- Has U.S. use of depleted-uranium weapons turned Iraq
into a radioactive danger area for both Iraqis and occupation troops?
-
- This question has already had serious consequences. In
hot spots in downtown Baghdad, reporters have measured radiation levels
that are 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal background radiation levels.
-
- It has also opened a debate in the Netherlands parliament
and media as 1,100 Dutch troops in Kuwait prepare to enter Iraq as part
of the U.S./British-led occupation forces. The Dutch are concerned about
the danger of radioactive poisoning and radiation sickness in Iraq.
-
- Washington has assured the Dutch government that it used
no DU weapons near Al-Samawah, the town where Dutch troops will be stationed.
But Dutch journalists and anti-war forces have already found holes in the
U.S. stories, according to an article on the Radio Free Europe website.
-
- DU-caused radiation had already raised alarms in Europe
after studies showed increased rates of cancers, respiratory ailments and
other disabilities of occupation troops from NATO countries stationed in
Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
-
- In general, the health and environmental dangers of weapons
made with DU radioactive waste have received far more attention in Europe
than in the U.S.
-
- In this year's war on Iraq, the Pentagon used its radioactive
arsenal mainly in the urban centers, rather than in desert battlefields
as in 1991. Many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and U.S. soldiers,
along with British, Polish, Japanese and Dutch soldiers sent to join the
occupation, will suffer the consequences. The real extent of injuries,
chronic illness, long-term disabilities and genetic birth defects won't
be apparent for five to 10 years.
-
- By now, half of all the 697,000 U.S. soldiers involved
in the 1991 war have reported serious illnesses. According to the American
Gulf War Veterans Association, more than 30 percent of these soldiers are
chronically ill and are receiving disability benefits from the Veterans
Administration. Such a high occurrence of various symptoms has led to the
illnesses being named Gulf War Syndrome.
-
- This number of disabled veterans is shockingly high.
Most are in their mid-thirties and should be in the prime of health. Before
sending troops to the Gulf region, the military had already sifted out
those with disabilities or chronic health problems from asthma, diabetes,
heart conditions, cancers and birth defects.
-
- A long-term problem The impact of tons of radioactive
waste polluting major urban centers may seem a distant problem to Iraqis
now trying to survive in the chaos of military occupation. They must cope
with power outages during the intense heat of summer, door-to-door searches,
arbitrary arrests, civilians routinely shot at roadblocks, outbreaks of
cholera and dysentery from untreated water, untreated sewage and uncollected
garbage, more than half the work force unemployed, and a lack of food--which
before the war was distributed by the Baathist regime.
-
- But along with these current threats are long-range problems.
Around the world a growing number of scientific organizations and studies
have linked Gulf War Syndrome and the high rate of assorted and mysterious
sicknesses to radiation poisoning from weapons made with depleted uranium.
-
- Scott Peterson, a staff writer for the Christian Science
Moni tor, reported on May 15 about taking Geiger counter readings at several
sites in Baghdad. Near the Republican Palace where U.S. troops stood guard
and over 1,000 employees walked in and out of the building, his radiation
readings were the "hottest" in Iraq, at nearly 1,900 times background
radiation levels. Spent shell casings still littered the ground.
-
- At a roadside vegetable stand selling fresh bunches of
parsley, mint and onions outside Baghdad, children played on a burnt-out
Iraqi tank. The reporter's Geiger counter registered nearly 1,000 times
normal background radiation. The U.S. uses armor-piercing shells coated
with DU to destroy tanks.
-
- The Aug. 4 Seattle Post Intelligencer reported elevated
radiation levels at six sites from Basra to Baghdad. One destroyed tank
near Baghdad had 1,500 times the normal background radiation. "The
Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that the U.S. and Britain used
1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during
attacks on Iraq in March and April--far more than the 375 tons used in
the 1991 Gulf War," wrote the Post Intelligencer.
