedly since the first Gulf War and has built strong relationships with doctors and nurses there. She recounted a day she spent in a pediatric hospital in November 1998. “Four babies were born that day with deformities. I was shocked, but the doctors said, ‘This is not unusual.’”

"I've had three heart attacks, two heart surgeries. I have chronic headaches, chronic upper respiratory infections. I get pneumonia two or three times a year," she said. "I have chronic fatigue, joint aches, muscle aches. I have a rash that migrates all over my body."