Ecocide: Saddam Hussein’s Destruction of the Iraqi Marshlands

By Alec Absaroka Konigsberg

Introduction

In 1991, under the leadership of President Saddam Hussein (1937-2006), the Ba’athist government of Iraq revived a series of initiatives to construct canals, dams, and dikes in the marshlands of the country’s south and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that run through them. The Iraqi government claimed the massive hydrologic project would repurpose the large area of land for agricultural use and reduce the mosquito population of the marshes. However, most believed that his regime drained the marshes in response to the participation of the Ma’dan people—who inhabited the marshes—in the anti-government Shi’ite and Kurdish uprising which occurred in March of the same year.^[1]

For the Ma’dan, the drainage of the marshes after 1991 resulted in massive environmental and human damage, destroying the ecosystem and, in effect, succeeding in its goal of punishing the Ma’dan by all but destroying their way of life. Saddam’s regime also launched direct attacks on the marsh dwellers during this time but did so sparingly.^[2] The greatest detriment to the Ma’dan and their way of life came from the harm done to their environment, leading many to consider the drainage to be an “ecocide” as it had devastating consequences on the marshes and the Ma’dan people who depended on them for their way of life. In southern Iraq, between 1991 and 1994, the area of marshlands shrank to a tiny fraction of their original size, the water of the marshes and the surrounding rivers became polluted and salinized, and the populations of plant, fish, bird, and mammal species suffered.

During the uprising and in the decades since the draining of the marshes, coverage of the crimes against the marshes of southern Iraq has centered around the impact of the Ba’athist government’s actions on the Ma’dan people. However, the desiccation of the marshes wrought massive damage to the flora, fauna, and overall ecosystem of the marshland as well as the hydrologic profile of the region. Therefore, the marshes themselves deserve attention as one of the casualties of the Saddam Hussein regime.

This study draws upon a wide range of sources, including academic books and articles that consider the Iraqi marshlands, their drainage, damage, prognosis, and efforts toward restoration. It also considers newspaper articles and United States government reports on the matter, taken from the period during and immediately after the drainage. Lastly, it examines ecological and hydrological studies on the drainage projects and the water, plants, and animals, of the Mesopotamian marshlands.

This paper contains five further sections. First, I offer important information about the history of Iraq’s marshes and the Ma’dan people. I follow this with an overview of Saddam’s regime and the events leading up to the commencement of the drainage activity in 1991—including the Shi’ite intifada and the violent direct attacks on the Ma’dan. Then, I examine the drainage processes conducted by the Ba’ath government and its team of engineers, and the immediate hydrological and aquatic effects of these actions. The next section dives into the damage done to the marshland ecology, supported primarily by environmental journal articles and case studies. Finally, I will evaluate the total environmental impact of the drainage, providing information on the cases and attempts toward restoration and the significant lessons learned from this ecological disaster, concluding that Saddam’s actions destroyed the wetland environment of southern Iraq.

Alongside the significant harm done to the living organisms of the Iraqi marshes, the “ecocide” suffered by the Ma’dan was equally catastrophic. With the drainage of the marshes, the indigenous population lost the lifeblood that supported their entire civilization, as the desiccation stripped them of drinking water, favorable agricultural conditions, and food sources such as water buffalo and fish.^[3] This tragedy connects to the issue of “water injustice” — the intersection of environmental science and human rights —a field that has gained significant attention among scholars in recent years and focuses on the uneven distribution of access to clean water worldwide, wrestling with these issues in the context of poor governmental water policies and water inequality across diverse socioeconomic and racial groups.^[4] The drainage crisis violates many of the environmental and human principles that have emerged in the intellectual frameworks of water injustice, such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In the context of the Iraqi marshes and the Ma’dan, Saddam Hussein’s draining of the marshland constituted a belligerent offense of water injustice, robbing an entire ethnic group of the water they needed by destroying their habitat and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their home as a result.

In this paper, I use the word Ma’dan to refer to the indigenous Arabic-speaking population of the Iraqi marshes and intifada, meaning rebellion or uprising, when referring to the 1991 insurrection against Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime. When discussing the fish of the marshes, I use the Arabic names gattan, bizz, shabout, and jirri for the species Luciobarbus xanthopterus, Luciobarbus esocinus, Tor grypus, and Silurius triostegus, respectively.

