Just before the start of winter break, as our troops formally ended combat operations in Iraq with a subdued ceremony, thousands of elated Iraqis triumphantly took the streets of Fallujah to celebrate U.S. withdrawal.

While much of the anti-American ire emanating from the war-torn city is undoubtedly related to the two incredibly fierce battles we waged there in 2004, feelings of indignation expressed by Fallujah’s residents last month may have been compounded by a possible local health crisis.

As early as 2008, anecdotal stories of unusual birth defects began trickling out of the city. In 2009 a group of Iraqi and British officials banded together and lobbied the U.N. general assembly to commission investigations on growing health concerns in Fallujah. The officials also called on the body to help clean up toxic material leftover as a byproduct of warfare in the city.

Many have suggested that unconventional weaponry utilized by the U.S. in 2004 may be at the root of the city’s health concerns. Two particularly suspect weapons are white phosphorous and depleted uranium.

White phosphorous is a chemical agent traditionally used to mask troop movements. In Fallujah it was used by the U.S. as an incendiary weapon. Depleted uranium is a weakly radioactive, toxic metal that is sometimes used in sophisticated munitions.

The U.S. government flatly denies using depleted uranium during the Second Battle of Fallujah– but just for the record, the U.S. government also initially denied using white phosphorous as a weapon in that same battle, an assertion that was later retracted.

Furthermore, there are supposedly no records of what weapons were employed by army personnel during the the First Battle of Fallujah. In short, though there has been no official confirmation of their use, depleted uranium munitions may very well have been fired in the city.

The number of accounts of congenital disorders in Fallujah continued to increase over time and by March 2010 BBC News reported on claims that officials in the city were warning women to avoid having children.

Less than a month after the BBC’s report, the World Health Organization pledged to conduct an independent study on the issue. As of this post’s publication date, no such WHO study has been conducted.

An independent study pertaining to the matter in question was finally published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in June 2010.

According to the featured research, Fallujah’s cancer, leukemia, and infant mortality rates were higher than rates were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Researchers who worked on the study also found that the city’s female to male birth ratio significantly deviated from the human constant– an apparent telltale sign of widespread genetic damage.

In September, a followup study was published in Conflict and Health, an online journal. The study examined hair samples from 25 parents of children in Fallujah with birth defects. The study also looked at surface soil, river, and drinking water from the area. The researchers found high levels of calcium, aluminum, strontium, bismuth, mercury, and uranium in their samples.

Critics call into question the validity of these studies and argue that they are marred by methodological errors. For instance, factors like selection bias may not have been taken into account. In addition, Chris Busby, the man who lead and authored these studies, has a fairly dubious history.

Regardless, his research teams’ findings are extraordinarily troubling, and help to highlight the need for further, more airtight inquiries into the situation on the ground in Fallujah. In the meantime, we might want to consider abandoning the use of sketchy, pseudo-chemical weapons.