The US was very proud in announcing throughout the world that its war against Iraq in the early part of 1991 was a “clean” war that we used “smart weapons” that only targeted what we wanted. Aside from the fact that those claims later proved to be absolutely false, the vast majority of the bombs were not smart bombs at all, and of the so-called smart bombs many missed their targets. But aside from that, the targets included water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, electrical generating plants, communications centers, on the theory, I suppose, of dual use, that the Iraqi military also needs clean water, sewage treatment, communications, etc. and therefore the fact that the 23 million people of Iraq might be denied clean water was considered an acceptable consequence of that. So there were very direct efforts made by the US, and they were very successful efforts, to destroy these kinds of infrastructure centers. The result has been absolute devastation for the civilian population at enormous cost in the future to be repaired. As they erode further, the cost of rebuilding them of course will climb even higher.
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