The Marshes and the Ma’dan

The marshlands of Southern Iraq, dubbed the “Garden of Eden,” “the Fertile Crescent,” and the “cradle of civilization,” have existed for millennia and consist of three main marsh areas: The Hammar Marsh, the southernmost of the three that lies just south of the Euphrates River; the Central Marsh, between the Tigris and Euphrates; and the Hawizeh Marsh to the northeast of the Tigris, which straddles Iraq’s eastern border with Iran.^[5] Together, these three areas combined to form a wetland ecosystem encompassing an area of up to 20,000 square kilometers—making it the largest of its kind throughout the Middle East and Europe.^[6] In stark contrast to the surrounding miles of desert, this vast delta region was a vibrant land of streams, lakes, wetlands, and mudflats which gave way to a unique habitat and a diverse array of plant and animal life.^[7] The marshes’ trademark plant was reeds, alongside the significant presence of papyrus, cattail, and bulrush plants. The animal population was most notable for mammals such as water buffalo, otters, and wild boars, as well as many species of fish and waterfowl—which spent time breeding in the marshes each year as they migrated from Central Asia and Siberia to Africa for the winter months.^[8]

The marshes of Iraq have additionally served an important role as host to humans and civilization, with scholars estimating that people have inhabited the region since the glaciers receded after the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago.^[9] The Sumerians, the first civilization, called the marshes home as early as 5500 BCE and harnessed the marshes to create their way of life, building homes and boats out of the plentiful reeds and developing an agriculture-based society from the fertile wetlands.^[10]

The exact timeline and ethnic origins of the Ma’dan are unclear, as they were largely isolated and unknown to the rest of the Middle East until the 1964 release of Wilfred Thesiger’s book The Marsh Arabs, drawn from the seven years that the British explorer spent in the marshes.^[11] However, there are historical links between their people and the ancient Sumerians, the Arab Bedouin tribes from the surrounding desert, and the Zanj, who came to Mesopotamia as slaves from East Africa during the early years of the Abbasid caliphate (750-1258 BCE).^[12] By the late twentieth century, the Ma’dan constituted a population of 350-500,000 Shia Muslims with a self-sufficient way of life that centered economically and culturally around the marsh environment.^[13] The primary food sources of the Ma’dan came directly from the marshes as they hunted the waterfowl and wild boar; fished extensively; and obtained milk, cheese, and yogurt from the water buffalo. The buffalo were especially crucial to the Ma’dan, who repurposed their dung to fuel their fires and fertilize their crops.^[14] Agriculturally, the Ma’dan of the late twentieth century focused on millet and rice as their main cereal grains, alongside fruit crops such as melons, date palms, and tomatoes.^[15] Their agricultural capabilities were contingent on the quality and supply of the marsh soil and water which the consistent flow of the Tigris and Euphrates kept clean and not salinized—conditions optimal for farming and supporting a diverse range of mammal, bird, and fish species. Living on the marsh islands in reed homes and sailing through their habitat in canoes of the same material, the Ma’dan developed a reed-based circular economy—fully dependent on the vegetation and animal life of the marshes. Farming and hunting entirely within the wetland environment, the Ma’dan peacefully thrived in their homes in the marshes of southern Iraq.^[16]

The State of Iraq in 1991 and the Shia Intifada

In early 1991, Iraq and its Ba’athist government under the leadership of Saddam Hussein had just finished fighting in the Gulf War against a group of countries led by the United States in response to Iraq’s military invasion of neighboring Kuwait. From 1980 to 1988, they had been at war with their western neighbor Iran—a war of attrition in which Saddam’s regime employed chemical weapons against both Iranian civilians and any of their own Iraqis who the government considered to be disloyal or an internal threat.^[17] While Saddam Hussein was in power (1979-2003), his Ba’ath party government held Arab nationalist views and followed the Sunni branch of Islam. In the Islamic faith, Sunnis believe that one can be elected caliph (leader of the Muslim community) regardless of lineage. Shi’i, on the other hand, require their leader to descend from the Prophet Mohammad. These two main branches of Islam have jockeyed for power throughout history, and Saddam saw the Shia population in southern Iraq and the Kurdish ethnic minority in the North as enemies, quelling any political action that they dared to take.^[18]

