In the weeks leading up to the war on Iraq, TV screens across America were
crowded with images of U.S. soldiers readying for upcoming battles with a
crazed dictator who would stop at nothing. One clip after another showed
U.S. soldiers racing to don $211 suits designed to protect them from the
chemical and biological attacks they would surely suffer on the road to
ousting Saddam Hussein.
But these grim forecasts were wrong. Despite the advance hype, Hussein's
dreaded arsenal was not the biggest threat to Americans on the battlefield
in Iraq. In fact, it was no threat at all.
The real threat - not only to U.S. troops but to Iraqis as well - may prove
to be a weapon scarcely mentioned before, during or after the war: depleted
uranium.
A toxic and radioactive substance, depleted uranium (DU) - otherwise known
as Uranium 238 - was widely used by U.S. troops as their Abrams battle tanks
and A-10 Warthogs thundered through Iraq this spring.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of enriched uranium, the fissile material in
nuclear weapons. It is pyrophoric, burning spontaneously on impact. That,
along with its extreme density, makes depleted uranium munitions the
Pentagon's ideal choice for penetrating an enemy's tank armor or reinforced
bunkers.
When a DU shell hits its target, it burns, losing anywhere from 40 to 70
percent of its mass and dispersing a fine dust that can be carried long
distances by winds or absorbed directly into the soil and groundwater.
Depleted uranium's radioactive and toxic residue has been linked to birth
defects, cancers, the Gulf War Syndrome, and environmental damage.
But the Pentagon insists depleted uranium is both safe and necessary, saying
it is a "superior armor [and] a superior munition that we will continue to
use." Pentagon officials say that the health and environmental risks of DU
use are outweighed by its military advantages. But to retain the right to
use and manufacture DU weaponry and armor, the Pentagon has to actively
ignore and deny the risks that depleted uranium poses to human health and
environment.
To keep depleted uranium at the top of its weapons list, the Pentagon has
distorted research that demonstrates how DU dust can work its way into the
human body, potentially posing a grave health risk. According to a 1998
report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the
inhalation of DU particles can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, shortness
of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss, and an
unsteady gait - symptoms that match those of sick veterans of the Gulf and
Balkan wars. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist, released a
study in 1999 revealing that depleted uranium can stay in the lungs for up
to two years. "When the dust is breathed in, it passes through the walls of
the lung and into the blood, circulating through the whole body," she wrote.
Bertell concluded that exposure to depleted uranium, especially when
inhaled, "represents a serious risk of damaged immune systems and fatal
cancers."
The Pentagon has to cloak this dangerous weapon in deceptive and innocuous
language. The adjective "depleted," with its connotation that the substance
is non-threatening or diminished in strength, is misleading. While depleted
uranium is not as radioactive and dangerous as U235 - a person would not get
sick merely from brief DU exposure - depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5
billion years (as long as the solar system has existed) and may pose serious
health risks and environmental contamination.
Don't Believe the Hype: Propaganda Wars
As the U.S. military prepared to launch a new offensive against Iraq early
this year, the Pentagon and White House embarked on a parallel effort to
promote depleted uranium as a highly effective weapon that would protect the
lives of innocent Iraqis. At the same time, the Iraqi government sought to
exploit the use of depleted uranium and the serious public health concerns
about its use in its propaganda war against the United States.
At a March 14 Pentagon briefing, Col. James Naughton of the U.S. Army
announced that U.S. forces had decided to employ DU munitions in the looming
war on Iraq. When asked about depleted uranium's possible effects on
civilians, Naughton characterized opposition to the use of DU weapons as a
product of propaganda and cowardice. "Why do [the Iraqis] want [depleted
uranium] to go away?" he asked. "They want it to go away because we kicked
the crap out of them [in the first Gulf War]."
The White House echoed Naughton's sentiment, rejecting reports linking
depleted uranium to birth defects and cancers in Iraq. Early this year the
White House released a report titled "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's
Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003," which includes a section on "The
Depleted Uranium Scare." In it, the White House accuses the Iraqi government
of launching a "disinformation campaign" that uses "horrifying pictures of
children with birth defects" as a tool to "take advantage of an established
international network of antinuclear activists." Iraq's aim, the report
charged, was to promote the "false claim that the depleted uranium rounds
fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq."
But few anti-DU activists say that depleted uranium is the sole cause of
cancer and birth defects. Rather, they contend there is an obvious link
between depleted uranium and other toxins released into the environment
during the 1991 Gulf War, that independent study is now required, and, in
the meantime, that the United States should declare a moratorium on any
future use of depleted uranium.
Depleted Uranium Use Increasing
Over the past 15 years, the Pentagon has become increasingly dependent on DU
weapons and armor. The 1991 Gulf War was the first major conflict in which
DU weaponry and armor was used. Almost 320 tons - an amount equal to the
weight of five Abrams battle tanks - were fired in the Iraqi desert. About
10 tons of DU munitions were used in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia in the
'90s. DU weaponry was reportedly used in Afghanistan in 2001 as well, but
reliable estimates are not yet available.
