Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War/Leuran Moret

World Affairs – The Journal of International Issues 1jul04

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

The use of depleted uranium weaponry by the United States, defying all international treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the human species, and yet this country continues to do so with full knowledge of its destructive potential.

LEUREN MORET

Since 1991, the United States has staged four wars using depleted uranium weaponry, illegal under all international treaties, conventions and agreements, as well as under the US military law. The continued use of this illegal radioactive weaponry, which has already contaminated vast regions with low level radiation and will contaminate other parts of the world over time, is indeed a world affair and an international issue. The deeper purpose is revealed by comparing regions now contaminated with depleted uranium — from Egypt, the Middle East, Central Asia and the northern half of India — to the US geostrategic imperatives described in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. 

Fig. 1: Brzezinski’s map of the Eurasian Chessboard

SOUTH REGION:  “This huge region, torn by volatile hatreds and surrounded by competing powerful neighbors, is likely to be a major battlefield, both for wars among nation-states and, more likely, for protracted ethnic and religious violence.  Whether India acts as a restraint or whether it takes advantage of some opportunity to impose its will on Pakistan will greatly affect the regional scope of the likely conflicts.  The internal strains within Turkey and Iran are likely not only to get worse but to greatly reduce the stabilizing role these states are capable of playing within this volcanic region.  Such developments will in turn make it more difficult to assimilate the new Central Asian states into the international community, while also adversely affecting the American-dominated security of the Persian Gulf region.  In any case, both America and the international community may be faced here with a challenge that will dwarf the recent crisis in the former Yugoslavia.”  Brzezinski 

The fact is that the United States and its military partners have staged four nuclear wars, "slipping nukes under the wire" by using dirty bombs and dirty weapons in countries the US needs to control. Depleted uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those regions, where there are resources which the US must control, in order to establish and maintain American primacy.

Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing. The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years, the age of the earth. And, as Uranium-238 decays into daughter radioactive products, in four steps before turning into lead, it continues to release more radiation at each step. There is no way to turn it off, and there is no way to clean it up. It meets the US Government’s own definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

After forming microscopic and submicroscopic insoluble Uranium oxide particles on the battlefield, they remain suspended in air and travel around the earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust, contaminating the environment, indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing disease in all living things where rain, snow and moisture remove it from the atmosphere. Global radioactive contamination from atmospheric testing was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs, and still contaminates the atmosphere and lower orbital space today. The amount of low level radioactive pollution from depleted uranium released since 1991, is many times more (deposited internally in the body), than was released from atmospheric testing fallout.

A 2003 independent report for the European Parliament by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), reports that based on Chernobyl studies, low level radiation risk is 100 to 1000 times greater than the International Committee for Radiation Protection models estimate which are based on the flawed Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies conducted by the US Government. Referring to the extreme killing effects of radiation on biological systems, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, one of the 46 international radiation expert authors of the ECRR report, describes it as:

"The concept of species annihilation means a relatively swift, deliberately induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction and memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act which requires a new word to describe it: omnicide."

1943 MANHATTAN PROJECT BLUEPRINT FOR DEPLETED URANIUM

In a declassified memo to General Leslie R. Groves, dated October 30, 1943, three of the top physicists in the Manhattan Project, Dr James B Conant, A H Compton, and H C Urey, made their recommendation, as members of the Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee, on the ‘Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon’:

"As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small … There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty … it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging."

As a Terrain Contaminant:

"To be used in this manner, the radioactive materials would be spread on the ground either from the air or from the ground if in enemy controlled territory. In order to deny terrain to either side except at the expense of exposing personnel to harmful radiations … Areas so contaminated by radioactive material would be dangerous until the slow natural decay of the material took place … for average terrain no decontaminating methods are known. No effective protective clothing for personnel seems possible of development. … Reservoirs or wells would be contaminated or food poisoned with an effect similar to that resulting from inhalation of dust or smoke."

Internal Exposure:

"… Particles smaller than 1µ [micron] are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lymphatics or blood. … could get into the gastro-intestinal tract from polluted water, or food, or air. … may be absorbed from the lungs or G-I tract into the blood and so distributed throughout the body."

Both the fission products and depleted uranium waste from the Atomic Bomb Project were to be utilised under this plan. The pyrophoric nature of depleted uranium, which causes it to begin to burn at very low temperatures from friction in the gun barrel, made it an ideal radioactive gas weapon then and now. Also it was more available because the amount of depleted uranium produced was much greater than the amount of fission products produced in 1943.

Britain had thoughts of using poisoned gas on Iraq long before 1991:

"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good... and it would spread a lively terror..." (Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after the First World War).

GUIDED WEAPONS SYSTEMS

Depleted uranium weapons were first given by the US to Israel for use under US supervision in the 1973 Sinai war against the Arabs. Since then the US has tested, manufactured, and sold depleted uranium weapons systems to 29 countries. An international taboo prevented their use until 1991, when the US broke the taboo and used them for the first time, on the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait.

The US military admitted using depleted uranium projectiles in tanks and planes, but warheads in missiles and bombs are classified or referred to as a ‘dense’ or ‘mystery metal’. Dai Williams, a researcher at the 2003 World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, reported finding 11 US patents for guided weapons systems with the term ‘depleted uranium’ or ‘dense metal’, which from the density can only be depleted uranium or tungsten, in order to fit the dimensions of the warhead.

Figure 2 - Hard target guided weapons in 2002: smart bombs & cruise missiles with "dense metal" warheads (updated September 2002)

Warhead weight Warhead weights include explosives (~20%) and casing. Dense metal ballast or liners (suspected to be DU) estimated to be 50-75% of warhead weight - necessary to double the density of previous versions. AUP = Advanced penetrators. S/CH = Shaped Charge. BR = BROACH Multiple Warhead System (S/CH+AUP). P = older 'heavy metal' penetrators. © Dai Williams 2002 source: Depleted Uranium weapons in 2001-2002: Occupational, public and environmental health issues - Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan? Collected studies and public domain sources compiled by Dai Williams, first edition 31 January 2002

Extensive carpet bombing, grid bombing, and the frequent use of missiles and depleted uranium bullets on buildings in densely populated areas has occurred in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. The discovery that bomb craters in Yugoslavia in 1999 were radioactive, and that an unexploded missile in 1999 contained a depleted uranium warhead, implies that the total amount of depleted uranium used since 1991 has been greatly underestimated. Of even greater concern, is that 100 per cent of the depleted uranium in bombs and missiles is aerosolized upon impact and immediately released into the atmosphere. This amount can be as much as 1.5 tons in the large bombs. In bullets and cannon shells, the amount aerosolized is 40-70 per cent, leaving pieces and unexploded shells in the environment, to provide new sources of radioactive dust and contamination of the groundwater from dissolved depleted uranium metal long after the battles are over, as reported in a 2003 report by the UN Environmental Program on Yugoslavia. Considering that the US has admitted using 34 tons of depleted uranium from bullets and cannon shells in Yugoslavia, and the fact that 35,000 NATO bombing missions occurred there in 1999, potentially the amount of depleted uranium contaminating Yugoslavia and transboundary drift into surrounding countries is staggering.

Because of mysterious illnesses and post-war birth defects reported among Gulf War veterans and civilians in southern Iraq, and radiation related illnesses in UN Peacekeepers serving in Yugoslavia, growing concerns about radiation effects and environmental damage has stirred up international outrage about the use of radioactive weapons by the US after 1991. At the 2003 meeting of parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, discussing the U.S. desire to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile, the Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi AKIBA stated,

"It is incumbent upon the rest of the world ... to stand up now and tell all of our military leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected by nuclear weapons. We refuse to live in a world of continually recycled fear and hatred".

ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

Four reasons why using depleted uranium weapons violates the UN Convention on Human Rights:

LEGALITY TEST FOR WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

TEMPORAL TEST – Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is over.