After the Gulf War in 1991, with Saddam’s forces reeling from their expulsion from Kuwait and at the urging of US President George H. W. Bush (1924-2018), the Kurds and Shia saw an opportunity to challenge Saddam Hussein. In the late winter and early spring, Shia in the south gained momentum in the cities of Basra, Najaf, and Karbala, seeking to usurp the Ba’athist regime from its position of power—all while using the marshes as headquarters for their attacks on Saddam’s troops. However, their efforts eventually fell short, as the lack of international military assistance rendered them unable to establish influence in the capital of Baghdad.^[19] By the end of March 1991, Saddam’s Republican Guard had extinguished the Shia intifada in the south via superior military force and now sought to punish them for their insurrection. The Iraqi military took to the marshes that many Shia rebels had fled to — burning reed homes, killing livestock, bombing villages, and slaughtering an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Ma’dan.^[20] While devastating, the greatest blow to the marshes came shortly after—when Saddam’s regime took hydrologic action in an attempt to eliminate the entire wetland ecosystem.

The Marsh Drainage Process and its Hydrologic Impacts

Despite the destruction caused by Saddam’s military attack on the Ma’dan and their home, he concluded that it was not enough. He tasked his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid with leading a program to drain the marshlands, employing Iraq’s Ministry of Irrigation and skilled military engineers. While outwardly claiming to the public that he sought to repurpose the marshes for more farmland and to reduce the number of mosquitoes in the marshes, the severity of the drainage and the timing of the project relative to the Shia intifada and the subsequent military attacks on the marshes indicate that it was purely a vengeful act.^[21]

Because the water of the marshes came from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Saddam’s engineering team diverted the water from these rivers, effectively draining the wetlands. The drainage initiative drew inspiration from propositions that British engineers had developed in the early 1950s to construct a canal known as the Third River, Saddam’s River, and the Main Outfall Drain between the Tigris and Euphrates that could have siphoned off water supplies from both rivers. The British did not seek to drain the marshes but rather intended to remove salinated water from the agricultural lands in the region. From 1953 into the mid-1980s, they worked on the project sporadically with the Dutch, the Russians, and the Iraqis. However, they did not make significant progress, and the marshes incurred little damage as a result.^[22]

When Saddam ordered the revival of the Third River project, the engineers made much greater progress than their earlier counterparts. With their construction teams working 24-hour days, they brought the Third River to 565 kilometers long by diverting the water from the northern parts of the Tigris and Euphrates away from the marshes.^[23] They then embarked on a five-stage plan of alterations to the hydrology of Tigris, Euphrates, and the wetlands to further divert water away from the Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar Marshes. Stage 1 placed locks and sluices on the Tigris so that water could no longer flow into its tributaries that fed into the Central Marsh, Stage 2 constructed an 85-kilometer-long moat named Anfal 3 that directly took water from the Central Marsh past the marshes and south to the lower Euphrates, and Stage 3 used a barrage dam to redirect the waters of the Euphrates into the Third River. Stage 4 implemented high banks on the Euphrates so that no water could flow across the river from the Central to the Hammar Marsh and constructed a dam on the Euphrates near its intersection with the Tigris to stop water in Anfal 3 from flowing backward and thus returning to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Stage 5 then used dikes and barriers to eliminate the flow of water between the various tributaries of the marshes, dividing the network of the three main marshes into smaller, individual subsections that resulted in a more manageable pumping process to remove the water. These stages, published in documents from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), played a monumental role in the desiccation of the marshes and more than suggest that Iraq’s goal was not to improve the country’s agricultural capabilities.^[24]

In addition to these five main draining stages, Saddam’s regime took further steps to cut all water off from the marshes. They dug a canal branching off from the Tigris farther upstream known as the “Crown of Battles River”, diverting its water away from the Hawizeh Marsh near the Iranian border.^[25] Similarly, they built the 40-mile-long “Qadissiya River” that brought water from the Euphrates to a desert depression, forming a lake that served no purpose. The Hawizeh was then further desiccated with a dike separating the northern half of the Hawizeh from its southern counterpart and a canal that drained water from the northern half. By cutting off the southern Hawizeh and terminating the water supply to the north, the Hawizeh could no longer receive the water necessary for its replenishment. Once these hydrological engineering projects were complete, the Iraqis used 450-horsepower pumps to remove any water left in the marshes. Within a few years, their work left the marshes hydrologically unidentifiable with the “Garden of Eden” that once was.^[26]