Depleted uranium was used extensively in this year's war on Iraq, but if
Pentagon officials have an accurate accounting of total DU use, they are
keeping that number to themselves. In a May 15 article in the Christian
Science Monitor, reporter Scott Peterson wrote that after the war, the
Pentagon, when pressed by reporters, announced that about 75 tons of DU
munitions were fired from A-10 Warthogs. However, the Pentagon has stalled
on releasing additional relevant data on how much depleted uranium was fired
from Abrams battle tanks - the other system that uses only DU munitions.
More importantly, it has not addressed concerns that DU weaponry was used
much more extensively in Iraq's urban and densely populated areas in the
2003 war than in 1991.
The use of DU weapons in urban areas and against civilian targets in Iraq
gives the lie to the Pentagon's insistence that it needed the DU advantage
in order to win the recent war quickly. To illustrate the power of this
wonder weapon, a March Pentagon press conference prominently featured
pictures from the first Gulf War of an Abrams tank firing a DU munition
through a sand dune to destroy an Iraqi tank hidden behind. While this makes
good TV, did depleted uranium really provide a critical advantage to the
U.S. military in Iraq? The answer is no. The U.S. military did not need a
wonder weapon in Iraq because the crippled country was not a wonder
opponent. Its arsenal was antiquated and had been poorly maintained since
the first Gulf War. Suffering under more than 12 years of U.N. economic
sanctions, moreover, Iraq had not been able to develop or purchase
comparable high-tech armored weaponry.
In his May 15 article, Peterson describes video footage from the last days
of the recent war showing an A-10 Warthog strafing the Iraqi Ministry of
Planning in downtown Baghdad. This was not an armored target; it was a
building in a heavily populated neighborhood. Peterson visited the area and
found "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."
The indiscriminate use of DU munitions in densely populated areas throughout
Iraq, which put large numbers of civilians in jeopardy of radioactive and
toxic exposure, violates the Geneva Convention's protocol prohibiting the
use of weapons that do not distinguish between soldiers and civilians during
wartime.
So why did the Pentagon insist on using DU weapons in Iraq? Tungsten alloys
would have worked as well. Depleted uranium, it turns out, has one
tremendous advantage over tungsten. It is provided to weapons manufacturers
nearly free of charge by the U.S. government - an ingenious method of
radioactive waste disposal. Essentially, depleted uranium is the waste left
over from decades of nuclear weapons development. In fact, the United States
has stockpiles of depleted uranium scattered at sites throughout the
country - 728,000 metric tons to be exact - a tiny fraction of which is used
in the manufacture of depleted uranium warheads.
Lies and Silence
In an April 14 video address, President Bush spoke directly to military
personnel and their families, thanking them for their role in the Iraq war.
The monuments to Hussein had been toppled in Baghdad, and the first troops
were beginning to return home triumphant. The message, broadcast on armed
services networks around the country and beamed to troops on the Iraq
battlefield, included Bush's promise that veterans of "Operation Iraqi
Freedom" would receive "the full support of our government. We will keep our
commitment to improving the quality of life for our military families."
The same day, the Defense Department and the Centers for Disease Control
released the results of their four-year study on birth defects in the
children of Gulf War Veterans. Although the study did not mention depleted
uranium specifically, it found "significantly higher prevalences" of heart
and kidney birth defects in veterans' children. Unfortunately, the study's
disturbing findings were not reported by any U.S. media outlets until June.
The Pentagon and White House propaganda on depleted uranium was never
challenged by the mainstream media this past spring. If members of the
national press corps had done their homework, they would have found ample
evidence that the Pentagon is fully aware of the dangers posed by DU
weaponry and is actively ignoring its own research and warnings.
A 1974 military report evaluated the medical and environmental effects of
depleted uranium, noting that "in combat situations involving the widespread
use of DU munitions, the potential for inhalation, ingestion, or
implantation of DU compounds may be locally significant." This contradicts
recent Pentagon claims that depleted uranium does not pose a threat and
demonstrates the military's understanding of how depleted uranium is
absorbed into the human body, posing risks to organs.
In a 1998 training manual, the U.S. Army acknowledged the hazards of
depleted uranium, requiring that anyone who comes within 25 meters of
DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection.
The manual cautioned: "Contamination will make food and water unsafe for
consumption."
And in November 1999, NATO sent its commanders the following warning:
"Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated
with long-term health effects, including cancers and birth defects."
They Hid It Well
The fact that these reports are in the public record is the result of years
of hard work, study, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by
anti-DU activists. The Pentagon and Bush administration have also been hard
at work. In the past two years, they have clamped down on sources of
information that had been immensely valuable to service personnel and their
families over the past decade.
