by Jaclynn Ashly | Jan 23, 2026 | Article, Climate Crisis, Iraq, Politics and Movements: International
In the central Iraqi city of Fallujah, the joy of pregnancy is overshadowed by dread. For many families, the anticipation of new life is replaced by the fear of what might be born into their arms. More than 20 years after the second major US assault on Fallujah in November 2004, its toxic legacy still seeps into the city’s wombs.
For about six weeks, US forces, backed by a British battalion, waged one of the Iraq War’s most ferocious campaigns, saturating the city with white phosphorus and depleted uranium munitions. The assault leveled neighborhoods and killed hundreds of civilians.
Today, researchers warn that toxic remnants remain embedded in Fallujah’s soil, water, air, and the bloodstreams of its residents. Each year, newborns bear the silent inheritance of war: cancers, twisted limbs, missing organs, and severe congenital abnormalities.
“I just want to be like other kids,” says 12-year-old Fatema Ahmed, who was born with debilitating deformities in her arms and legs. “I feel embarrassed to be different like this.” Sitting in her Fallujah home, she stares at the floor, shyly swinging her legs.
Fatema’s mother was likely exposed to toxic material from the US assault, according to the family’s doctor. Fatema is one of scores of children in Fallujah whose bodies carry the scars of a war they never lived through.
The war’s toll is inscribed on Fatema’s body. Born with severe deformities in her arms and legs, she embodies Fallujah’s toxic legacy—one of many children afflicted by conditions that families and experts trace to heavy metals left behind after the 2004 US assaults. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
A close-up of Fatema’s arm deformities,
by Jaclynn Ashly | Nov 19, 2025 | Article, Iraq, Politics and Movements: International
Content warning: The video included in this story contains graphic footage of victims of the Haditha massacre.
Khaled Salman Raseef remembers being jolted awake by a loud explosion near his home on the morning of November 19, 2005—exactly two decades ago today.
In Haditha, a once-peaceful Iraqi city along the Euphrates River, such sounds had become routine. The close-knit neighborhoods had been transformed into a war zone after the U.S. invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years earlier. Insurgent groups, including Al Qaeda, had taken root here to fight American forces.
A view of Haditha, Iraq, situated along the banks of the Euphrates River. The city’s strategic position near the Haditha Dam made it a key site during the U.S. occupation and ensuing insurgency—conditions that set the stage for the 2005 massacre. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
The Euphrates River runs alongside Haditha, long considered the city’s lifeblood. Its proximity to the massive Haditha Dam has made the area strategically vital—drawing a heavy U.S. military presence after the U.S. invasion in 2003. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
By then, Raseef and his neighbors had a routine for when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded and U.S. raids followed. They hid the elderly, women, and children in a back room, while the men opened the doors and tried to speak calmly. Whatever happened—whether troops burst in with assault rifles raised or smashed furniture—the rule was always the same: stay polite, Raseef says, speaking in his home in Haditha.
“Usually, about an hour after an explosion, everything goes back to normal,” the 51-year-old lawyer explains. “But that day was unlike any other.”
Khaled Salman Raseef at his
