The rate of birth defects and childhood cancers has increased significantly in the past couple of decades. Between 1990 and 2000 the rate of cancer in the city of Basra, where high levels of cancer have been reported, for those under the age of fifteen rose by 242 percent and by 100 percent for leukemia alone. This sharp rise in rates of cancer can be contributed to a number of environmental factors but the largest contributor seems to be exposure to depleted uranium munitions used in the 1991 Gulf War as well as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. About 4 per 100,000 children were becoming ill with cancer prior to 1990, while those in areas where heavy depleted uranium munitions were used during the Gulf war and invasion were falling ill at 22 per 100,000 children.(Taylor & Francis, 2013). Veterans of the wars here have seen a sharp increase in cancers, likely due to the same exposure to DU. DU munition holes are still very radioactive as well as the surrounding area while the wind has been spreading the radioactive uranium particles to areas hundreds of miles away that were previously unaffected, such as the city of Basra. The DU has infected the water and food supplies dishing out small daily doses of radioactive uranium particles each time a shower is taken, a glass of water is drank or meat eaten from livestock grazing on contaminated crass. Given that it took on average of three years after the Gulf War in 1991 for cancer rates to spike, and this war used far less DU munitions than the 2003 invasion which lasted only 3 weeks and used somewhere between 1-2 thousand tonnes of DU munitions, health care providers are worried that the country will see a rapid expansion in the diversity of cancers plaguing the country’s youth for years to come (Taylor & Francis, 2013).