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Re: [casi] targeting of water treatment facilities




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Thanks to Andrew for raising his questions in relation to my paper on US targeting during the last 
Gulf War.  As he points out, I found no admittance in the US Gulf War Air Power Surveys that the 
air campaign had deliberately targeted water treatment facilities, and little discussion of any 
collateral damge, although Ramsey Clark's report does states that such facilities were extensively 
bombed.  I did therefore dismiss that these were deliberately targeted. However, I am open to being 
persuaded otherwise if there is evidence of either targeting of water treatment (eventhough this is 
not mentioned as a target in the GWAPS) or whether there was extensive collateral damage to Iraq 
water treatment facitilities.  If there was, could and should measures have been taken to limit 
this?  I'm sure the sensitivity of this matter makes it hard to get at the truth.
Thank you
Ruth
 Andrew Goreing <amg@newnham.org> wrote:Does anyone have any further evidence on the following?

I read Ruth Blakeley's message (23 Jan, Re: [casi] Dual crisis looms for
millions in Iraq) with interest and followed up her paper Bomb Now, Die
Later (available at http://www.civilwarfare.co.uk/)

According to Ruth the GWAPS (Gulf War Air Power Surveys) provides no
evidence that sewage treatment or water purification plants were targeted by
the 1991 allied air campaign. She discounts the report of Ramsey Clark that

"In all areas we visited, and all other areas reported to us, municipal
water processing plants, pumping stations and even reservoirs have been
bombed".

Presumably the sentence she quotes from the 1996 WHO report that refers to

"the extensive destruction of electrical generating plants,
water-purification and sewage treatment plants during the six-week 1991
war..."

does not in her view provide evidence that Allied forces actually bombed
such plants.

Obviously, the Allied assault on the Iraqi electrical power infrastructure
plus the subsequent years of sanctions severely harmed the water
purification system. Probably no-one on the list is in any doubt about that.
But is there persuasive evidence that water-treatment plants were actually
bombed?

Obvious issues --

Were there undisputed reports of HE damage at such plants?

Could such damage have come from Iraqi ordnance?

The GWAPS happily admits to intentional destruction of the electrical
system; however admission of attacks on water facilities (had there been
any) would be a rather more sensitive matter, one would have thought.

Andrew Goreing


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Ruth J Blakeley
265A Hotwell Road
Hotwells
Bristol
BS8 4SF
0117 929 4156 / 07909 525010
Website: www.civilwarfare.co.uk






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Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk


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