Dan Fahey served in the United States Navy just months after the fighting
ended in the Gulf War. Seeing the havoc the war wreaked on his fellow
veterans, he set out to become an independent expert on depleted uranium. He
sits on the board of Veterans for Common Sense and has played a major role
in obtaining U.S. government documents about depleted uranium through FOIA.
Fahey says that, under President Bush, the Department of Defense is
controlling the release of information about depleted uranium so tightly
that if he were starting his research and disclosure efforts today, he would
be unable to get any information through the Freedom of Information Act.
"There is less information and more secrecy," he says. "There are tighter
restrictions on access to information."
Fahey was responsible for publicizing the findings of a July 1990 report by
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a defense contractor
commissioned by the Pentagon to study depleted uranium.
The report revealed that the Pentagon knew that depleted uranium was harmful
before 1991, when they sent 697,000 American troops to the Gulf, where they
could be exposed to DU dust and residue. SAIC asserted that depleted uranium
is "a low-level alpha radiation emitter" that could be "linked to cancer
when exposures are internal." The report further warned, "DU exposures to
soldiers on the battlefield could be significant, with potential
radiological and toxicological effects." In addition the report found that
"short-term effects of high doses [of depleted uranium] can result in death,
while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."
SAIC says in its report that widespread knowledge of depleted uranium's
harmful properties could lead to public outrage about the "acceptability of
the continued use of DU kinetic energy penetrators for military
applications." That's what worries the Pentagon.
All the while, as the Pentagon hides behind claims that more study is needed
to prove depleted uranium's connection with the ailments suffered by Gulf
War veterans and Iraqi civilians, their own research demonstrates that, at
best, depleted uranium is radioactive and toxic - and that at worst, it can
lead to incurable diseases and death.
Veterans Suffer
The Pentagon says more study is needed. But veterans of the Gulf War,
meanwhile, need medical care, information, and benefits, and for the
Pentagon to come clean about depleted uranium. The veterans had been exposed
to a "toxic soup" of smoke from oil and chemical fires, pesticides,
vaccinations, depleted uranium and, most likely, plutonium.
Two types of depleted uranium exist. One is "clean" depleted uranium, a
byproduct of the processing of uranium ore into uranium-235 (which is used
in nuclear fuel and weapons). The other type is created at government
facilities as a byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel (done to
extract plutonium for nuclear warheads) and is known as "dirty" depleted
uranium because it contains highly toxic plutonium.
In November 2000, U.N. researchers examined 11 sites in Kosovo hit by DU
shells and found radioactive contamination at eight of them. Furthermore,
those tests uncovered evidence that at least some of the DU munitions in the
U.S. arsenal used in Kosovo contained "dirty" depleted uranium. This raises
the question: How much of its plutonium-processing waste did the U.S.
government supply to weapons manufacturers?
If some of the DU shells in the U.S. arsenal have been made from dirty
depleted uranium, that could help explain why about 300 of 5,000 refugees
from a Sarajevo suburb heavily bombed by NATO jets in 1995 had died of
cancer by early 2001. And it could also help explain the fact that 28
percent of veterans who served in the first Gulf War have over the past 12
years sought treatment for illness and disease resulting from their military
service and filed claims with the Veterans Administration for medical and
compensation benefits. In all, 186,000 veterans of that war have sought
treatment for a collection of maladies including chronic fatigue, joint and
muscle pain, memory loss, reproductive problems, depression, and
gastrointestinal disorders. Together these ailments are known as the Gulf
War Syndrome.
Based on the struggles of Gulf War veterans, Congress passed a law in 1997
requiring the Pentagon to conduct pre- and postdeployment medical screenings
of troops and military personnel so that medical professionals would have an
accurate base of information if health problems developed. In the early
months of this year, as U.S. troops were being deployed to Iraq, lawmakers
found that the Pentagon was not complying with the 1997 law: The troops were
not being screened at all.
According to Steven Robinson, a former Army Ranger who now directs the
National Gulf War Resource Center, it took two congressional hearings, 30
news interviews, 60 radio interviews, and a timely New York Times ad
courtesy of www.TomPaine.com to pressure the Pentagon to follow the law. On
April 29, the Pentagon announced it would begin conducting postdeployment
examinations. Anti-DU activists say the military's grudging compliance is
too little, too late.
Activists are struggling for treatment of veterans, for information about
depleted uranium and other toxins that could be responsible for the Gulf War
Syndrome, and for some sort of government acknowledgement or apology. But
they are also battling against a legacy of lies, secrecy, and official
promotion of an ends-justifies-the-means posture. Veterans with Gulf War
Syndrome can be seen as the latest in a long line of Pentagon guinea pigs
that includes the troops ordered to witness the atomic blasts in the early
days of the Cold War, soldiers exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and the
black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were subjected to federal
government-sponsored syphilis experiments.
Keeps on Killing
If the Pentagon and the Federal government can treat American troops and
their families with such casual disregard and use doublespeak with such
abandon, what hope is there for Iraqi civilians and troops?