As Saddam Hussein’s engineers and laborers worked incessantly to alter the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates and pumped out any remaining water, the hydrologic impacts on the marshes came rapidly. The wetlands almost completely dried up-the draining reduced the 20,000 square kilometers of marshes by over 90% in area by the end of 1993—and little but “a crazy paving of mud” remained.^[27] Observers from the Organization of Human Rights in Iraq saw a significant decline in the water level of the Hawizeh, noting a “white line that extended like chalk on the reeds for dozens of miles… it was the old water level—at least three feet higher than the present level” in November 1992.^[28] The absence of the usual, natural flow of water took a large toll on the water quality as the pumping and evaporation without new water coming in from the Tigris and Euphrates left salt behind in the marshes. In 1998, a study led by Ali Shaheen, General Director of Irrigation for the governorate of Dhi Qar, found that the salinity of the water in the Hammar Marsh had risen to eight parts per thousand, eight times the limit for potable water.^[29] The Iraqi soldiers dumped poisonous chemicals into the water, too, and these mixed with the toxic algal blooms from the motionless water to further worsen the water quality. A major symptom of the algae was the decrease in the levels of dissolved oxygen in the water through a process called eutrophication from above the healthy quantity of five to below two milligrams of oxygen per liter of water.^[30] The changes to the water also had strong impacts on the quality of the soil. A study in 2004 found soil in the marshes to have dangerous increases in salinity and selenium: 12.3 micrograms per liter of the latter were found; 2 micrograms per liter is the standard for water quality.^[31] In a short period, the projects of river diversion, dams, and pumping out water had fully transformed the hydrologic state of southern Iraq’s marshes, depleting the, entire ecosystem by drying almost the entire region, and poisoning the water and all life relying on it.

The Destruction of Life in the Marsh Ecosystem

After such significant harm was done to the water and soil of the marshes, the flora and fauna of the area suffered and died, further confirming the status of the marshes as a primary victim of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Many plant and animal species unique to the marshes were driven to endangerment and even extinction as they had adapted to the unique wetland environment over time and thus struggled when the long-stable environment changed severely and rapidly.^[32] When the Iraqi government removed such vast quantities of water from the marshes, they turned from a vibrant green to bare swaths of grayish brown as the tall, thick brush of reeds, papyrus, and bamboo covering the area dried up and died.^[33] The extinction of plant varieties in the marshes was significant with the number of plant species present in 1970 versus 2003 dropping from 44 to 14 in the Central Marshes, 40 to 15 in the Hammar Marshes, and 37 to 23 varieties in the Hawizeh Marshes.^[34] This loss of plant life had major agricultural implications as well. Loss of water and increased soil salinity showed immediate decreases in agricultural production for rice, millet, wheat, and maize—all crops vital to the diet and lifestyle of the Ma’dan. Dates, the primary fruit that the Ma’dan consumed and one of the most abundant in the marshes, experienced a 50% downturn in production when the palms that bore the dates could no longer thrive in the dry wasteland that southern Iraq had become.^[35] Vegetation loss contributed to additional water pollution since the dense aquatic brush that once filtered and purified the water as it flowed through the marshes had disappeared.^[36] Amid the destruction of endemic plant species combined with such serious environmental changes, the marshes became a haven for non-native species that previously failed to thrive in a fully-functioning wetland ecosystem. Three different varieties of shrubs—Cressa cretica, Tamarix passerinoides, and Suaedea vermiculata, all adept at surviving in salty, dry areas—invaded the marshes, further disrupting the ecosystem.^[37] The changes to the marshes were notable in both their extent and impact, resulting in the Iraqi marshes, a region once renowned for its biodiversity, losing most of the plant life that made it such a unique ecosystem.

