http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1904As extensive as the military costs are, the full human, economic, cultural and ecological costs of the Iraq war – including the damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure and health care system, the destruction of antiquities and looting of cultural landmarks, and widespread environmental degradation – remain largely unknown but appear to be mounting.
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Tens of millions in revenues accrued by the new program – called the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) – have gone missing, according to multiple audits. Administrators have even "lost" well over 600,000 tons of Iraqi oil, worth some $69 million.
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"It's the worst health care system Iraq has ever known," Dr. Waleed George, chief surgeon at Al-Sadoon Hospital in Baghdad, told the Times. "Imagine yourself trying to operate on a patient in a two-hour surgery and the power goes out," George said. "You pray to God, and you sweat." According to Dr. George, shortages of electricity and medicine recently forced the hospital to reduce the number of operations by about half, the Times reported.
"High levels of radiation have been detected in several neighborhoods
as a result of looters carting off nuclear materials," UNEP reported in October 2003. But due to the lack of security, inspectors are unable to begin cleanup operations. "There has not been proper cleanup and only assessment work at some of these sites," Haavisto told Reuters. "Chemicals are seeping into groundwater and the situation is becoming worse and creating additional health problems."