The people of Iraq have known nothing but decades of war, deprivation, and
oppression. It is understandable that many cheered when the statues of
dictator Saddam Hussein toppled. At the same time, how could they greet the
United States, their liberators, with anything other than the deepest
skepticism?
In his just-released book "The New Rulers of the World," Australian
journalist John Pilger recounts conversations with Iraqi doctors like Jawad
Al-Ali, a cancer specialist in Basra. Before the Gulf War, Dr. Al-Ali told
Pilger, "We had only three or four deaths in a month from cancer. Now it's
30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's just in my department. That
is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our studies indicate that 40 to
48 percent of the population in this area will get cancer. That's almost
half the population."
Not only are Dr. Al-Ali's patients suffering, but his own family members are
ill as well. "Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history
of the disease," he told Pilger. "We strongly suspect depleted uranium."
The public has had to rely on anecdotal evidence like Dr. Al-Ali's testimony
to get a sense of the health crisis in Iraq. Throughout the '90s, Hussein's
government released data on cancer and birth defects, but it is unlikely
that those figures provide an accurate picture.
Kathy Kelly, director of the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness and
three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, has visited Iraq repeatedly
since the first Gulf War and has built strong relationships with doctors and
nurses there. She recounted a day she spent in a pediatric hospital in
November 1998. "Four babies were born that day with deformities. I was
shocked, but the doctors said, 'This is not unusual.'"
"So, I asked them," she continues, "'Did you know where the mothers were
when they conceived? Were their fathers involved in the war? Were they in an
area exposed to depleted uranium?'"
"One of the doctors replied, 'All of these questions are very important, and
we need to be collecting this data, but we cannot. Let me show you
something.' And she showed me a prescription for a baby that was written on
the back of a candy wrapper. Because of the effects of the economic
sanctions, they did not even have paper to write prescriptions on."
There is an overwhelming need for medical research in Iraq, but it is
impossible to initiate within the context of the pressing health needs and
the lack of medical supplies and equipment that constitute the fallout of
war. This situation allows the U.S. military to continue insisting that
there is no proof that DU exposures lead to cancers. "No proof of harm is
not proof of no harm," Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist at Boston
University, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "The potential for a DU-cancer
link (especially lung cancer in those who breathe depleted uranium through
dust and smoke particles) is still an open question."
Rep. Jim McDermott, a doctor from Washington state, traveled to Iraq in the
fall of 2002. He visited hospitals, speaking with his peers, and saw the
hospital beds crowded with the dying. He returned to the United States
adamantly opposed to a new war in Iraq and deeply committed to challenging
the continued use of depleted uranium. McDermott drafted legislation
requiring studies of the health and environmental impact of depleted
uranium. His bill, introduced just as the war started this past spring, is
co-sponsored by a number of other Democrats but needs wider support.
Clearly, this legislation, if passed, would be an important first step in
understanding the long-term effects of depleted uranium.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called for an outright ban on shells
made from depleted uranium. That would indeed be another sensible place to
start.
In addition, anti-DU activists Dan Fahey, Steve Robinson, and Kathy Kelly
should be encouraged and financially supported in their ongoing efforts to
compile data and release their findings to the public. Next, manufacturers
of DU weapons - like the Minnesota-based Alliant Techsystems, which built 15
million DU shells for the A-10 Warthog - should be held accountable for the
long-term effects of their "products."
Finally, we might take up Yugoslavian President Vojislav Kostunica's
suggestion: "We should be discussing the depleted conscience of those who
used the notorious depleted uranium."
Only then will the cycle of deception and silence about depleted uranium be
broken.
Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource
Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.
--
--
Redbaiter
In the leftist's lexicon, the lowest of the low
" In all of German-occupied Europe, there
resided 2.4 million jews before the war, according to the World Jewish
Encyclopedia. After the war, 3.8 million jewish "Holocaust Survivors"
were receiving pensions from the German government. Tragically, the
remaining 6 million were lost."
I'll answer on behalf of the other Redbaiter - as we two are soulmates now
that he's deposited cum in my bum - um, depleted....to have run out of
something?
--
--
Redbaiter
In the leftist's lexicon, the lowest of the low
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that
is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-- President John F. Kennedy
"John Sefton" <js64@no-spam> wrote in message
news:bdoeus$ipk$1@no-spam
>
> "Redbaiter" <don't@no-spam> wrote in message
> news:3eff8f5f@no-spam
> >
> > The real threat - not only to U.S. troops but to Iraqis as well - may
> prove
> > to be a weapon scarcely mentioned before, during or after the war:
> depleted
> > uranium.
>
> Oh really? Does the word "depleted" mean anything to you, fake Redbaiter?
>
>
In article <bdp0b3$11h$1@no-spam>, kdavies@no-spam says...