With the drainage of the Mesopotamian marshes, the pollution and loss of water and vegetation had equally consequential implications for the area’s animals. Many of the mammal, bird, and fish species that had been staples of the marsh ecosystem for thousands of years experienced drops in population and loss of habitat. The number of water buffalo, one of the animals most important to the Ma’dan for its dairy production, fell by 65% from its pre-drainage levels due to the loss of much of the vegetation the species depended upon for food.^[38] Those that remained resorted to drifting from place to place in search of viable grazing areas, forcing the Ma’dan who had domesticated the water buffalo to move to new homes every few months in an effort to keep their valuable livestock.^[39] Other mammal species once prominent in the marshes approached the brink of extinction, too. In 2001, for example, less than a decade after the completion of the drainage, Hassan Partow of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) declared that the status of the grey wolf, long-fingered bat, and Maxwell’s smooth-coated otter, all globally threatened species, no longer inhabited the marshes. The desiccation and destruction of the marsh environment also drove the striped hyena, honey badger, black-tailed gazelle, Indian crested porcupine, and jungle cat to local extinction. It is unknown how many of the 40 different mammal species living in the marshes remained on site after the drainage. However, many became extinct since the Ba’ath government’s intervention, and to date, even more species have had sharp decreases in population.^[40]

The birds of Iraq’s marshes, some of which lived there year-round and others which used the region as breeding grounds during their migrations from Siberia to Africa, had grown accustomed to the aquatic ecosystem of the marshes and were no longer able to thrive after the desiccation. In a 2003 interview with The New York Times, Ma’dan man Hassan Naslob described the marshes as having no more birds in the sky.^[41] A UNEP study from 2003 to 2006 found 66 different species of birds to be at risk and reported the loss of the African darter and sacred waterbird from the marsh ecosystem.^[42] The Goliath heron, formerly one of the most abundant birds in the marshlands, became incredibly rare following the drainage. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declared two species native to the Iraqi marshes—the Iraq babbler and Basra reed warbler—globally endangered.^[43] Of the 134 recorded bird species that wintered in the marshes and made up two-thirds of all the birds that migrated through the Middle East, studies reported 11 to be in critical or endangered condition, and many of these species relocated to Saudi Arabia following the drainage.^[44] When a flock of ducks from northern Asia made their annual flight to the marshes the first winter after the desiccation, they went blind and died within a matter of days from the toxic pollutants in the little water that remained.^[45] For both the species of waterfowl that spent the whole year in the Mesopotamian marshes and those that just came to breed for the winter, Saddam Hussein’s drainage destroyed their habitat, reduced their wetland populations, and drove many away from the region.

The fish of southern Iraq’s marshes, a diverse and plentiful population before the drainage, experienced a fate similar to the region’s mammals and birds. With the severe decline in the water level and pollution of toxic chemicals and algae in shallow pools, fish died by the thousands.^[46] Additionally, populations of smaller fish at the bottom of the wetland food chain such as barbels dropped as they could no longer seek protection from the aquatic vegetation that had previously sheltered them, making them prime targets for larger predators.^[47] Another detriment to the fish of the wetlands was the dams and dikes on the rivers and tributaries, which restricted the journey of fish such as gattan. Because gattan lay their eggs upstream and the larvae migrate downstream to the marshes after they hatch, the projects of Saddam’s regime on the river system did not allow them to reach their habitat, making gattan a scarce species in the marshes.^[48] Other species such as the giant bizz, shillik, and shabout disappeared due to the low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water.^[49] In the absence of many of the fish species native to the marshes, the stinging catfish, jirri catfish, and the omnivorous and low-oxygen tolerant common carp emerged in the wetlands. All three are invasive species that disrupt the ecosystem by altering the food chain, thus diminishing the populations of other fishes.^[50] This influx of new fish species to the delicate marsh environment was as harmful as the depletion of the endemic fishes. While the populations of some types of fish grew and others dwindled in the dry, polluted, wetlands of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, both the increases in non-native species and decreases in native fishes reflect cumulative negative effects of the drainage of the marshes. The combined loss of mammal, bird, and plant life following the drainage of the wetlands utterly devastated the once-abundant nonhuman life of the marshes.

