This is liberation, improvement and success, huh?
Only in that mass-murdering asshole George W. Bush's eyes!!!!
"Cases of Cholera Reach Baghdad
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
BAGHDAD, Sept. 20 — The first cases of cholera appeared in Baghdad on Thursday, in a sign the epidemic that has already sickened thousands in northern Iraq is now spreading more widely in a population made vulnerable by war to a normally preventable disease.
The World Health Organization and Iraqi Red Crescent Society reported two cases here and Iraqi television reported another case, in a 7-month-old baby, in Basra, far to the south.
People contract cholera by ingesting water or food contaminated with the feces of an infected person. Roughly one in 20 infected people become severely ill, with profuse diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps, while others have mild or no symptoms but carry the disease.
While cholera can kill its victims in a matter or hours, it is easily controlled through basic water treatment and sanitation measures. But in a sign of how difficult that may be in Iraq, the director of the Basra health ministry, Dr. Ryadh Abdul Ameer, said Thursday that some waterworks in his city were now entirely without chlorine, which is used to purify, because imports of chlorine dried up this year after insurgents used the chemical in bomb attacks.
“We are suffering from a shortage of chlorine, which is sometimes zero,” Dr. Ameer said in an interview on Al Hurra, an American-financed television network in the Middle East. “Chlorine is essential to disinfect the water.”
The cholera outbreak in Iraq this summer had been centered near Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya, in Kurdistan, where at least 10 people have died. In a report released Sept. 14, the W.H.O. said that cholera had been clinically confirmed in more than 1,055 cases so far in Kurdistan and was suspected in more than 24,500 cases of diarrhea and vomiting. In Baghdad, the W.H.O. representative for Iraq, Dr. Naeema al-Gasseer, said laboratory tests confirmed one 25-year-old woman had contracted the disease; a second case was suspected but not confirmed, she said. A hospital worker in the Sadr City area of eastern Baghdad said one patient there appeared to be sick with cholera. That case also was not confirmed.
Cholera is not uncommon in Iraq, which typically reports around 30 cases a year, public health experts say, with the last major outbreak coming in 1999. While it can be stopped with warnings and basic precautions like boiling water, it has crept south through the tumultuous Diyala region, which has been convulsed in sectarian conflict.
Hospital sources there reported two cases on Thursday, after cholera had earlier turned up on the northern border of Diyala, closer to the Kurdish outbreak.
The Iraqi deputy health minister, Dr. Adel Mohsin, said that he knew of only one confirmed case of cholera in Baghdad, and that was in a patient who lived in an outlying district near Diyala Province, called Diyala Bridge, rather than within the city.
Cholera is caused by an infection of the intestines from contaminated water. Dr. Said Hakki, the director of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said earlier that health officials expected the disease to break out in Baghdad by late September or early October. If it is widespread, the security situation could make it extremely difficult to send in health workers to protect the population.
At a briefing Thursday, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, and an Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Qanbar Abud, who is in charge of Baghdad operations for the Iraqi Army, said violence in the capital had dropped off sharply this year during the buildup of American troops. Civilian casualties in Baghdad dropped to 12 per day from 32 per day, he said.
Also on Thursday, the BBC sent a memo to its employees around the world stating that because of a threat received by the BBC’s Baghdad bureau, the network would temporarily move the newsgathering staff out of that bureau to unspecified locations.
“We’ve been made aware of a specific threat to the international staff in the Baghdad bureau,” said the memo, sent by Jon Williams, the BBC’s World News editor.
The memo said that the BBC’s coverage of Iraq would continue with “a significantly reduced team” while the security threat was assessed. No other details were given, but the memo from Mr. Williams said there had been a meeting with Iraqi and Western staff members in Baghdad, “and we have reassured them that this is a temporary move and that their safety is our only concern.”
Yup, all that print for the shitstink reporters, accompanied by craphole lies from the asshole shitfuck Odierno!!!
And WHERE are the 12 dead from YESTERDAY, Times?
You LYING OMITTING SHITFUCK ZIONIST RAG?!
Never mind that the violence down is a SHITHOLE LIE!!!!
As evidence, remember about 35 people are being killed every day -- on the rise over the summer -- and the number of Iraqis killed by the surge is around 300 per day, 10,000 per month!
And who the fuck knows how many BLACKWATER KILLS?
"The Iraqi version of events may be self-serving."
But, nooooooo, the SHIT BUSH GOVERNMENT and the LYING, COMPLICIT MSM ENABLERS like the shitbag Times would NEVER BE SELF-SERVING!!!!
Actually, no, since they serve the MASS-MURDERING, WAR-CRIMINAL, GENOCIDAL SHITSTINK STATE of IZ-RAY-EL!!!!!!!!!!!!
That fucking lying, land-stealing, mass-murdering, holo-hoaxing shitstink state!!!!!!!!
BURN in HELL, NaZionist shitbags!!!!
SOON, NOW!!!!!!!!!