> Someone pretending to be Redbaiter wrote:
>
> > In the weeks leading up to the war on Iraq, TV screens across America were
> [anti-American drivel snipped]
>
> I clicked on this thread thinking I would read something interesting
> posted by the real RB. Instead I got a a whole lot of boring
> anti-American propaganda posted by a cross-posting, anti-American,
> anti-semitic, spamming, Nazi scumbag.
>
> What a waste of time and space.
Like your post.
"John Sefton" <js64@no-spam> wrote in message
news:bdohrt$lau$1@no-spam
> Correct. Depleted uranium has run out of the bulk of its radiactivity. It
is
> therefore effectively harmless, from the radioactivity standpoint.
>
You must work for the military to believe that.
A toxic and radioactive substance, depleted uranium (DU) - otherwise known
as Uranium 238 - was widely used by U.S. troops as their Abrams battle tanks
and A-10 Warthogs thundered through Iraq this spring.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of enriched uranium, the fissile material in
nuclear weapons. It is pyrophoric, burning spontaneously on impact. That,
along with its extreme density, makes depleted uranium munitions the
Pentagon's ideal choice for penetrating an enemy's tank armor or reinforced
bunkers.
When a DU shell hits its target, it burns, losing anywhere from 40 to 70
percent of its mass and dispersing a fine dust that can be carried long
distances by winds or absorbed directly into the soil and groundwater.
Depleted uranium's radioactive and toxic residue has been linked to birth
defects, cancers, the Gulf War Syndrome, and environmental damage.
But the Pentagon insists depleted uranium is both safe and necessary, saying
it is a "superior armor [and] a superior munition that we will continue to
use." Pentagon officials say that the health and environmental risks of DU
use are outweighed by its military advantages. But to retain the right to
use and manufacture DU weaponry and armor, the Pentagon has to actively
ignore and deny the risks that depleted uranium poses to human health and
environment.
To keep depleted uranium at the top of its weapons list, the Pentagon has
distorted research that demonstrates how DU dust can work its way into the
human body, potentially posing a grave health risk. According to a 1998
report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the
inhalation of DU particles can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, shortness
of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss, and an
unsteady gait - symptoms that match those of sick veterans of the Gulf and
Balkan wars. Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist, released a
study in 1999 revealing that depleted uranium can stay in the lungs for up
to two years. "When the dust is breathed in, it passes through the walls of
the lung and into the blood, circulating through the whole body," she wrote.
Bertell concluded that exposure to depleted uranium, especially when
inhaled, "represents a serious risk of damaged immune systems and fatal
cancers."
The Pentagon has to cloak this dangerous weapon in deceptive and innocuous
language. The adjective "depleted," with its connotation that the substance
is non-threatening or diminished in strength, is misleading. While depleted
uranium is not as radioactive and dangerous as U235 - a person would not get
sick merely from brief DU exposure - depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5
billion years (as long as the solar system has existed) and may pose serious
health risks and environmental contamination.
Don't Believe the Hype: Propaganda Wars
As the U.S. military prepared to launch a new offensive against Iraq early
this year, the Pentagon and White House embarked on a parallel effort to
promote depleted uranium as a highly effective weapon that would protect the
lives of innocent Iraqis. At the same time, the Iraqi government sought to
exploit the use of depleted uranium and the serious public health concerns
about its use in its propaganda war against the United States.
At a March 14 Pentagon briefing, Col. James Naughton of the U.S. Army
announced that U.S. forces had decided to employ DU munitions in the looming
war on Iraq. When asked about depleted uranium's possible effects on
civilians, Naughton characterized opposition to the use of DU weapons as a
product of propaganda and cowardice. "Why do [the Iraqis] want [depleted
uranium] to go away?" he asked. "They want it to go away because we kicked
the crap out of them [in the first Gulf War]."
The White House echoed Naughton's sentiment, rejecting reports linking
depleted uranium to birth defects and cancers in Iraq. Early this year the
White House released a report titled "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's
Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003," which includes a section on "The
Depleted Uranium Scare." In it, the White House accuses the Iraqi government
of launching a "disinformation campaign" that uses "horrifying pictures of
children with birth defects" as a tool to "take advantage of an established
international network of antinuclear activists." Iraq's aim, the report
charged, was to promote the "false claim that the depleted uranium rounds
fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq."
But few anti-DU activists say that depleted uranium is the sole cause of
cancer and birth defects. Rather, they contend there is an obvious link
between depleted uranium and other toxins released into the environment
during the 1991 Gulf War, that independent study is now required, and, in
the meantime, that the United States should declare a moratorium on any
future use of depleted uranium.
Depleted Uranium Use Increasing
Over the past 15 years, the Pentagon has become increasingly dependent on DU
weapons and armor. The 1991 Gulf War was the first major conflict in which
DU weaponry and armor was used. Almost 320 tons - an amount equal to the
weight of five Abrams battle tanks - were fired in the Iraqi desert. About
10 tons of DU munitions were used in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia in the
'90s. DU weaponry was reportedly used in Afghanistan in 2001 as well, but
reliable estimates are not yet available.