ENVIRONMENTAL TEST – Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the environment.

TERRITORIAL TEST – Weapons must not act off of the battlefield.

HUMANENESS TEST – Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanly.

International Human Rights and humanitarian lawyer, Karen Parker, determined that depleted uranium weaponry fails the four tests for legal weapons under international law, and that it is also illegal under the definition of a ‘poison’ weapon. Through Karen Parker’s continued efforts, a sub-commission of the UN Human Rights Commission determined in 1996 that depleted uranium is a weapon of mass destruction that should not be used:

RESOLUTION 1996/16 ON STOPPING THE USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM - DU

The military use of DU violates current international humanitarian law, including the principle that there is no unlimited right to choose the means and methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV); Art. 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva (GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury (Art. 23 §le HCIV; Art. 35 §2 GP1), indiscriminate warfare (Art. 51 §4c and 5b GP1) as well as the use of poison or poisoned weapons.

The deployment and use of DU violate the principles of international environmental and human rights protection. They contradict the right to life established by the Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on Human Rights.

FOUR NUCLEAR WARS

"Military Men Are Just Dumb,  Stupid, Animals To Be Used  As Pawns In Foreign Policy"          — Henry Kissinger

Although restricted to battlefields in Iraq and Kuwait, the 1991 Gulf War was one of the most toxic and environmentally devastating wars in world history. Oil well fires, the bombing of oil tankers and oil wells which released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Arabia and desert, and the devastation from tanks and heavy equipment destroyed the desert ecosystem. The long term and far reaching effects, and dispersal of at least 340 tons of depleted uranium weapons, had a global environmental effect. Smoke from the oil fires was later found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii. Large annual dust storms originating in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia will quickly spread the radioactive contamination around the world, and weathering of old depleted uranium munitions on battlefields and other areas will provide new sources of radioactive contamination in future years. Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood diabetes.

RADIATION RESPECTS NO BORDERS, NO SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS, AND NO RELIGION

The expendability of the sanctity of life to achieve US political ends was described by US soldiers on the ground, and from the air, along the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991:

"Iraqi soldiers [whether they] be young boys or old men. They were a sad sight, with absolutely no fight left in them. Their leaders had cut their Achilles’ tendons so they couldn’t run away and then left them. What weapons they had were in bad repair and little ammunition was on hand. They were hungry, cold, and scared. The hate I had for any Iraqi dissipated. These people had no business being on a battlefield."
(S Hersh, New Yorker, May 22, 2000)

American pilots bombing and strafing, with depleted uranium weapons, helpless retreating Iraqi soldiers who had already surrendered, exclaimed:

"We toasted him…. we hit the jackpot….a turkey shoot….shooting fish in a barrel….basically just sitting ducks… There’s just nothing like it. It’s the biggest Fourth of July show you’ve ever seen, and to see those tanks just ‘boom’, and more stuff just keeps spewing out of them… they just become white hot. It’s wonderful."
(L A Times and Washington Post, both February 27, 1991)

Nearly 700,000 American Gulf War Veterans returned to the US from a war that lasted just a few weeks. Today more than 240,000 of those soldiers are on permanent medical disability, and over 11,000 are dead. In a US Government study on post-Gulf War babies born to 251 veterans, 67 per cent of the babies were reported to have serious illnesses or serious birth defects. They were born without eyes, ears, had missing organs, fused fingers, thyroid or other malfunctions. Depleted uranium in the semen of the soldiers internally contaminated their wives. Severe birth defects have been reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time. Women in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq are afraid now to have babies, and when they do give birth, instead of asking if it is a girl or a boy, they ask ‘is it normal?’.

KNOWN ILLNESSES INFLICTED BY INTERNALIZATION OF DEPLETED URANIUM PARTICLES

Table 1: Compiled by Leuren Moret from Interviews with Gulf War Vets and their families

GENERAL

abnormal births and birth defects abnormal metabolism of semen: contains amine & ammonium alkaline acute autoimmune symptoms (lung-, liver-, kidney failure) acute myeloid leukemia (deadly within days or weeks) acute immune depression acute respiratory failure asthma auto-immune deficiencies Balkan-syndrome blood in stools and urine body function control loss bone cancer brain damage brain tumors burning semen burning sensations calcium loss in body cardiovascular signs or symptoms chemical sensitivities Chronic Fatigue Syndrome chronic kidney and liver disorders chronic myeloid leukemia chronic respiratory infections colon cancer confusion diarrhea digestive problems dizziness Epstein Barr Syndrome fluid buildup fibromyalgia	gastrointestinal signs/symptoms general fatigue genetic alterations glandular carcinoma Gulf war-syndrome headaches (severe) heart attack/disease high blood pressure high frequency of micturition Hodgkin lymphoma immune system deficiency infections insomnia involuntary movements joint/muscle/leg pain kidney failure/damage leukemia liver carcinoma loss of feeling in fingers Lou Gehrigs Disease -ALS low blood oxygen saturation ( low HbO2) low lung volume lung damage lung cancer lymph cancer lymphoma melanoma memory loss metallic taste Microplasma fermentans/ incognitis infections mood swings – violence homicide/suicide	multiple cancers multiple myeloma myeloma muscle pain nerve damage neuro-muscular degenerative disease non-Hodgkin lymphoma other malignancies pancreas carcinoma Parkinsons disease petit & grand mal fits rashes reactive airway disease reduced IQ respiratory ailments shortness of breath sinus diseases skin cancer skin damage: sweat glands with trapped du-particles skin infections skin spotting smell, loss of sleep disturbances stiffening of fingers teeth crumbling thyroid cancer thyroid disease unable to walk unusual fevers/night sweats unusual hair loss vision problems weight loss
CHILDREN alimentary disorders asthma bladder & sphincter paralysis blindness complete range of known and unknown Congenital Defects deafness dyspraxia headache kidney disease leukemia lymphoma malformations of legs, arms, toes & fingers respiratory disorders stillbirth neural tube defects	FEMALE abdominal pain breast cancer breast cancer at very young age (20) cervix cancer endometriosis headaches incontinence joint pain lung cancer at age 20 and non-smoker menstrual problems miscarriages nausea ovarian cancer paralysis of digestive system thyroid problems uterine cancer	MALE (acute) headache acute myeloid leukemia arthritis avoiding people breathing problems (stridor) chemical sensitivity chronic myeloid leukemia endometriosis in partners gastrointestinal disorder hip and leg pain joint pain lung cancer at young age lymphoma skin cancer skin eruptions stomach pain suicide testicular cancer unable to walk

VISIE: http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/du-diagnosis.html
DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM website: http://www.ushostnet.com/gulfwar/articles.htm  04/1504

Soldiers who served in Bradley fighting vehicles, where it was common to sit on ammunition boxes where depleted uranium ammunition was stored, are now reporting that many have rectal cancer.

For the first time, medical doctors in Yugoslavia and Iraq have reported multiple in situ unrelated cancers developing in patients, and even in families who are living in highly contaminated areas. Even stranger, they report that cancer was unknown in previous generations. Very rare and unusual cancers and birth defects have also been reported to be increasing above normal levels prior to 1991, not only in war torn countries, but in neighbouring countries from transboundary contamination.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, a senior radiation advisor who was on the staff of the World Health Organization, co-authored a report in November 2001, warning that the long-term health effects of depleted uranium would endanger Iraq’s civilian population, and that the dry climate would increase exposure from the tiny particles blowing around and be inhaled for years to come. The WHO refused to give him permission to publish the study, bowing to pressure from the IAEA. Dr. Baverstock released the damning report to the media in February 2004. Pekka Haavisto, Chairman of the UN Environment Program’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit in Geneva, shares Baverstock’s anxiety about depleted uranium but UNEP experts have not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution. 

