World Is Blind To Real Situation In Iraq: Activists
By ERIC JOHNSTON
OSAKA -- An Iraqi journalist and a Japanese human rights activist said the public has a poor idea of the situation in Iraq and warned of an impending health catastrophe as more Iraqis contract cancer from exposure to depleted uranium shells used by the U.S. and Britain.
Speaking at a public gathering Thursday evening in Osaka, Isam Rasheed, a freelance journalist, and Fumikazu Nishitani, head of Osaka-based NGO Rescue the Iraqi Children, gave an update of what was going on in the Middle Eastern country.
"It is now virtually impossible for foreign journalists to move around independently in Iraq," Nishitani said.
"Most (journalists) are embedded with U.S. forces or operate from the Green Zone, a walled fortress in central Baghdad. As a result, few people in the West, or in Japan, have seen the true extent of the damage and suffering in Fallujah, while the U.S. government continues to deny responsibility for the cancer and leukemia outbreaks."
"The world has seen little of the devastation wrought by U.S. troops on the city of Fallujah," Rasheed said. "Entire neighborhoods were destroyed and the number of innocent civilians killed and maimed the bombing was quite high."
Nishitani said the situation was a "major problem for Japan" because the Japanese public does not have a clear picture of what is going on in Iraq because there are few Japanese journalists there.