Conclusion

When the Shiites of southern Iraq revolted against the Ba’athist government in early 1991, the subsequent military crackdown came as no surprise given the reputation and past behavior of the Saddam Hussein regime. However, the extent to which the marsh ecosystem suffered at the hands of the Iraqi government’s devoted efforts to deprive the region of water—its very lifeblood—was truly unprecedented. Their engineering projects on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which had supported Mesopotamian life for thousands of years, completely transformed how water flowed through southern Iraq. The massive canals, moats, dams, and dikes were able to create new rivers and dry out over 90% of 20,000 kilometers of wetlands within just a few years. As a result, the little water remaining was heavily polluted, rendering the marshes devoid of their ability to support the unique and diverse ecosystem that once thrived in such specific wetland conditions. What was once green became brown as vegetation died off. Numerous plant species disappeared from the marshes, the trademark reed beds were lost, and agricultural production decreased. Species of mammals, birds, and fish, many native to the marshes, became locally extinct, while others saw sizable drops in population. Changes in marsh conditions and losses in both the plant and animal kingdoms opened the door for invasive species to enter and thrive in the marshes, further harming the ecosystem. When assessing the overall impact of the marsh desiccation on the environment, it can only be categorized as an ecocide, as the actions of humans solely contributed to the near elimination of the natural environment.

These environmental impacts decimated the Ma’dan. In addition to Saddam’s military killing tens of thousands of their people, they lost their main source of drinking water, the decline in the water buffalo rid them of their livestock, there were few fish left to catch and eat, and they could no longer grow their crops. With the loss of the plentiful reed vegetation, their society crumbled with no material to fashion canoes for transportation, no supportive bed for their homes, and no material to build new dwellings.^[51] In the wake of the drainage, many of the surviving Ma’dan left the marshes as refugees, bringing their indigenous marsh population from as high as 500,000 before the drainage down to as low as 20,000—but more likely closer to 80,000—in the early 2000s.^[52]

The extensive harm dealt to the Ma’dan constitutes a significant offense of water injustice, as it was this withholding of water resources that caused and worsened the genocide and displacement of the Ma’dan. In the context of more recent global climate and water equity initiatives, Hussein’s operations in the marshes should be regarded as major human rights violations, adding on to the atrocities that the drainage committed on the environment. The marsh crisis violates several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a set of 17 climate and human rights objectives outlined in 2015. Specifically, the effects of the desiccation concern Target 6.1: safe and affordable drinking water, and Target 6.6: protect and restore water-related ecosystems, as well as Targets 15.1 and 15.3: conserve and restore terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, and end desertification and restore degraded land, respectively.^[53] The impact of the loss of water on the Ma’dan people and the magnitude of the event also line up with ideas that the Geneva Hub espouses—a water policy and research organization and former Secretariat of the United Nation’s (UN) Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace. The institute’s Blue Peace Movement and core belief that water equity is a geopolitical matter integral to global security emphasizes the urgency of these global issues and reveals the turmoil that water insecurity causes.^[54] With the recent emergence of water equity and injustice as a field of environmental scholarship and human rights discussion, it is crucial to apply these frameworks to the drainage of the Iraqi marshes. Given the significant attention that scholars have devoted to the human component of this environmental disaster, the novel ideas of water injustice provide a new lens through which the plight of the Ma’dan can be explored.

In the years since the Iraqi government desiccated the marshes, there have been attempts to revive the region from foreign aid such as the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Iraq Foundation. Working with the Ma’dan and post-Saddam Iraqi government, these groups have sought to bring back the marshes by reflooding the area. The reflooding projects have been successful to mixed degrees. ^[55] Some parts of the wetlands have partially recovered, with moderate rebounds in plant life and the reemergence of a few animal species considered locally extinct or endangered. Unfortunately, restoration by reflooding has also posed problems for the marshes. When the living marshland areas are scattered and not a contiguous wetland, reflooding is far less effective and has caused issues for the environment by releasing unhealthy chemicals from the soil and flooding Ma’dan farmland and settlements.^[56] Many reflooding and restoration initiatives have not produced a lasting recovery. The area and water quality of the wetlands have fluctuated in wide ranges amid a lack of commitment from the government and drought in the Middle East. ^[57] Some Ma’dan have returned to the marshes only to discover that they are unable to live and function as they once did. While more restoration can be achieved from greater dedication, the ecocide that the Saddam Hussein regime committed on the Iraqi marshes destroyed the natural environment to the point where it is unlikely that it will ever fully return to the “Garden of Eden” of the past—making it one of the greatest environmental crimes the world has ever seen.