"DEPLETED URANIUM SCARE" - Claimed by President George W. Bush on the official White House website:

"During the Gulf War, coalition forces used armor-piercing ammunition made from depleted uranium, which is ideal for the purpose because of its great density. In recent years, the Iraqi regime has made substantial efforts to promote the false claim that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of children with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium. The campaign has two major propaganda assets:"

"Uranium is a name that has frightening associations in the mind of the average person, which makes the lie relatively easy to sell; and Iraq could take advantage of an established international network of antinuclear activists who had already launched their own campaign against depleted uranium."

"But scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Programme, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium."

The US war in Afghanistan made it clear that this was not a war IN the third world, but a war AGAINST the third world. In Afghanistan where 800 to 1000 tons of depleted uranium was estimated to have been used in 2001, even uneducated Afghanis understand the impact these weapons have had on their children and on future generations:

"After the Americans destroyed our village and killed many of us, we also lost our houses and have nothing to eat. However, we would have endured these miseries and even accepted them, if the Americans had not sentenced us all to death. When I saw my deformed grandson, I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good, different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape."
(Jooma Khan of Laghman province, March 2003)

In 1990, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) wrote a report warning about the potential health and environmental catastrophe from the use of depleted uranium weapons. The health effects had been known for a long time. The report sent to the UK government warned "in their estimation, if 50 tonnes of residual DU dust remained ‘in the region’ there could be half a million extra cancers by the end of the century [2000]." Estimates of depleted uranium weapons used in 1991, now range from the Pentagon’s admitted 325 tons, to other scientific bodies who put the figure as high as 900 tons. That would make the number of estimated cancers as high as 9,000,000, depending on the amount used in the 1991 Gulf War. In the 2003 Gulf War, estimates of 2200 tons have been given — causing about 22,000,000 new cancer cases. Altogether the total number of cancer patients estimated using the UKAEA data would be 25,250,000. In July of 1998, the CIA estimated the population of Iraq to be approximately 24,683,313.

Ironically, the UN Resolution 661 calling for sanctions against Iraq, was signed on Hiroshima Day, August 6, 1990.

THE PARALLELS

War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
– Ludwig von Mises

The parallels between Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are startlingly similar. The weapons used, the unfair treaties offered by the US, and the bombing and destruction of the environment and entire infrastructure. In every city of Iraq and Yugoslavia, the television and radio stations were bombed.

Educational centres were targeted, and stores where educational materials were sold were destroyed on nearly the same day. Under UN sanctions, Iraq was not even allowed pencils for schoolchildren. Cultural antiquities and historical treasures were targeted and destroyed in all three countries, a kind of cultural and historical cleansing, a collective national psychic trauma.

The permanent radioactive contamination and environmental devastation of all three countries is unprecedented, resulting in huge increases in cancer and birth defects following the attacks. These will increase over time from unknown effects due to chronic exposure, increasing internal levels of radiation from depleted uranium dust, and permanent genetic effects passed on to future generations. Clearly, this has been a genocidal plan from the start.

Fig. 3: Map of regions within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan which have been contaminated with depleted uranium since 1991. Depleted uranium dust will be repeatedly recycled throughout this dry region, and also carried around the world. More than ten times the amount of radiation, released during atmospheric testing, has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991. In 2002 the US government admitted that every person living in the US between 1957 and 1963 was internally contaminated with radiation. Note that the contaminated region corresponds with the "South" region on the Eurasian chessboard in Fig. 1.

What has happened to Human Rights, to the Rights of the Child, to civil society, and to common humanity?

It is up to the citizens of the world to stop the depleted uranium wars, and future nuclear wars, causing irreversible devastation. There are just a few generations left before the collapse of our environment, and then it will be too late. We can be no healthier than the health of the environment — we breathe the same air, drink the same water, eat food from the same soil.

"Our collective gene pool of life, evolving for hundreds of millions of years has been seriously damaged in less than the past fifty. The time remaining to reverse this culture of ‘lemming death’ is on the wane. In the future, what will you tell our grandchildren about what you did in the prime of your life to turn around this death process?" (Rosalie Bertell, 1982)

THE DEEPER PURPOSE: G*O*D* [Gold, Oil, and Drugs]

"We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the oil which we require."
(British Royal Commission, agreeing with Winston Churchill's policy towards Iraq 1913).

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."
(US President George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, Sep. 25, 2000).

"If they turn on the radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs (surface-to-air missiles). They know we own their country. We own their airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now. It's a good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need."

(US Brig. General William Looney in 1999, referring to Iraq).

Millions of years ago, before India crashed into the Eurasian continent and uplifted the Himalayas, the ancient shallow Tethys sea stretched from the Atlantic across what is now the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and Aral seas. Rich oil deposits are now located where ancient life accumulated and ‘cooked’ under just the right conditions to form large oil deposits in the ancient sediments. Long before 1991, Unocal in Afghanistan, Amoco in Yugoslavia, and various oil companies interested in Iraq oil deposits, had conducted extensive exploration and characterisation of oil deposits in the Middle East and Central Asian regions, including the northern half of India.

Britain has maintained an interest in Middle Eastern oil deposits for a century, and has been the staunchest military partner of the US since the first depleted uranium war in 1991 in Iraq. Germany, another military partner in Yugoslavia with forces now in Afghanistan, was one of the major economic beneficiaries of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the colonisation of the Balkans. US interest in Yugoslavia had much to do with building pipelines from Central Asia to the Mediterranean warm water ports in Yugoslavia. A silent and hidden partnership between the US and Japan provided large amounts of cash from Japan to finance the 1991 Iraq and 1995/1999 Yugoslavian wars, with additional help in Afghanistan by providing not only cash, but fuel for the war, from Aegis warships of the Japanese Self Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean. Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi, and Halliburton are now partners in a Central Asian oil pipeline project. In 2004, despite much citizen opposition in Japan, the Japanese government has sent Self Defense Forces to Iraq for ‘reconstruction’. This action taken by the Japanese government, of placing troops on the ground in a war zone, will lead to rescinding Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which forever prohibits military aggression by Japan.

THE IRON TRIANGLE (all under one roof): MILITARY, BIG BUSINESS, POLITICS

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

But what do oil, military partners, depleted uranium wars, and US foreign policy have to do with nuclear weapons? The answer came to me in 1991 when I became a whistleblower at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory near San Francisco, California. Richard Berta, the Western Regional Inspector for the Department of Energy, told me "The Pentagon exists for the oil companies… and the nuclear weapons labs exist for the Pentagon."

Depleted uranium was used beginning in 1991 for three reasons:

• To test the radiobiological effects of 4^th generation nuclear weapons, which are still under development
• To blur and break down the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons
• To make it easier to reintroduce nuclear weapons into the US military arsenal

Today, the US is number one in 4^th generation nuclear weapons research and development, followed by Japan and Germany tied for number two, and Russia and other countries follow.

Figure 4: Depleted uranium and 4^th generation nuclear weapons

Map by Mika TSUTSUMI 12/12/03

The Carlyle Group, a private massive equity firm, the 12^th largest defense business with an obscenely high profit margin, is a business "arrangement" between the Bush and Bin Laden families, wealthy Saudis, former British Prime Minister John Major, James Baker III, Afsaneh Masheyekhi, Frank Carlucci, Colin Powell, other former US Government administrators, and Madeleine Albright’s daughter. The Carlyle Group is the ‘gatekeeper’ to the Saudi investment community. It owns 70 percent of Lockheed Martin Marietta, the largest military contractor in the US, and because Carlyle is privately owned, has no scrutiny or accountability whatsoever. A journalist who calls himself ‘a skunk at the garden party’ described investigating the Carlyle Group, he said ‘it’s like shadow boxing with a ghost’. The Group hires as lobbyists the best known politicians from around the world, in order to influence the politics of war, and privately profit from their previous public policies. The conflict of interest is obvious: President George W. Bush is creating wars as his father, former President George Bush, is globally peddling weapons and "protection". Lockheed Martin Marietta now owns Sandia Laboratories, a private contractor that makes the trigger for nuclear weapons, with a Sandia laboratory facility across the street from Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories, where the nuclear bombs are made.