-
- The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle
analyzed swabs from bullet holes in Iraqi tanks and confirmed elevated
radiation levels.
-
- Radioactive and toxic The extremely dense DU shells easily
penetrate steel armor and burn on impact. The fire releases microscopic,
radioactive and toxic dust particles of uranium oxide that travel with
the wind and can be inhaled or ingested. They also spread contamination
by seeping into the land and water.
-
- In the human body, DU may cause harm to the internal
organs due both to its chemical toxicity as a heavy metal and its release
of radiation.
-
- An otherwise useless by-product of the uranium-enrichment
process, DU is attractive to military contractors because it is so cheap,
often offered for free by the government.
-
- According to the Uranium Medical Research Center, the
toxic and radiological effects of uranium contamination may weaken the
immune system. They may cause acute respiratory conditions like pneumonia,
flu-like symptoms and severe coughs, renal or gastrointestinal illnesses.
-
- Dr. Asaf Durakovic of UMRC explains that the initial
symptoms will be mostly neurological, showing up as headaches, weakness,
dizziness and muscle fatigue. The long-term effects are cancers and other
radiation-related illnesses, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and
muscle pain, rashes, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances,
infections, lung and kidney damage, vision problems, auto-immune deficiencies
and severe skin conditions. It also causes increases in miscarriages, maternal
mortality and genetic birth defects.
-
- For years the government described Gulf War Syndrome
as a post-traumatic stress disorder. It was labeled a psychological problem
or simply dismissed as mysterious unrelated ailments. In this same way
the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration treated the health problems
of Vietnam vets suffering from Agent Orange poisoning.
-
- The cover-up The U.S. government denies that DU weapons
can cause sickness. But before the first Gulf War, where DU weapons were
used extensively, the Pentagon's own internal reports warned that the radiation
and heavy metal of DU weapons could cause kidney, lung and liver damage
and increased rates of cancer.
-
- Ignoring these dangers, the Pentagon went on to use these
weapons, which gave it a big advantage in tank battles. But it denied publicly
that DU use was related to the enormously high rate of sicknesses among
GIs following the war.
-
- Today the Pentagon plays an even more duplicitous role.
It continues to assert that there are no "known" health problems
associated with DU. But Army training manuals require anyone who comes
within 75 feet of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain to wear respiratory
and skin protection.
-
- The manuals say that "contamination will make food
and water unsafe for consumption." According to the Army Environmental
Policy Institute, holding a spent DU round exposes a person to about 200
rems per hour, or twice the annual radiation exposure limit.
-
- This March and April U.S. and British forces fired hundreds
of thousands of DU rounds in dense urban areas. Superfine uranium oxide
particles were blown about in dust storms. Yet the Pentagon refuses to
track, report or mark off where DU was fired. There is no way Iraqis or
the occupying soldiers can keep 75 feet away or use respiratory and skin
protection in 120-degree heat.
-
- The American Gulf War Veterans Association (AGWVA) reports
that suffering veterans are receiving little, if any, medical treatment
for their illnesses. "Whenever veterans become ill, the term 'mystery
illness' seems to be the first and often the only diagnosis that is ever
made. Veterans are then left to fend for themselves, sick and unable to
work, with little hope of a normal life again."
-
- Iraq's National Ministry of Health organized two international
conferences to present data on the relationship between the high incidence
of cancer and the use of DU weapons. It produced detailed epidemiological
reports and statistical studies. This data showed a six-fold increase in
breast cancer, a five-fold increase in lung cancer and a 16-fold increase
in ovarian cancer.
-
- Because of the U.S.-imposed sanctions, Iraqi doctors
and scientists were barred from presenting their research papers in most
of the world.
-
- Doug Rokke of AGWVA, former head of the U.S. Army DU
Project, who is seriously ill with respiratory problems, has been campaigning
against the use of DU. Rokke reports that U.S. troops presently in Iraq
are already falling sick with a series of Gulf War Syndrome symptoms.