Depleted uranium was used extensively in this year's war on Iraq, but if
Pentagon officials have an accurate accounting of total DU use, they are
keeping that number to themselves. In a May 15 article in the Christian
Science Monitor, reporter Scott Peterson wrote that after the war, the
Pentagon, when pressed by reporters, announced that about 75 tons of DU
munitions were fired from A-10 Warthogs. However, the Pentagon has stalled
on releasing additional relevant data on how much depleted uranium was fired
from Abrams battle tanks - the other system that uses only DU munitions.
More importantly, it has not addressed concerns that DU weaponry was used
much more extensively in Iraq's urban and densely populated areas in the
2003 war than in 1991.
The use of DU weapons in urban areas and against civilian targets in Iraq
gives the lie to the Pentagon's insistence that it needed the DU advantage
in order to win the recent war quickly. To illustrate the power of this
wonder weapon, a March Pentagon press conference prominently featured
pictures from the first Gulf War of an Abrams tank firing a DU munition
through a sand dune to destroy an Iraqi tank hidden behind. While this makes
good TV, did depleted uranium really provide a critical advantage to the
U.S. military in Iraq? The answer is no. The U.S. military did not need a
wonder weapon in Iraq because the crippled country was not a wonder
opponent. Its arsenal was antiquated and had been poorly maintained since
the first Gulf War. Suffering under more than 12 years of U.N. economic
sanctions, moreover, Iraq had not been able to develop or purchase
comparable high-tech armored weaponry.
In his May 15 article, Peterson describes video footage from the last days
of the recent war showing an A-10 Warthog strafing the Iraqi Ministry of
Planning in downtown Baghdad. This was not an armored target; it was a
building in a heavily populated neighborhood. Peterson visited the area and
found "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."
The indiscriminate use of DU munitions in densely populated areas throughout
Iraq, which put large numbers of civilians in jeopardy of radioactive and
toxic exposure, violates the Geneva Convention's protocol prohibiting the
use of weapons that do not distinguish between soldiers and civilians during
wartime.
So why did the Pentagon insist on using DU weapons in Iraq? Tungsten alloys
would have worked as well. Depleted uranium, it turns out, has one
tremendous advantage over tungsten. It is provided to weapons manufacturers
nearly free of charge by the U.S. government - an ingenious method of
radioactive waste disposal. Essentially, depleted uranium is the waste left
over from decades of nuclear weapons development. In fact, the United States
has stockpiles of depleted uranium scattered at sites throughout the
country - 728,000 metric tons to be exact - a tiny fraction of which is used
in the manufacture of depleted uranium warheads.
Lies and Silence
In an April 14 video address, President Bush spoke directly to military
personnel and their families, thanking them for their role in the Iraq war.
The monuments to Hussein had been toppled in Baghdad, and the first troops
were beginning to return home triumphant. The message, broadcast on armed
services networks around the country and beamed to troops on the Iraq
battlefield, included Bush's promise that veterans of "Operation Iraqi
Freedom" would receive "the full support of our government. We will keep our
commitment to improving the quality of life for our military families."
The same day, the Defense Department and the Centers for Disease Control
released the results of their four-year study on birth defects in the
children of Gulf War Veterans. Although the study did not mention depleted
uranium specifically, it found "significantly higher prevalences" of heart
and kidney birth defects in veterans' children. Unfortunately, the study's
disturbing findings were not reported by any U.S. media outlets until June.
The Pentagon and White House propaganda on depleted uranium was never
challenged by the mainstream media this past spring. If members of the
national press corps had done their homework, they would have found ample
evidence that the Pentagon is fully aware of the dangers posed by DU
weaponry and is actively ignoring its own research and warnings.
A 1974 military report evaluated the medical and environmental effects of
depleted uranium, noting that "in combat situations involving the widespread
use of DU munitions, the potential for inhalation, ingestion, or
implantation of DU compounds may be locally significant." This contradicts
recent Pentagon claims that depleted uranium does not pose a threat and
demonstrates the military's understanding of how depleted uranium is
absorbed into the human body, posing risks to organs.
In a 1998 training manual, the U.S. Army acknowledged the hazards of
depleted uranium, requiring that anyone who comes within 25 meters of
DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection.
The manual cautioned: "Contamination will make food and water unsafe for
consumption."
And in November 1999, NATO sent its commanders the following warning:
"Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated
with long-term health effects, including cancers and birth defects."
They Hid It Well
The fact that these reports are in the public record is the result of years
of hard work, study, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by
anti-DU activists. The Pentagon and Bush administration have also been hard
at work. In the past two years, they have clamped down on sources of
information that had been immensely valuable to service personnel and their
families over the past decade.
Dan Fahey served in the United States Navy just months after the fighting
ended in the Gulf War. Seeing the havoc the war wreaked on his fellow
veterans, he set out to become an independent expert on depleted uranium. He
sits on the board of Veterans for Common Sense and has played a major role
in obtaining U.S. government documents about depleted uranium through FOIA.