At the May 2003 University of California Regents meeting which I attended, Admiral Linton Brooks was present and newly in charge of the nuclear weapons programme under the Department of Energy. Admiral Brooks informed California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante and the UC Regents that the management contract for the nuclear weapons laboratories, held unchallenged by the University of California for over 60 years, will be put up for competitive bid in 2005. The favoured institution, with a faculty member on the ‘blue ribbon committee’ making the contract award, is the University of Texas. This privatisation and management contract transfer of the US nuclear weapons programme will put control of the US nuclear weapons programme close to the Carlyle Group. The incestuous relationship between the US government, private companies, and the Bush and Bin Laden families in a way answers many of the lingering questions in everyone’s minds about many of the ill fated decisions and policies that have been implemented.

But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that.  What is Osama bin Laden? He’s America’s family secret.  He is the American President’s dark doppelganger.  The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised.  He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy; its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of  "full spectrum dominance," its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts.  Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Arundhati Roy The Algebra of Infinite Justice

Leuren Moret has worked at two US nuclear weapons laboratories as a geoscientist. In 1991 she became a whistleblower at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, and since then has worked as an independent citizen scientist and radiation specialist in communities around the world, and contributed to the UN subcommission investigating depleted uranium. Her research on the environmental and public health effects of low level radiation from atmospheric testing fallout, nuclear power plants, and depleted uranium weaponry, is available on the internet and at http://www.mindfully.org. In 2003, she testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan held in Japan, and presented at the World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Germany, and at the World Court of Women at the World Social Forum in Bombay, India in January 2004. She is a Contributing Editor to GLOBAL OUTLOOK, a City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner, and the Past President of the Association for Women Geoscientists.

More on Mindfully.org by Leuren Moret

Websites:

• International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan written opinion of Judge N. Bhagwat: also at http://www.traprockpeace.org/tokyo_trial_13march04.doc
• Question 11: What does the US Government know about depleted uranium: http://traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf 
• World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference: http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de 
• Radiation and Public Health Project: http://www.radiation.org 
• "A comparison of delayed radiobiological effects of depleted-uranium munitions versus fourth-generation nuclear weapons" by A. Gsponer, J.-P. Hurni, and B. Vitale, 4^th International Conference of the Yugoslav Nuclear Society, Belgrade, September 30-October 4, 2002. http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0210071
• "Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons: The Physical Principles Of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, And The Quest For Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons" by Andre Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni http://www.inesap.org/publ_tech01.htm
• 54 minute VPRO Dutch TV "Carlyle Group" documentary on internet: http://www.vpro.nl/info/tegenlicht/index.shtml?7738514+7738518+7738520+11838857 
  
  • Real Player Video Documentary on the Carlyle Group, by VPRO Dutch television [500 kbps real video]
  • Real Player Video Documentary on the Carlyle Group, by VPRO Dutch television [100 kbps real video]
  • Overview of documentary - Interactive Flash Animation - with links to biographies and articles (Dutch) and specific sections of video.
  • English translation of Dutch introduction Translation of the first one minute forty seven seconds of this program.

    The war in Iraq is over.
    
    The rubble is still smoking While the first dozers are already entering the country.
    After the coalition forces destroyed Baghdad it is now primarily American companies who are to rebuild Iraq.
    
    An interesting point is that these companies usually have people on the payroll who have been politicians. Is this a conflict of interests or a new (global) way of doing business?
    
    One of the corporations that work this way is the Carlyle Group. On their payroll are people like : George Bush (Sr.), James Baker III and old premier John Major.
    
    The Carlyle Group is a private investment bank which doesn't come to the publics attention very often but it is one of the biggest American (ed: USA) investors of the defense industry, telecom, property and financial services.
    
    What is the Carlyle Group? Who are the people behind the name? And how much power does Carlyle have?

• Global Outlook: http://www.globalresearch.de 
• An interesting response. . .
  
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Leuren Moret" <leurenmoret@yahoo.com>
  To: < [US Army Col Special Ops Green Beret] >
  Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 12:56 AM
  Subject: Re: Treachery And Treason
  
  Hi John - Here is an article coming out in July in World Affairs Journal. Can you please tell me what you think and whose decision it could have been to use DU on the Arab world? It looks to me like it was in the 1970s.
  
  Leuren
  
  -------- Response ---------
  
  From: < [US Army Col Special Ops Green Beret] >
  To: "Leuren Moret"  <leurenmoret@yahoo.com> 
  Subject: Re: Treachery And Treason
  Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 11:10:01 -0700
  
  Hi Leuren,
  
  Your report is very comprehensive and compelling.
  
  It begs the question WHO and WHY re the responsibility for the decision to create an area of deniability that covers the Arab world.
  
  It seems credible that the decision to isolate the Arab occupied areas of the world was and is intentional for the express purpose of controlling the flow of oil from Russia, through the mid-east countries of Afghanistan and Iraq (with eventual expansion to Syria and Iran and North Africa, and Saudi Arabia) while simultaneously destroying the current population to preclude resistance.
  
  Deaths in the contested area as a direct result of DU is, in my opinion, the covert means by which CONTROL over these lands will be accomplished.
  
  Systems must be in development to eventually provide automated CONTROL of the oil production mechanisms with minimum human exposure for maintenance. High altitude observation will CONTROL the threat of sabotage in ways perfected to secure Area 51 in Nevada.
  
  Whose Idea was this scenario? Henry Kissinger's fingerprints are all over this project. The Carlyle Group is in perfect position to carry out Henry's design.
  
  Take for example the exposure of Kissinger's genocidal action by configuring over 3000 secret B-52 strikes (using multiple aircraft) on Cambodia (1969-72) as written in the book "Side Show". B-52's would take off from Guam with assigned targets in North and South Vietnam only to receive in-flight changes of the coordinates to targets in Cambodia. Only the Command Pilot and the Navigator were aware of the changes, by design, to keep the bombing of Cambodia compartmentalized from other crew members to minimize compromising the illegal acts of war on a neutral country. This dovetails with the covert DU attack on the Arab World. It also provides the reason the US. Air Force ran out of 750 bombs during the Vietnam War. This also provides insight as to the diversion of the war on terrorism which began in Afghanistan only to be shifted, without justification, to Iraq, thereby cutting off the available resources to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda strongholds in Afghanistan. It is now apparent that the United States only wanted the appearance of going after bin Laden since he is an integral part of the Carlyle Group. These are the "sources and methods" which must be kept compartmented from the clueless.
  
  Henry's other quote re military is; "they are mindless cattle". But, then again, the military leadership excepts it's existence as "expendable assets".
  
  He would have made a wonderful Nazi. Right up there with Goebbels, Eichmann, Erlichman, Haldeman, und Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
  
  We have definitely become the Aggressor Nation. I fear we will pay dearly for the criminal greed of those responsible.
  
  I will wait until your material is published before passing it on to interested parties.
  
  Strangely enough, the Trojan Horse inside a shield was the Green Beret emblem of the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany in the fifties and sixties....that was my first exposure to diabolical thinking and the "sources and methods" of the Agency.
  
  Best,
  John

Depleted Uranium Crisis in Iraq

Muslim Peacemaker Teams: Depleted Uranium Crisis in Najaf

This was not an exhaustive study because of the limits of personnel, resources and equipment. But it did rely on accumulated public data, thorough research, and a major contribution of time and energy. The focus was Najaf, a city of over one million people, and the rural areas in the governate. The area is about 180 miles from where DU was used in the First Gulf War.

Starting in 2004 when the political situation and devastation of the health care infrastructure were at their worst, there were 251 reported cases of cancer. By 2006, when the numbers more accurately reflected the real situation, that figure had risen to 688. Already in 2007, 801 cancer cases have been reported. Those figures portray an incidence rate of 28.21 by 2006, even after screening out cases that came into the Najaf Hospital from outside the governate, a number which contrasts with the normal rate of 8-12 cases of cancer per 100,000 people. See the full report with attached file.