-
- The AGWVA says the Department of Defense has information
regarding "mystery" deaths of soldiers in this latest war and
the emergence of a mysterious pneumonia that has sickened at least 100
men and women.
-
- U.S. position: no clean-up While the U.K. has admitted
that British Challenger tanks expended some 1.9 tons of DU ammunition during
major combat operations in Iraq this year, the U.S. has refused to disclose
specific information about whether and where it used DU during this yearcampaign.
It also is refusing to let a team from the United Nations Environmental
Program (UNEP) study the environmental impact of DU contamination in Iraq.
-
- Despite this refusal, it is public knowledge that the
U.S. made extensive use of weapons that can fire DU shells. These include
the A-10 Warthog tank-buster aircraft with 30-mm cannons that can fire
up to 4,200 DU rounds per minute; the AC-130 gunship; the "Apache"
helicopter, and Bradley fighting vehicles that fire anti-armor 105-mm to
120-mm tank rounds containing DU.
-
- The U.S. followed the same tactics in the wars in the
Balkans. While claiming full cooperation with UNEP's Balkans studies, the
Pentagon delayed releasing target locations for 16 months. It gave misleading
map information. Then bomb, missile and cluster-bomb targets were excluded.
NATO allowed 10 other teams to visit or clean up sites before UNEP inspections
started.
-
- Washington refuses to acknowledge DU use anywhere or
that it poses any danger. To acknowledge radiation poisoning would immediately
raise demands for a cleanup.
-
- According to Alex Kirby, BBC News Online environment
correspondent: "The U.S. says it has no plans to remove the debris
left over from depleted uranium weapons it is using in Iraq. It says no
cleanup is needed, because research shows DU has no long-term effects."
-
- Evidence of DU use But in the information age, the Pentagon
can't suppress all the evidence. The Dutch example shows this. Though the
U.S. government specifically denied any firing of DU weapons near the city
of Al-Samawah, where Dutch troops were to be stationed, a simple Internet
search by journalists undid this lie.
-
- The Dutch government, to get a resolution through the
parliament to authorize sending troops to Iraq, depicted the Al-Samawah
region as a remote, barely inhabited desert where no noteworthy events
had occurred.
-
- In actual fact, Al-Samawah is strategically located on
the road from Basra to Baghdad, providing access to a bridge over the Euphrates
River. On its march to Baghdad, the U.S. Army encountered fierce resistance
from Iraqi forces there, according to American officers. This was well
covered by their embedded media.
-
- It was more than a week before the town and the road
were cleared of all pockets of resistance. Some 112 civilians, most of
them inhabitants of Al-Samawah, were killed in battle.
-
- DU ammunition was widely used during this operation.
In a widely distributed field message, Sergeant First Class Cooper reported
that the weapons systems used by the 3rd Infantry, 7th Cavalry, en route
to Al-Samawah and on to Najaf, were performing well, especially the 25-mm
DU and 7.62.
-
- Of greater interest to Internet researchers was a letter
a young soldier sent home to his parents, which they posted in their church
bulletin on the Internet. In the letter E. Pennell, a crew member on a
Bradley Fighting Vehicle of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment,
described how his crew fired a 25-mm DU round as they encountered seven
Iraqi troops in the town of Al-Samawah.
-
- Pennell's letter has raised concern among groups like
the United Federation of Military Personnel, a kind of labor union for
Dutch troops. It fears that its members might be at risk of contracting
cancer or other diseases because of exposure to DU ammunition.
-
- Resistance: the only solution Officers and politicians
in imperialist countries have always treated rank-and-file soldiers as
cannon fodder. These young lives are totally expendable. The occupied or
colonized people are not counted at all.
-
- As a global movement against imperialist wars grew over
the past century, military planners made great efforts to hide the true
costs of war, especially the human cost. The nearly 60,000 U.S. casualties
in the Vietnam War provoked a mighty mass anti-war movement. This time,
long before U.S. casualties reached 100 soldiers, the movement to "Bring
the Troops Home" had gained momentum.