Fahey says that, under President Bush, the Department of Defense is
controlling the release of information about depleted uranium so tightly
that if he were starting his research and disclosure efforts today, he would
be unable to get any information through the Freedom of Information Act.
"There is less information and more secrecy," he says. "There are tighter
restrictions on access to information."
Fahey was responsible for publicizing the findings of a July 1990 report by
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a defense contractor
commissioned by the Pentagon to study depleted uranium.
The report revealed that the Pentagon knew that depleted uranium was harmful
before 1991, when they sent 697,000 American troops to the Gulf, where they
could be exposed to DU dust and residue. SAIC asserted that depleted uranium
is "a low-level alpha radiation emitter" that could be "linked to cancer
when exposures are internal." The report further warned, "DU exposures to
soldiers on the battlefield could be significant, with potential
radiological and toxicological effects." In addition the report found that
"short-term effects of high doses [of depleted uranium] can result in death,
while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."
SAIC says in its report that widespread knowledge of depleted uranium's
harmful properties could lead to public outrage about the "acceptability of
the continued use of DU kinetic energy penetrators for military
applications." That's what worries the Pentagon.
All the while, as the Pentagon hides behind claims that more study is needed
to prove depleted uranium's connection with the ailments suffered by Gulf
War veterans and Iraqi civilians, their own research demonstrates that, at
best, depleted uranium is radioactive and toxic - and that at worst, it can
lead to incurable diseases and death.
Veterans Suffer
The Pentagon says more study is needed. But veterans of the Gulf War,
meanwhile, need medical care, information, and benefits, and for the
Pentagon to come clean about depleted uranium. The veterans had been exposed
to a "toxic soup" of smoke from oil and chemical fires, pesticides,
vaccinations, depleted uranium and, most likely, plutonium.
Two types of depleted uranium exist. One is "clean" depleted uranium, a
byproduct of the processing of uranium ore into uranium-235 (which is used
in nuclear fuel and weapons). The other type is created at government
facilities as a byproduct of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel (done to
extract plutonium for nuclear warheads) and is known as "dirty" depleted
uranium because it contains highly toxic plutonium.
In November 2000, U.N. researchers examined 11 sites in Kosovo hit by DU
shells and found radioactive contamination at eight of them. Furthermore,
those tests uncovered evidence that at least some of the DU munitions in the
U.S. arsenal used in Kosovo contained "dirty" depleted uranium. This raises
the question: How much of its plutonium-processing waste did the U.S.
government supply to weapons manufacturers?
If some of the DU shells in the U.S. arsenal have been made from dirty
depleted uranium, that could help explain why about 300 of 5,000 refugees
from a Sarajevo suburb heavily bombed by NATO jets in 1995 had died of
cancer by early 2001. And it could also help explain the fact that 28
percent of veterans who served in the first Gulf War have over the past 12
years sought treatment for illness and disease resulting from their military
service and filed claims with the Veterans Administration for medical and
compensation benefits. In all, 186,000 veterans of that war have sought
treatment for a collection of maladies including chronic fatigue, joint and
muscle pain, memory loss, reproductive problems, depression, and
gastrointestinal disorders. Together these ailments are known as the Gulf
War Syndrome.
Based on the struggles of Gulf War veterans, Congress passed a law in 1997
requiring the Pentagon to conduct pre- and postdeployment medical screenings
of troops and military personnel so that medical professionals would have an
accurate base of information if health problems developed. In the early
months of this year, as U.S. troops were being deployed to Iraq, lawmakers
found that the Pentagon was not complying with the 1997 law: The troops were
not being screened at all.
According to Steven Robinson, a former Army Ranger who now directs the
National Gulf War Resource Center, it took two congressional hearings, 30
news interviews, 60 radio interviews, and a timely New York Times ad
courtesy of www.TomPaine.com to pressure the Pentagon to follow the law. On
April 29, the Pentagon announced it would begin conducting postdeployment
examinations. Anti-DU activists say the military's grudging compliance is
too little, too late.
Activists are struggling for treatment of veterans, for information about
depleted uranium and other toxins that could be responsible for the Gulf War
Syndrome, and for some sort of government acknowledgement or apology. But
they are also battling against a legacy of lies, secrecy, and official
promotion of an ends-justifies-the-means posture. Veterans with Gulf War
Syndrome can be seen as the latest in a long line of Pentagon guinea pigs
that includes the troops ordered to witness the atomic blasts in the early
days of the Cold War, soldiers exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, and the
black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were subjected to federal
government-sponsored syphilis experiments.
Keeps on Killing
If the Pentagon and the Federal government can treat American troops and
their families with such casual disregard and use doublespeak with such
abandon, what hope is there for Iraqi civilians and troops?
The people of Iraq have known nothing but decades of war, deprivation, and
oppression. It is understandable that many cheered when the statues of
dictator Saddam Hussein toppled. At the same time, how could they greet the
United States, their liberators, with anything other than the deepest
skepticism?