File

Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 9:54 AM

DU is killing AMERICANS , too, let alone Iraqis (and Afghanis)

BUSH FOUND THOSE WMDS AND USES THEM ON AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ

http://clifylq.livejournal.com/74600.html


WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM?

Depleted uranium (DU) is the highly toxic and radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. "Depleted" uranium is so called because the content of the fissionable U-235 isotope is reduced from 0.7% to 0.2% during the enrichment process. The isotope U-238 makes up over 99% of the content of both natural uranium and depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is roughly 60% as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium, and has a half life of 4.5 billion years.2 As a result of 50 years of enriching uranium for use in nuclear weapons and reactors, the U.S. has in excess of 1.1 billion pounds of DU waste material.3

In the early 1970s, the government began exploring ways to dispose of DU which would relieve it of the burden of having to store it in low-level radioactive waste repositories. DU has several characteristics which make it attractive for use in munitions: it is extremely dense, available in large quantities, and given for free to arms manufacturers. http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/fahey.htm


http://clifylq.livejournal.com/12979.html

Some of our precious American soldiers have died under "mysterious circumstances" while serving in Iraq. Families are awaiting official answers, which hopefully will be more forthcoming than for the families of Gulf War I veterans who have been labeled as suffering from "Gulf War Syndrome", a condition now believed to be Depleted Uranium Poisoning.

Let us examine these mysterious deaths, then we shall look at what Depleted Uranium is and how it poisons, and finally, we shall examine some current news sources who are already stating that our troops are suffering from Depleted Uranium Poisoning.

MYSTERIOUS ILLNESSES AND DEATH

NEWS BRIEF: "Mystery illness kills Missouri soldier: Josh Neusche died Saturday; his family waits for answers", News-Leader.com, Springfield, Missouri, By Eric Eckert, News-Leader Staff, July 16, 2003, http://www.news-leader.com/today/0716-Mysteryill-108625.html

"Missouri National Guard Spc. Josh Neusche, 20, died Saturday at the Homburg Hospital in Germany from a mysterious illness. A member of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, he is the only Missouri National Guardsman on the Department of Defense's casualty list. Family and friends are awaiting the soldier's body, scheduled to arrive Thursday in the United States. They are also waiting for autopsy results, and his parents, Mark and Cindy Neusche, are calling for an investigation."

"He's always been healthy,' Mark Neusche said ... he's a cross-country runner. There's no reason for a boy of his health to deteriorate so quickly.'Cindy Neusche said her son collapsed July 2 while in Baghdad and was transported to Germany. Doctors there told the family they believed Josh suffered from pneumonia due to fluid that had collected on his lungs. But then his liver, kidneys and muscles started to break down ..."

You can empathize with this grief-stricken family; their son is dead, but did not die from any known combat action. A very healthy 20-year-old man who kept himself in good enough shape to compete as a cross-country runner suddenly collapsed in Baghdad and was flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany, obviously because the military medical staff in Iraq could not effectively treat him on location.

What could cause his internal organs to just deteriorate and shut down? There may be many explanations, but one certainly does fit: Depleted Uranium Poisoning.

NEWS BRIEF: "Mysterious Diseases Haunt U.S. Troops In Iraq", IslamOnline.net, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-07/17/article03.shtml, July 18, 2003.

"BAGHDAD, July 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Several mysterious diseases were reported among a number of American troops within the vicinity of Baghdad airport, a military source closely close to NATO unveiled. U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin, the source, who refused to be named, said in statements published Thursday, July 17, by the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper. He asserted that three soldiers who suffered these symptoms did not respond to medical treatment in Iraqi hospitals and were flown to Washington for medication. The military source reported a media blackout by U.S. officials to hide such information from the public."

Let us stop right here to digest what we have just heard. American troops are said to be getting sick in the vicinity of the Baghdad airport, the very same place where Josh Neusche suddenly collapsed and died. In this article, we heard that the Neusche is awaiting an official explanation from the military, but in this second article, we read that our command has imposed a "media blackout ... to hide such information from the public." That sounds a lot like the response from our government to the veterans of Gulf War I.

LET US NOW GET BACK TO OUR CURRENT ARTICLE:

"U.S. officials did not come up with an explanation for the symptoms, which NATO experts tend to believe result from direct exposure to powerful nuclear radiations of the sophisticated B-2 bombs used in the war on Iraq, particularly in striking Iraqi Republican Guards forces who deployed to defend the vicinity of Baghdad airport. The military source stressed that the shrouds of secrecy imposed by American officials on the issue were prompted by fears of creating waves of panic and anger among the troops, particularly after announcements that American troops would remain in Iraq indefinitely. He asserted that NATO experts measured levels of radioactive pollution in Iraq and confirmed there were levels of radioactive pollution with destructive impacts on man and environment that may lead to risks suffered by generations to come. On April 25, the British Observer quoted military sources as affirming that depleted uranium shells and bombs used by U.S. and British troops during Iraq invasion were five times more than the number used during 1991 Gulf war."

My military sources indicate that we dropped about 10 times more depleted uranium munitions in this war than in Gulf War I. After all, we delivered a massive bombardment on Baghdad dubbed "Shock and Awe", in which tremendous quantities of munitions were expended. Further, we fought a battle for the Baghdad Airport, and fought pitched battles in the southern part of Iraq. In Gulf War I, we had an extensive air campaign, but a limited "100 hour war" on the ground; it stands to reason we would expend far more munitions this time around.

I asked a military doctor serving in a friendly foreign army if these "mysterious diseases" could be Depleted Uranium. The response I received was both telling and chilling.

"Yes, our troops are definitely dying of depleted uranium, but would probably die eventually if the desert weren't dehydrating them. You see, whenever the dehydration factors in, the blood is more concentrated-so whatever toxins a person is exposed to, the problem accelerates and compounds when the toxins are allowed to concentrate."

As I fully contemplated the terrible reality of this statement, several factors began to sink in:

1. Depleted Uranium poisoning within our troops is hastened by the effects of dehydration. I would think most soldiers in the field in Iraq now are suffering from some degree of dehydration, for they are working in very hot combat suits, heavy gear, and 110+ degree temperatures. In fact, some of our men are working and fighting in 120+ degree temperatures, and many of them are becoming dehydrated, undoubtedly to varying degrees.

2. Therefore, these men are likely to come down really sick much faster than the veterans of Gulf War I, who were pulled out of the theater quickly after fighting a "100 hour war"; for these earlier veterans, their exposure to DU was much more limited, and it has taken the last 12 years for them to either die or come down with the symptoms. Yet, today, 75% of the men who were on the ground in Gulf War I are now either dead, dying or exhibiting symptoms consistent with DU.

3. For these poor soldiers, having now to stay in Iraq, breathing in the DU dust daily, being dehydrated to some degree, they are likely to come down really sick or dead much more quickly and more as a group. In this second article, above, we read that men are coming down with mysterious and troublesome symptoms, i.e., fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin. These are symptoms of Depleted Uranium poisoning. Therefore, more than a few soldiers are now fighting this mysterious malady.

4. If this is the case, how long will it likely take for our combat units in Iraq now to lose combat efficiency? How long can the US Military Command hide the truth from these men? Once the scuttlebutt begins to spread among our men, will panic and significant loss of morale set in, seriously affecting our combat capability?

Before we can answer these questions, let us study Depleted Uranium briefly.

