I'm still on "light posting" for the next couple of weeks. But I'll be posting occasionally like this.
It's certainly no secret that Saddam Hussein's regime did have chemical weapons at one time and used them against Iran. We had some gripping testimony at Saddam's trial last week from some of his Kurdish victims. This article focuses on a particular aspect of the terrible damage that chemical weapons can do to people:
Chemical Warfare Ravages Mental Health Of Iranian Civilians ScienceDaily.com 08/01/06
Iranian civilians exposed to high-intensity warfare and chemical weapons are experiencing significantly higher levels of psychological distress compared to those exposed to low-intensity warfare but not chemical weapons, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the August 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association devoted to the theme of violence and human rights.
The research was based on data collected in July 2004 on 153 civilians in three towns bordering Iran and Iraq by researchers in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) at Yale School of Medicine, the Department of Psychiatry and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.
The team, led by EPH research associate Farnoosh Hashemian, conducted a cross-sectional randomized study to measure civilian trauma during the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, caused one million casualties on both sides and 60,000 chemical warfare survivors in Iran. While much is known about the physical consequences of chemical warfare, the researchers sought to document the long-term effects of chemical attacks on mental health.
The United States under the Reagan administration was supporting Iraq in this war with Iran, and as a result helped downplay Saddam's use of chemical weapons. Reagan also had the US briefly enter the war as an active naval belligerent against Iran.
The study cited can be accessed here (for a fee): Anxiety, Depression, and Posttraumatic Stress in Iranian Survivors of Chemical Warfare.
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