 Greetings. My name is Dana Vasali. I'm a biologist living and working in North Central Washington State in the United States. As a biologist, I'm interested in the impact of war on the natural environment, on plants, on wildlife, on ecosystems. I traveled to Iraq in 2003 and in 2004 to observe the impact of war on human society and went back in 2008 flying to the northern Iraqi city of Sulamania to work for an environmental group called Nature Iraq for a month and to explore the impact of war on the natural environment. The human cause to Iraqi people of the two Gulf Wars has been extreme. At least three million people have died violent or unnatural deaths in that time if we include the deaths that occurred during the 13 years of sanctions between the two wars when there was not enough to eat, no medicine, polluted water, not much electricity. Five million Iraqi people have been wounded. More than four million Iraqis have become refugees. These numbers total one-third the entire nation of 33 million people. Iraqi society has largely been destroyed. Almost no one has a job because the economy lies in ruins. The literacy rate fell from 95% in 1989 to 20% today. Over 500 professors have been killed. Over 80% of Iraqis educational institutions have been eluded. Hunters widespread and staying alive is difficult. At least 100 Iraqis die every day right now for more related violence. These are the natural fruits of war. War is conducted to destroy things. In the first Gulf War the United States and its partners dropped 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq, destroying both human infrastructure and the natural environment. During the sanctions more than 280,000 sorties which are individual flights were flown by the United States over Iraq with targets at that time including water purification plants, electrical plants, so it's treatment plants and other critical human infrastructure. When I was in Basra in 2003 which was the last year of those 13 years of sanctions because Second War started in March of 2003. We visited a water purification plant that has been destroyed by US bombs on one of those sorties in 1999. Remember the US was not at war with Iraq at that time and then it was rebuilt with the assistance of a European humanitarian organization in 2002. Upon arrival in Soleimania it was immediately struck by the lack of force in northern Iraq, a reason that was once 75% forested and it now is largely grassland. The environmental group Nature Iraq was attempting to begin monitoring the condition of the flora and fauna of that area and of the entire country yet I could find no competent botanists or biologists because all such professionals have been killed in the pervasive violence following the US invasion or forced to flee the country. I found a series of volumes on a shelf in the Nature Rack offices in English called the flora of Iraq. It was an almost complete catalog of all the plants of that country and how to identify them developed by a few botanical garden in London between 1960 and 1980. No one in the office nor in the entire city knew what those books were for or how to use them. The local botanists that I worked with there did not speak English so he couldn't use the field guides. He was reduced to utilizing folk knowledge to identify plants. All skilled scientists had been forced to flee due to the war and the accumulated knowledge of the condition of the flora and fauna of Iraq had largely been lost. This is what war does. It kills people, degrades ecosystems and destroys accumulated knowledge. Modern war is inevitably a form of genocide and of ecocide. It's a war against the earth. Any plan to go to war today should include the understanding that the destruction will include the ruination of natural systems that make human life possible. A paper by professor Hassan al-Delfi that I found online at the University of Dubai attempts to enumerate the abuses to people and planet of the Iraq war. Helis. Environmental degradation caused by continuous bombing, poisoning Iraq's natural environment from toxic chemicals of war and radioactive uranium tip weapons, both accidental and purposeful, large oil spills that contaminate water and land, toxic smoke, acid rain from oil, and industrial fires. Massive disruption of Iraq's fragile natural habitat leading to probable extinction of endangered species, extreme deterioration of Iraq's education and health care systems, the destruction of Iraqi economy, and any means of livelihood for the Iraqi people, massive human, physical, and mental suffering.