Depleted Uranium -- Carrying Out Nuclear Warfare On The Land of the Enemy And "Nuking" Your Own Soldiers


http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_rokke101005.htm

DEFINITION OF DEPLETED URANIUM -- DU

"Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive types (isotopes) of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. The depleted uranium used in armor-piercing munitions and in enhanced armor protection for some Abrams tanks is also used in civilian industry, primarily for stabilizers in airplanes and boats. Depleted uranium is a heavy metal that is also slightly radioactive. Heavy metals (uranium, lead, tungsten, etc.) have chemical toxicity properties that, in high doses, can cause adverse health effects. Depleted uranium that remains outside the body can not harm you." [Department of Defense, Frequently Asked Questions, Depleted Uranium]

As far as this statement goes, we have no trouble with the facts DOD is setting forth, as it is virtually inert before it is fired off; however, once Depleted Uranium is used in battle, the dangerous contamination begins. This is the essence of this article.

WHY AND HOW DEPLETED URANIUM IS USED BY OUR MILITARY MACHINE

Almost 15 years ago, the Pentagon decided to start using Depleted Uranium extensively in our munitions. Depleted Uranium (DU) was dirt cheap, since it was the left over material from processing Uranium into nuclear weapons and was normally just being thrown away -- in specially built containers in which all handling was done with men wearing special radiation protection suits, because in the commercial field, this stuff is considered "toxic waste"!

Depleted Uranium also possessed several one other characteristic that made it very useful to a modern fighting force. It is extremely dense and pyrophoric, which enables it to punch and burn its way through hard targets such as tanks. Therefore, DU is used extensively in all armor piercing munitions. ["Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving", By Dan Fahey, L.A. Times, 2/18/01.

DU has proven so effective, the United States is using it also in the following weapons systems:

1. Navy ships carrying Phalanx rapid fire guns are capable of firing thousands of DU rounds per minute. [."DOD Launches Depleted Uranium Training," Linda Kozaryn, American Forces Press Service, 8-13-99]

2. Some Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. ships and subs are DU-tipped. [."Nukes of the Gulf War," John Shirley, Zess@aol.com. See this article in archives at www.gulfwarvets.com]

3. M1 Abrams tanks are armored with DU, as are British tanks. [BBC News, "US To Use Depleted Uranium," March 18, 2003; U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: "Early Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams," 1-2-92; covered also by Shirley, op. cit]

4. The A-10 "tank buster" aircraft fires DU 30-mm shells at machines and people on the battlefield. [Shirley, op. cit.]

"When a DU shell is fired, it ignites upon impact. Uranium, plus traces of plutonium and americium, vaporize into tiny, ceramic particles of radioactive dust. Once inhaled, uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system according to British radiation expert Roger Coghill." ["US Shells Leave Lethal Legacy," Toronto Star, July 31, 1999; also "Radiation Tests for Peacekeepers in the Balkans Exposed to Depleted Uranium," www.telegraph.co.uk, 12-31-02]

As we stated above, Depleted uranium is relatively benign before it is fired. Thus, handlers of these munitions are at little risk until the battle starts. Once munitions containing DU are fired, the risk changes dramatically; when a DU warhead or bullet hits its target, it virtually vaporizes the warhead, as well as much of the target. Most of the warhead becomes either extremely small fragments -- though larger ones are possible -- and a whole lot of radiation dust. Thus, when a person travels through the battlefield, they breathe in the particles that are now lingering in the air, plus they get a lot of radiation on their clothes. Let us hear from an expert on this type of exposure.

"The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney failure within days. ["Depleted Uranium May Stop Kidneys In Days," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.com, 3-12-02; also "Uranium Weapons Too Hot to Handle," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.co.uk, 6-9-99]

Other soldiers that breathe in lesser amounts do not suffer immediately, but have a high chance of breathing in enough to cause serious problems later on. How many of the ground soldiers are contaminated enough with Depleted Uranium residue?

"Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing." [Death By Slow Burn - How America Nukes Its Own Troops", Worthington, Amy The Idaho Observer, 4/16/03]

This fact was confirmed to me by phone by my retired Army Major source. In fact, he confirmed the statistics of the Gulf War I veterans, which we review in shortly. Virtually 100% of the ground troops are radiated to a degree that is troublesome; if Gulf War I is any guide, 75% of the men now serving on the ground will develop one or more of the exceedingly serious medical conditions we list below, in the section covering Gulf War I. In fact, the soldiers who come after the fighting troops to occupy and administer the land are the ones who are most affected! This radioactive dust is virtually impossible to clean up because it is so fine and covers everything -- from burned out and wrecked vehicles to houses in the area to the ground on which children may ultimately play. In residential areas like Basra, this consideration is frightening.

Even though much of the fighting did occur in the desert area, the Iraqis tried very hard to not get their vehicles caught in the open area; they preferred to fight in more congested areas, and in residential locations. Further, we were blasting urban targets continuously; as many Americans were cheering the sight of exploding munitions in Baghdad, for example, few realized such munitions were spreading radioactive dust everywhere.

"In the first two weeks of combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds. ["Navy Seeks Cash for More Tomahawks," David Rennie in Washington, Telegraph Group Limited, 1-4-03, news.telegraph.co.uk]. Millions of DU tank rounds liter the terrain. Cleanup is impossible because there is no place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris [Worthington, op. cit] and such debris is so fine that, by the time it settles, it is just dust indistinguishable from regular dust.

The U.S. military insists that DU on the battlefield is not a problem. Colonel James Naughton of the U.S. Army Material Command recently told the BBC that complaints about DU "had no medical basis." ["US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03].

However, U.S. Army internal writings show that this is simply not true! Listen:

"A 1993 Pentagon document warned that "when soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk." ["Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01]

"A U.S. Army training manual requires anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection." ["Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02]

"The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences." ["US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03]

In fact, internal communication reveals that, not only does the DOD understand DU long-term health effects, they also understand the disastrous costs the government would incur if they ever admitted the truth.

"The financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive." [US Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report, June 1995]

As a matter of fact, if we allow the argument to be carried out solely on the basis of the radioactivity, or the lack thereof, we may be badly understating the problem. A major unstated problem with DU may be its chemical toxicity! Listen:

"In the aftermath of the Gulf War, research on rats conducted by the military's Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute found that depleted uranium's chemical toxicity--not its radioactivity--may cause immune system damage, central nervous system problems and may contribute to the development of certain cancers." [Depleted Uranium: America's Military 'Gift' That Keeps on Giving", By Dan Fahey, L.A. Times, 2/18/01]

What sort of medical problems have others experienced because of an exposure to Depleted Uranium munitions? Listen and cry.

"U.S and British troops deployed to the area are the walking dead. Humans and animals, friends and foes in the fallout zone are destined to a long downhill spiral of chronic illness and disability. Kidney dysfunction, lung damage, bloody stools, extreme fatigue, joint pain, unsteady gait, memory loss and rashes and, ultimately, cancer and premature death await those exposed to DU." [Worthington, op. cit.]

Part of the insidious nature of this DU poisoning is that its effects take a long time to develop; therefore, when a soldier becomes ill 3-10 years later, the Pentagon is primed to deny that the origin of the sickness is this Gulf War. Several years ago, I asked a friend of mine, who is a master mechanic, if he could use his knowledge to damage my car rather than fix it. Even though I knew the answer, his full answer surprised me. He said that, not only could he use his extensive knowledge to damage my car but he could damage it in such a way that the breakdown would occur many, many months later so that I could not directly tie his shop to the damage. This is the principle the DOD is using to deny Gulf War I claims. What gains have come in having the Federal Government pay for medical bills for these veterans has come very slowly, very begrudgingly.


http://clifylq.livejournal.com/50025.html

UNITED NATIONS' DEBATE ON DEPLETED URANIUM HEALTH RISKS

"DU munitions are classified by a United Nations resolution as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Their use breaches all international laws, treaties and conventions forbidding poisoned weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." [Worthington, op. cit]

Since this is true, we should expect Iraq to complain to the United Nations about our use of Depleted Uranium munitions in the 1991 Gulf War -- and they did! Let us review a little bit of the pertinent information.