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1. Emma Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands: A Human and Environmental Study (London: Politico's, 2002), 71-72. ↑

2. Congressional Research Service, Iraq: Marsh Arabs and US Policy, H.R. Rep. No. 103-94-320 F, 2d Sess., at 1 (Apr. 13, 1994). Accessed October 31, 2023. https://congressional-proquest-com.proxy.library.upenn.edu/congressional/docview/t21.d22.crs-1994-fnd-0016?accountid=14707. ↑

3. Susan Dunreath Newman, "The Plight of the Marsh Arabs, an Environmental and Human Rights Crisis: An Application of Complexity Theory," Advances in Nursing Science 30, no. 4 (2007): 326, accessed October 31, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ANS.0000300181.71724.C7. ↑

4. Raoul S. Liévanos, "Sociospatial Dimensions of Water Injustice: The Distribution of Surface Water Toxic Releases in California's Bay-Delta," Sociological Perspectives 60, no. 3 (2017): 576, accessed March 25, 2024, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26579822. ↑

5. Curtis J. Richardson et al., "The Restoration Potential of the Mesopotamian Marshes of Iraq," Science 307, no. 5713 (2005): 1307, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1105750; Andrew North, "Saddam Drains Life from Arab Marshes: Scientists Fear Iraq's Historic Wetlands Face Destruction in 10 to 20 Years," The Independent (London), May 16, 1994, World News, accessed November 10, 2023, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/saddam-drains-life-from-arab-marshes-scientists-fear-iraq-s-historic-wetlands-face-destruction-in-10-to-20-years-says-andrew-north-1436553.html. ↑

6. Cara Priestly, "'We Won't Survive in a City. The Marshes are Our Life': An Analysis of Ecologically Induced Genocide in the Iraqi Marshes," Journal of Genocide Research 23, no. 2 (2021): 279, accessed October 31, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2020.1792615. ↑

7. Suzanne Alwash, Eden Again: Hope in the Marshes of Iraq (Fullerton, CA: Tablet House Publishing, 2013), 4-5. ↑

8. Alaa Abdul Kereem Hussein and Amal Abd Assal, "Drying Water and Its Impact on the Vital System in the Marshes of Southern Iraq," IOP Science 1129 (2023): 3-4, accessed November 12, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/1129/1/012032; Sam Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs: The Ma'dan, Their Culture and the Environment (Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2011), 118, 123; Robert Lawrence France et al., Wetlands of Mass Destruction: Ancient Presage for Contemporary Ecocide in Southern Iraq (Sheffield, VT: Green Frigate Books, 2007), 9; Newman, "The Plight of the Marsh Arabs," 326. ↑

9. France et al., Wetlands of Mass Destruction, 9. ↑

10. Nadia Al-Mudaffar Fawzi et al., "Effects of Mesopotamian Marsh (Iraq) Desiccation on the Cultural Knowledge and Livelihood of Marsh Arab Women," Ecosystem Health and Sustainability 2, no. 3 (2016): 1, accessed October 31, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1002/ehs2.1207. ↑

11. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 25. ↑

12. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 11; Newman, "The Plight of the Marsh Arabs,” 317. ↑

13. United States Institute of Peace, "The Marsh Arabs of Iraq: Hussein's Lesser Known Victims," news release, November 25, 2002, accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.usip.org/press/2002/11/marsh-arabs-iraq-husseins-lesser-known-victims; Energy and Environmental Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division, The Iraq Marshes: Restoration Activities, H.R. Rep., at CRS-1 (June 15, 2004). Accessed November 9, 2023. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL32433.html. ↑

14. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 39-40. ↑

15. Newman, "The Plight of the Marsh Arabs," 318. ↑

16. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 25. ↑

17. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 20. ↑

18. Gareth R. V Stansfield, Iraq: People, History, Politics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2016), 21-22, 99, 133. ↑

19. Stansfield, Iraq, 133-135; Marc Santora, "Marsh Arabs Cling to Memories of a Culture Nearly Crushed by Hussein," The New York Times, April 28, 2003, World, accessed October 31, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/28/world/aftereffects-southern-iraq-marsh-arabs-cling-memories-culture-nearly-crushed.html. ↑

