Local doctor Kathleen O'Malley doesn't care that it is illegal to travel to Iraq and she doesn't care that traveling there means risking death.
However, what she does care about is that people are suffering in Iraq due to U.S. sanctions; she cares so much that, despite all of this, she traveled there Jan. 18, to understand what is going on and to bring that information back to the United States.
O'Malley gave a lecture about her trip to an audience of about 200 at the Friends Meeting House, 1600 Fifth St. NW, Sunday.
She said she decided to take the illegal trip there because of how much it overwhelmed her to think that the United States is taking steps to bomb Iraq again. She said that she knew she had to do something -- she had to take a stand.
"I did the strongest thing I could think of to do," she said. "We have to take a stand for the people who are voiceless."
O'Malley said that during her trip, she found the people to be warm and friendly.
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"It is truly a culture of love and kindness," she said. "I felt totally embraced."
She traveled there with 12 other people who were all sent to Iraq as part of a joint United States and the United Kingdom campaign called Voices in the Wilderness, to bring attention to the effects of economic sanctions on Iraq.
Economic sanctions, imposed by the United Nations, do not allow Iraq to receive any medicine, electrical repair parts, water treatment equipment or sewers -- all damaged in the Gulf War.
Because of this, O'Malley said some places have no electricity, water is contaminated causing a 1,000 percent increase in disease, sewage is ankle deep in some streets and every three weeks, 3,000 children die.
During her 13 days in Iraq, O'Malley visited a hospital that had 300 beds, under-educated doctors, a lack of medicine and, what she describes as the worst part, only three medical radiation machines. This causes a pressing problem, she said, because 40 percent of the Iraqi population can expect to develop cancer, most of them children, due to the 660 tons of depleted uranium the United States left in Iraq after the Gulf War.
"In my view, this is a weapon of mass destruction," she said. "The most horrible thing was to watch mothers who can only stand there and watch their children die."
When O'Malley asked a doctor in the Iraqi hospital what he wanted her to say to the American people, he told her to walk the wards and to tell what she saw.
O'Malley said she saw many children limp with cancer, a girl who the doctor said would be better off shot because the hospital didn't have the 22-day supply of medicine to keep her alive and people being taught to be doctors with outdated books and no access to the Internet.
During the presentation, O'Malley gave a list of things to do to end the sanctions against Iraq -- her first suggestion was to impeach President George W. Bush.
O'Malley said she visited the homes of many Iraqis, saying that some even stopped her to ask why President Bush wants to kill them.
"This is really a war against children, we have so much work to do there," O'Malley said.