NEWS BRIEF: "Iraq Charges United States, United Kingdom, With Use of Depleted Uranium in 1991 Gulf War; Also In 'Aggression Against Yugoslavia", United Nations Press Release, DC/2702, 1 May 2000.

"Saeed Hasan (Iraq) said backing away from implementation of the provisions of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) was symptomatic of an unhealthy international atmosphere ... Those actions ... had also caused damage to Iraq through the continuation of an embargo which which was nothing more than a verifiable genocide being carried out in the name of the United Nations. Iraq demanded compensation for those acts of aggression. The United States and the United Kingdom, both depositories of the NPT and permanent members of the Security Council, had also used depleted uranium in their aggression against Iraq in 1991 and again in their aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999. The 300 tons used against his country had polluted Iraq's environment with radiation and significantly increased the registered cases of cancer, especially among children. The radioactive effects of the depleted uranium would continue for centuries to come unless action was taken to free his country's environment from them."

Thus, Iraq did complain bitterly to the United Nations about our use of Depleted Uranium during the 1991 Gulf War! What is the reference the Iraqi representative made to "an embargo which which was nothing more than a verifiable genocide being carried out in the name of the United Nations."? Iraq had petitioned the U.N. to relax its embargo so they could bring in medicine and equipment that would enable them to combat the effects of the uranium poisoning of their people, and the United States blocked the move!

NOW, LET US RETURN TO THIS UNITED NATIONS PRESS RELEASE:

"He (Iraq's representative) invited the Conference to include in its resolutions a call for a prohibition of the use of depleted uranium for armament purposes. He also invited the Conference to take concrete steps to help Iraq reduce the negative effects of that disaster on the environment and on human life, and affirm Iraq's right to demand compensation for the unjustified use against if of weapons of mass destruction." [Ibid.]

Did you catch the significance of this statement? The Iraqi representative accused the United States of using a Weapon of Mass Destruction against it during the Gulf War? What was that WMD? Depleted Uranium! Iraq said her people were suffering terribly because of their continuous exposure to this uranium. Another news story, written about 8 months after this United Nations Press Release, gives some insight into the condition of the exposed Iraqi citizenry. http://cuttingedge.org/news/n1843.cfm


clifylq
http://clifylq.livejournal.com/



We Are Dieing Now America From Bush's DU
You Will Be Next. Help Us Get Out Of Iraq
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm

depleted uranium weapons update IRAK

By Scott Peterson

BAGHDAD – At a roadside produce stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, business is brisk for Latifa Khalaf Hamid. Iraqi drivers pull up and snap up fresh bunches of parsley, mint leaves, dill, and onion stalks.

But Ms. Hamid’s stand is just four paces away from a burnt-out Iraqi tank, destroyed by - and contaminated with - controversial American depleted-uranium (DU) bullets. Local children play “throughout the day” on the tank, Hamid says, and on another one across the road.

No one has warned the vendor in the faded, threadbare black gown to keep the toxic and radioactive dust off her produce. The children haven’t been told not to play with the radioactive debris. They gather around as a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.

The Monitor visited four sites in the city - including two randomly chosen destroyed Iraqi armored vehicles, a clutch of burned American ammunition trucks, and the downtown planning ministry - and found significant levels of radioactive contamination from the US battle for Baghdad.

In the first partial Pentagon disclosure of the amount of DU used in Iraq, a US Central Command spokesman told the Monitor that A-10 Warthog aircraft - the same planes that shot at the Iraqi planning ministry - fired 300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 - a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq.

The Monitor saw only one site where US troops had put up handwritten warnings in Arabic for Iraqis to stay away. There, a 3-foot-long DU dart from a 120 mm tank shell, was found producing radiation at more than 1,300 times background levels. It made the instrument’s staccato bursts turn into a steady whine.

“If you have pieces or even whole [DU] penetrators around, this is not an acute health hazard, but it is for sure above radiation protection dose levels,” says Werner Burkart, the German deputy director general for Nuclear Sciences and Applications at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. “The important thing in any battlefield - especially in populated urban areas - is somebody has to clean up these sites.”

Minimizing the risk

Fresh-from-the-factory DU tank shells are normally handled with gloves, to minimize the health risk, and shielded with a thin coating. The alpha particle radiation emitted by DU travels less than an inch and can be stopped by cloth or even tissue paper. But when the DUmaterial burns (usually on impact; or as a dust, it can spontaneously ignite) protective shields disappear, and dangerous radioactive oxides are created that can be inhaled or ingested.

“[The risk] depends so very much on how you handle it,” says Jan Olof Snihs, of Sweden’s Radiation Protection Authority in Stockholm. In most cases dangers are low, he says, unless children eat toxic and radioactive soil, or get DU oxides on their hands.

Radioactive particles are a “special risk associated with a war,” Mr. Snihs says. “The authorities should be aware of this, and try to decontaminate places like this, just to avoid unnecessary risk.”

Pentagon officials say that DU is relatively harmless and a necessary part of modern warfare. They say that pre-Gulf War studies that indicated a risk of cancer and of causing harm to local populations through permanent contamination have been superseded by newer reports.

“There is not really any danger, at least that we know about, for the people of Iraq,” said Lt. Col. Michael Sigmon, deputy surgeon for the US Army’s V Corps, told journalists in Baghdad last week. He asserted that children playing with expended tank shells would have to eat and then practically suffocate on DU residue to cause harm.

But there is a growing chorus of concern among United Nations and relief officials, along with some Western scientific experts, who are calling for sites contaminated with DU be marked off and made safe.

“The soil around the impact sites of [DU] penetrators may be heavily contaminated, and could be harmful if swallowed by children,” says Brian Spratt, chair of the working group on DU at The Royal Society, Britain’s premier scientific institution.

Heavy metal toys?

Fragments and penetrators should be removed, since “children find them fascinating objects, and can pocket them,” says Professor Spratt. “The science says there is some danger - not perhaps a huge danger - of these objects. … We certainly do not say that these things are safe; we say that cleanup is important.”

The British Ministry of Defense says it will offer screening to soldiers suspected of DU exposure, and will publish details about locations and quantities of DU that British troops used in Iraq - a tiny fraction of that fired by US forces.

The Pentagon has traditionally been tight-lipped about DU: Official figures on the amount used were not released for years after the 1991 Gulf War and Bosnia conflicts, and nearly a year after the 1999 Kosovo campaign. No US official contacted could provide DU use estimates from the latest war in Iraq.

“The first thing we should ask [the US military] is to remove that immediately,” says Carel de Rooy, head of the UN Children’s Fund in Baghdad, adding that senior UN officials need urgent advice on avoiding exposure.

The UN Environment Program last month called for field tests. DU “is still an issue of great concern for the general public,” said UNEP chief Klaus Töpfer. “An early study in Iraq could either lay these fears to rest or confirm that there are indeed potential risks.”

US troops avoid wreckage

During the latest Iraq conflict Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and A-10 Warthog aircraft, among other military platforms, all fired the DU bullets from desert war zones to the heart of Baghdad. No other armor-piercing round is as effective against enemy tanks. While the Pentagon says there’s no risk to Baghdad residents, US soldiers are taking their own precautions in Iraq, and in some cases have handed out warning leaflets and put up signs.

“After we shoot something with DU, we’re not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer,” says a sergeant in Baghdad from New York, assigned to a Bradley, who asked not to be further identified.

“We don’t know the effects of what it could do,” says the sergeant. “If one of our vehicles burnt with a DU round inside, or an ammo truck, we wouldn’t go near it, even if it had important documents inside. We play it safe.”

Six American vehicles struck with DU “friendly fire” in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump.

Television footage of the war last month showed Iraqi armored vehicles burning as US columns drove by, a common sign of a strike by DU, which burns through armor on impact, and often ignites the ammunition carried by the targeted vehicle.

“We were buttoned up when we drove by that - all our hatches were closed,” the US sergeant says. “If we saw anything on fire, we wouldn’t stop anywhere near it. We would just keep on driving.”