20. Stansfield, Iraq, 136; Kubba, The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs, 20; Curtis J. Richardson and Najah A. Hussain, "Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq," Bioscience 56, no. 6 (2006): 477, accessed November 12, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2006)56[477:RTGOEA]2.0.CO;2; Newman, “The Plight of the Marsh Arabs,” 319. ↑

21. Alwash, Eden Again, 32; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 71-72. ↑

22. Alwash, Eden Again, 34; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 68-69. ↑

23. Alwash, Eden Again, 33; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 82. ↑

24. Alwash, Eden Again, 35; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 77-78. ↑

25. Alwash, Eden Again, 33. ↑

26. Alwash, Eden Again, 35-36, 39. ↑

27. Priestly, "'We Won't Survive in a City," 280; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 82. ↑

28. Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 82. ↑

29. Alwash, Eden Again, 38. ↑

30. Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 83-84; Alwash, Eden Again, 161. ↑

31. Richardson et al., “The Restoration Potential,” 1309. ↑

32. Newman, “The Plight of the Marsh Arabs,” 320. ↑

33. Richardson and Hussain, "Restoring the Garden of Eden," 478; Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 83. ↑

34. Hussein and Assal, "Drying Water and Its Impact," 3. ↑

35. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshes and the Marsh Arabs, 100. ↑

36. Newman, “The Plight of the Marsh Arabs,” 316. ↑

37. Majeed R. Al-hilli et al., "An Assessment of Vegetation and Environmental Controls in the 1970s of the Mesopotamian Wetlands of Southern Iraq," Wetlands Ecology and Management 17, no. 3 (2009): 221, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-008-9099-1. ↑

38. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshes and the Marsh Arabs, 100, 133. ↑

39. Hussein and Assal, "Drying Water and Its Impact," 4; Edward Wong, "The Struggle for Iraq: Environment; Marshes a Vengeful Hussein Drained Stir Again," The New York Times, February 21, 2004, accessed November 12, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-environment-marshes-a-vengeful-hussein-drained-stir-again.html. ↑

40. Alwash, Eden Again, 118; Kubba, The Iraqi Marshes and the Marsh Arabs, 133. ↑

41. Santora, “Marsh Arabs Cling to Memories,” World. ↑

42. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshes and the Marsh Arabs, 129. ↑

43. Alwash, Eden Again, 147-149; North, "Saddam Drains Life from Arab Marshes." ↑

44. North, "Saddam Drains Life from Arab Marshes;" Energy and Environmental Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division, The Iraq Marshes, at CRS-3. ↑

45. Alwash, Eden Again, 39. ↑

46. Nicholson, The Iraqi Marshlands, 83. North, "Saddam Drains Life from Arab Marshes." ↑

47. Kubba, The Iraqi Marshes and the Marsh Arabs, 138-139.↑

48. Alwash, Eden Again, 159. ↑

49. Alwash, Eden Again, 159, 161. ↑

50. Alwash, Eden Again, 163-164. ↑

51. Richardson et al., "The Restoration," 1307. ↑

52. Fawzi et al., "Effects of Mesopotamian," 1; Wong, "The Struggle;" Energy and Environmental Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division, The Iraq Marshes, at CRS-3. ↑

53. United Nations, "6: Clean Water and Sanitation," The Global Goals, last modified 2015, accessed March 30, 2024, https://www.globalgoals.org/goals/6-clean-water-and-sanitation/; United Nations, "15: Life on Land," The Global Goals, last modified 2015, accessed March 30, 2024, https://www.globalgoals.org/goals/15-life-on-land/. ↑

54. University of Geneva, "A Matter of Survival," Geneva Water Hub, last modified 2017, accessed March 30, 2024, https://www.genevawaterhub.org/resource/matter-survival. ↑

55. Energy and Environmental Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division, The Iraq Marshes, CRS-4. ↑

56. Richardson and Hussain, "Restoring the Garden of Eden," 481, 484-485. ↑

57. Richardson and Hussain, "Restoring the Garden of Eden," 488; Energy and Environmental Policy Resources, Science, and Industry Division, The Iraq Marshes, CRS-4; Hussein and Assal, "Drying Water and Its Impact," 4. ↑