c a l l s for any country to handrnhim over to The Hague. We expectrnthe indictment to be followed,rn” he said. Asked howrnP u t i n ‘ s offer to mediate couldrntake shape if the moment Milosevicrnshowed up he would facerne x t r a d i t i o n to The Hague,rnReeker said: “That’s a questionrnfor Putin and Milosevic torndiscuss. We believe [Milosevic]rnshould be out of power,rnout of Serbia and in The Haguernto face j u s t i c e . Period.”rnDr. Kostunica responded by accusingrnthe United States of placing the destiny ofrnone man ahead of the fate of an entire nation.rnMany in the Russian media wererneven more blunt. “Washington has therebyrndone Mr. Milosevic one more service:rnHe now has a pretext for not traveling tornMoscow,” commented the pro-WesternrnKommersant on October 4.rnUltimately, the subterfuge didn’t work:rnThe people of Serbia took matters intorntheir own hands and threw Milosevic out.rnWithin days, however, Mrs. Albright,rnRobin Cook, and other supporters of lastrnyear’s NATO bombing started claimingrncredit for Milosevic’s downfall. But as SimonrnJenkins wrote in the Times of Londonrn(October 7), it was not the bombing, thernsanctions, or the posturing of NATOrnpoliticians that got rid of Milosevic; inrnfact, his fall was impeded by Western intervention:rn[0]utsiders such as [BritishrnForeign Secretary] Mr Cookrnshould stop rewriting historyrnto their own gain. They didrnnot topple Mr Milosevic. Theyrndid not bomb democracy into thernl a s t Communist dictatorship inrnEurope. They merely blockedrnthe Danube and sent Serb p o l i ­trni c s back to the Dark Ages ofrnautocracy. The f a l l of MrrnMilosevic began with an electionrnthat he called and thenrndenied, spurring the electorsrnto demand that the army respectrnt h e i r decision and protectrnt h e i r sovereignty. For that,rnYugoslavia’s democracy deservesrnthe credit, not Nato’srnTomahawk missiles.rnThis assessment was echoed by thernBBC’s John Simpson, writing in the SundayrnTelegraph on October 8:rnThe kind of people who madernl a s t Thursday’s revolutionrn[were] depressed in equal measurernby the careless savageryrnof the Nato bombing and thernsheer nastiness of the Milosevicrnregime.rnWhile Serbia’s misery has abated, thernless fortunate people of Iraq continue to bernsqueezed between the Western hammerrnand their ruler’s anvil. We now learn firomrnScottish sources that their experience ofrn”careless savagery” included the deliberaternpoisoning of Iraq’s water supplies byrnthe aUies during the Gulf War. Accordingrnto the Sunday Herald (September 17):rnThe US-led a l l i e d forces delrni b e r a t e l y destroyed I r a q ‘srnwater supply during the GulfrnWar-flagrantly breaking thernGeneva Convention and causingrnthousands of c i v i l i a n deaths.rnSince the war ended in 1991 therna l l i e d nations have made surernthat any attempts to make contaminatedrnwater safe have beenrnthwarted . . . Thomas J Nagy,rnProfessor of Expert Systems atrnGeorge Washington Universityrnwith a doctoral fellowship inrnpublic health, told the SundayrnHerald: “Those who saw nothingrnwrong in producing [thisrnplan], those who ordered i t srnproduction and those who knewrnabout i t and have remainedrns i l e n t for ten years would seemrnto be in violation of FederalrnStatute and perhaps have evenrnconspired to commit genocide.”rnProfessor Nagy obtained a detailed seven-rnpage document prepared by the U.S.rnDefense Intelligence Agency. EntitledrnIraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities, itrnwas issued the day after the war startedrnand circulated to all major allied commandrnofficers. The document reportedrnthat Iraq had gone to great trouble to providerna supply of clean water to its population,rnbut it had to depend on importingrnspecialized equipment and purificationrnchemicals. The report then stated:rnFailing to secure suppliesrnwill result in a shortage ofrnpure drinking water for much ofrnthe population. This couldrnlead to increased incidents,rni f not epidemics, of diseasernand certain pure-water dependentrnindustries becoming incapacitatedrn. . . Full degradatrni on of the water treatmentrnsystem probably will take atrnleast another six months.rnAccording to the Sunday Herald, Iraq’srneight multipurpose dams were repeatedlyrnhit during the Gulf War, smashing the infrastructurernfor flood control, municipalrnand industrial water storage, irrigation,rnand hydroelectric power. Four of Iraq’srnseven major pumping stations were destroyed,rnas were 31 municipal water andrnsewage facilities—20 of them in Baghdad,rnresulting in sewage pouring into thernTigris. Water-purification plants were incapacitatedrnthroughout Iraq. Thousandsrnof civilians died as a result of those attacks.rnThe paper concluded:rnWater-borne diseases in Iraqrntoday are both endemic and epidemic.rnThey include typhoid,rndysentery, h e p a t i t i s , cholerarnand polio (which had previouslyrnbeen eradicated), alongrnwith a l i t a n y of others . . .rnChlorine and essential equipmentrnparts needed to repair andrnclear the water system havernbeen banned from entering therncountry under the UN “hold”rnsystem.rnThe Iraqis may derive some comfortrnfrom the knowledge that the allied governmentsrnare equally secretive regarding thernsuffering oftheir own people. Th& SundayrnTimes reported on September 3 that “tensrnof thousands” of British and Americanrnsoldiers are dying ixom exposure to radiationrnfrom depleted uranium (DU) shellsrnfired during the Gulf War:rnThe findings will underminernthe British and American governments’rnclaims that Gulf Warrnsyndrome does not exist and intensifyrnpressure from veteransrnon both sides of the Atlanticrnfor compensation . . . Once insidernthe body, DU causes a slowrndeath from cancers, i r r e ­versiblernkidney damage orrnwastage from immune deficiencyrndisorders. In the UK more thanrn400 veterans are estimated tornhave died from “Gulf War syndromern.”rnDECEMBER 2000/29rnrnrn