That’s an option that produce seller Hamid doesn’t have.

She says the US broke its promise not to bomb civilians. She has found US cluster bomblets in her garden; the DU is just another dangerous burden, in a war about which she remains skeptical.

“We were told it was going to be paradise [when Saddam Hussein was toppled], and now they are killing our children,” she says voicing a common Iraqi perception about the risk of DU. “The Americans did not bother to warn us that this is a contaminated area.”

There is a warning now at the Doura intersection on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. In the days before the capital fell, four US supply trucks clustered near an array of highway off-ramps caught fire, cooking off a number of DU tank rounds.

American troops wearing facemasks for protection arrived a few days later and bulldozed the topsoil around the site to limit the contamination.

The troops taped handwritten warning signs in Arabic to the burned vehicles, which read: “Danger - Get away from this area.” These were the only warnings seen by this reporter among dozens of destroyed Iraqi armored vehicles littering the city.

“All of them were wearing masks,” says Abbas Mohsin, a teenage cousin of a drink seller 50 yards away, said referring to the US military cleanup crew. “They told the people there were toxic materials … and advised my cousin not to sell Pepsi and soft drinks in this area. They said they were concerned for our safety.”

Despite the troops’ bulldozing of contaminated earth away from the burnt vehicles, black piles of pure DU ash and particles are still present at the site. The toxic residue, if inhaled or ingested, is considered by scientists to be the most dangerous form of DU.

One pile of jet-black dust yielded a digital readout of 9,839 radioactive emissions in one minute, more than 300 times average background levels registered by the Geiger counter. Another pile of dust reached 11,585 emissions in a minute.

Western journalists who spent a night nearby on April 10, the day after Baghdad fell, were warned by US soldiers not to cross the road to this site, because bodies and unexploded ordnance remained, along with DU contamination. It was here that the Monitor found the “hot” DU tank round.

This burned dart pushed the radiation meter to the far edge of the “red zone” limit.

A similar DU tank round recovered in Saudi Arabia in 1991, that was found by a US Army radiological team to be emitting 260 to 270 millirads of radiation per hour. Their safety memo noted that the “current [US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] limit for non-radiation workers is 100 millirads per year.”

The normal public dose limit in the US, and recognized around much of the world, is 100 millirems per year. Nuclear workers have guidelines 20 to 30 times as high as that.

The depleted-uranium bullets are made of low-level radioactive nuclear-waste material, left over from the making of nuclear fuel and weapons. It is 1.7 times as dense as lead, and burns its way easily through armor. But it is controversial because it leaves a trail of contamination that has half-life of 4.5 billion years - the age of our solar system.

Less DU in this war?

In the first Gulf War, US forces used 320 tons of DU, 80 percent of it fired by A-10 aircraft. Some estimates suggest 1,000 tons or more of DU was used in the current war. But the Pentagon disclosure Wednesday that about 75 tons of A-10 DU bullets were used points to a smaller overall DU tonnage in Iraq this time.

US military guidelines developed after the first Gulf War - which have since been considerably eased - required any soldier coming within 50 yards of a tank struck with DU to wear a gas mask and full protective suit. Today, soldiers say they have been told to steer clear of any DU.

“If a [tank] was taken out by depleted uranium, there may be oxide that you don’t want to inhale. We want to minimize any exposure, at least to the lowest level possible,” Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official told journalists on March 14, just days before the war began. “If somebody needs to go into a tank that’s been hit with depleted uranium, a dust mask, a handkerchief is adequate to protect them - washing their hands afterwards.”

Not everyone on the battlefield may be as well versed in handling DU, Dr. Kilpatrick said, noting that his greater concern is DU’s chemical toxicity, not its radioactivity: “What we worry about like lead in paint in housing areas - children picking it up and eating it or licking it - getting it on their hands and ingesting it.”

In the US, stringent NRC rules govern any handling of DU, which can legally only be disposed of in low-level radioactive waste dumps. The US military holds more than a dozen NRC licenses to work with it.

In Iraq, DU was not just fired at armored targets.

Video footage from the last days of the war shows an A-10 aircraft - a plane purpose-built around a 30-mm Gatling gun - strafing the Iraqi Ministry of Planning in downtown Baghdad.

A visit to site yields dozens of spent radioactive DU rounds, and distinctive aluminum casings with two white bands, that drilled into the tile and concrete rear of the building. DU residue at impact clicked on the Geiger counter at a relatively low level, just 12 times background radiation levels.

Hot bullets

But the finger-sized bullets themselves - littering the ground where looters and former staff are often walking - were the “hottest” items the Monitor measured in Iraq, at nearly 1,900 times background levels.

The site is just 300 yards from where American troops guard the main entrance of the Republican Palace, home to the US and British officials tasked with rebuilding Iraq.

“Radioactive? Oh, really?” asks a former director general of the ministry, when he returned in a jacket and tie for a visit last week, and heard the contamination levels register in bursts on the Geiger counter.

“Yesterday more than 1,000 employees came here, and they didn’t know anything about it,” the former official says. “We have started to not believe what the American government says. What I know is that the occupiers should clean up and take care of the country they invaded.”

US military officials often say that most people are exposed to natural or “background” radiation n daily life. For example, a round-trip flight across the US can yield a 5 millirem dose from increased cosmic radiation; a chest X-ray can yield a 10 millirem dose in a few seconds.

The Pentagon says that, since DU is “depleted” and 40 percent less radioactive than normal uranium, it presents even less of a hazard.

But DU experts say they are most concerned at how DU is transformed on the battlefield, after burning, into a toxic oxide dust that emits alpha particles. While those can be easily stopped by the skin, once inside the body, studies have shown that they can destroy cells in soft tissue. While one study on rats linked DU fragments in muscle tissue to increased cancer risk, health effects on humans remain inconclusive.

As late as five days before the Iraq war began, Pentagon officials said that 90 of those troops most heavily exposed to DU during the 1991 Gulf War have shown no health problems whatsoever, and remain under close medical scrutiny.

Released documents and past admissions from military officials, however, estimate that around 900 Americans were exposed to DU. Only a fraction have been watched, and among those has been one diagnosed case of lymphatic cancer, and one arm tumor. As reported in previous articles, the Monitor has spoken to American veterans who blame their DU exposure for serious health problems.

The politics of DU

But DU health concerns are very often wrapped up in politics. Saddam Hussein’s regime blamed DU used in 1991 for causing a spike in the cancer rate and birth defects in southern Iraq.

And the Pentagon often overstates its case - in terms of DU effectiveness on the battlefield, or declaring the absence of health problems, according to Dan Fahey, an American veterans advocate who has monitored the shrill arguments from both sides since the mid-1990s.

“DU munitions are neither the benign wonder weapons promoted by Pentagon propagandists nor the instruments of genocide decried by hyperbolic anti-DU activists,” Mr. Fahey writes in a March report, called “Science or Science Fiction: Facts, Myth and Propaganda in the Debate Over DU Weapons.”

Nonetheless, Rep. Jim McDermott (D) of Washington, a doctor who visited Baghdad before the war, introduced legislation in Congress last month requiring studies on health and environment studies, and clean up of DU contamination in the US. He says DU may well be associated with increased birth defects.

“While the political effects of using DU munitions are perhaps more apparent than their health and environmental effects,” Fahey writes,

“science and common sense dictate it is unwise to use a weapon that distributes large quantities of a toxic waste in areas where people live, work, grow food, or draw water.”

Because of the publicity the Iraqi government has given to the issue, Iraqis worry about DU.

“It is an important concern…. We know nothing about it. How can I protect my family?” asks Faiz Askar, an Iraqi doctor.

“We say the war is finished, but what will the future bring?”

Iraq Section has more related reports
http://rinf.com/alt-news/war-terrorism/remains-of-toxic-du-bullets/2030/