In his just-released book "The New Rulers of the World," Australian
journalist John Pilger recounts conversations with Iraqi doctors like Jawad
Al-Ali, a cancer specialist in Basra. Before the Gulf War, Dr. Al-Ali told
Pilger, "We had only three or four deaths in a month from cancer. Now it's
30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's just in my department. That
is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our studies indicate that 40 to
48 percent of the population in this area will get cancer. That's almost
half the population."
Not only are Dr. Al-Ali's patients suffering, but his own family members are
ill as well. "Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history
of the disease," he told Pilger. "We strongly suspect depleted uranium."
The public has had to rely on anecdotal evidence like Dr. Al-Ali's testimony
to get a sense of the health crisis in Iraq. Throughout the '90s, Hussein's
government released data on cancer and birth defects, but it is unlikely
that those figures provide an accurate picture.
etc from : http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16272
--
--
Redbaiter
In the leftist's lexicon, the lowest of the low
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that
is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-- President John F. Kennedy
So all the sick veterans must have psychosomatic illnesses then?
--
--
Redbaiter
In the leftist's lexicon, the lowest of the low
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that
is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market
is a nation that is afraid of its people.
-- President John F. Kennedy
"John Sefton" <js64@no-spam> wrote in message
news:bdqh5o$5pi$1@no-spam
>
> "Redbaiter" <don't@no-spam> wrote in message
> news:3f00136f@no-spam
> > "John Sefton" <js64@no-spam> wrote in message
> > news:bdohrt$lau$1@no-spam
> > > Correct. Depleted uranium has run out of the bulk of its radiactivity.
> It
> > is
> > > therefore effectively harmless, from the radioactivity standpoint.
> > >
> >
> > You must work for the military to believe that.
>
> No, I just remember my basic high-school physics: If depleted uranium has
a
> half-life of billions of years, then its radioactivity output must be so
low
> as to be negligible. IIRC, in Kosovo the background radiation of the
> country-rock was higher than that put out by the depleted uranium shells.
>
>
In article <befoi3$8b5$1@no-spam>, no@no-spam says...
>
> "Redbaiter" <don't@no-spam> wrote in message
> news:3f00e18c$1@no-spam
> > So all the sick veterans must have psychosomatic illnesses then?
>
> I haven't heard of undue health problems among American veterans. One thing
> I have noticed even in my own family, when people go overseas they are
> susceptible to diseases which might not be prominent in their home
> countries. What diseases might lurk in the Middle East but not in the US?
> Also young people are often sicker than old people from infections because
> old people have been exposed to more and had more time to develop immunity.
>
> I can only take the word of the experts. They say depleted uranium is
> depleted to the point where it is harmless. No nuclear radiation is
> harmless. There is natural background radiation everywhere unevenly
> distributed. It has been found in odd areas that natural background
> radiation from soil is greater than recommended safe levels.
DU is not just radioactive, it is toxic. In a solid metal state, this
toxicity is not so much an issue because it is in a form that is stable
and contained. When a DU munition hits, say, a tank, the heat from
friction causes it to burn and that toxicity is released in an aerosol
form. It is the fact that that uranium is released in an aerosol form,
which can be in the form of a dust that is readily ingested, that makes
it hazardous.
http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/guide/depletedu/index.cfm
Depleted UF6
Any uranium compound (e.g., UF6, UF4, U3O8) can contain "enriched" or
"depleted" uranium. Because the enrichment process used in the United
States utilizes uranium hexafluoride (UF6), the depleted uranium product
produced is depleted uranium hexafluoride (depleted UF6). Management of
DOE's inventory of depleted UF6 is the responsibility of the DUF6
Management Program.
While depleted uranium itself is not a significant health hazard unless
it is taken into the body, if depleted uranium hexafluoride (depleted
UF6) is released to the atmosphere, the uranium compounds and hydrogen
fluoride (HF) gas that are formed by reaction with moisture in the air
can be chemically toxic.
In addition to the radiological and chemical health risks associated with
depleted UF6, there are also risks of industrial accidents and
transportation-related accidents during handling, storage, or transport
of depleted UF6.
Radiological Toxicity
Several possible health effects are associated with human exposure to
radiation from uranium. Because all uranium isotopes mainly emit alpha
particles that have little penetrating ability, the main radiation hazard
from uranium occurs when uranium compounds are ingested or inhaled.
However, workers in the vicinity of large quantities of uranium in
storage or in a processing facility also are exposed to low levels of
external radiation from uranium decay products. At the exposure levels
typically associated with the handling and processing of uranium, the
primary radiation health effect of concern is an increased probability of
the exposed individual developing cancer during their lifetime. Cancer
cases induced by radiation are generally indistinguishable from other
"naturally occurring" cancers and occur years after the exposure takes
place. The probability of developing a radiation-induced cancer increases
with increasing uranium intakes