-
- This new movement must demand a true accounting of the
enormous human costs of the war. The impact on the health and future of
not only U.S. troops but the millions of people in Iraq must be part of
the demand.
-
- A growing international movement must demand full reparations
for the Iraqi people. A cleanup of the toxic, radioactive waste is in the
interests of all the people of the region. The cost of the war must be
calculated in terms of bankrupt social programs here in the U.S. and the
health of all the people who were in the region during the war and will
be in the years to come.
-
- - Sara Flounders is co-director of the International
Action Center and coordinator of the DU Education Project. She is an editor
and a contributing author of the book "Metal of Dishonor: Depleted
Uranium," and helped produce a video by the same name. The IAC helped
organize an international effort to bring the issue of DU to the UN Human
Rights Commission in Geneva and helped measure radiation levels in Iraq
before the 2003 war.
-
- © Copyright S Flounders 2003 For fair use only/
pour usage Èquitable seulement.
-
- http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FLO308B.html
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Ani Corné - Italy
- 8-19-3
-
- Wake Up And Face The Truth!
-
- Reading this highly disturbing article, it seems to me
we are nearing more and more hell on earth! Some of you out there might
still think you live in civilized times and comfort yourselves with the
thought that all those terrible things you see on TV or read in the newspaper
every day are far, far away and will never reach you, but this is not
so!
-
- The so-called civilized world does not exist. Proof
of this is given to us in many ways and more descriptively so by articles
such as this one. Sadly, it is not only the United States government that
applies these means of deceit when it comes to the use of weapons, it has
been and is done by all governments engaging in wars and in profit making
through a weapons industry, which never had any qualms about sacrificing
life on earth.
-
- But let's take the US as an example. How shameful is
the treatment of their soldiers entrusted into their care, men and women,
who give their lives for their country. Little do the latter know that
they are being sacrificed on the altar of greed by ruthless business men,
who call themselves the people's representatives. How utterly despicable
is the attitude of these politicians that "forget" their soldiers,
once they have served their means, once they are home, rendered sick and
disabled through their very own weapons!
-
- "For years the government described Gulf War Syndrome
as a post-traumatic stress disorder. It was labeled a psychological problem
or simply dismissed as mysterious unrelated ailments. In this same way
the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration treated the health problems
of Vietnam vets suffering from Agent Orange poisoning."
-
- Again, we see the government's propaganda machinery at
work where the health and the well-being of those that defended their country
is concerned.
-
- Politicians are a rather ungrateful pack of hyenas, wouldn't
you say? And they don't care how much soil they will pollute with their
"politics", their dirty wars fought in our name! Nor will they
take responsibility for anything they have instigated, caused, wilfully
let happen and purposely committed, again in our name! They will go on
lying about it and lie unashamedly! The soldiers - their gullible tools
- as well as all the civilian victims are paying the price for their lies
every time.
-
- "The U.S. says it has no plans to remove the debris
left over from depleted uranium weapons it is using in Iraq. It says no
cleanup is needed, because research shows DU has no long-term effects."
- And while the majority of US citizens still don't want
to open their eyes to the atrocities their government is committing "in
their name", the number of people opposing this practice of deceit
and crime grows. But not fast enough, I fear. For, how long must it take,
how much more suffering must we see, must we read about, before the world
will stand up as a population to say "NO" to this ruthless pack
of criminals? And I mean ALL those amoral "profiteers" all over
the world, because this is not a US phenomenon, but the result of infinite
greed.... It is the kind of greed a world will breed when it loses its
ethical values due to a blind worship of technology and progress without
growing at the same speed in morals and responsibility.
-
- Make no mistake: ALL of us are going to pay the price
for the vast greed of only a few. We are going to pay with the loss of
our freedom, the loss of our lives and with the destruction of this planet.
If we let this happen, we will be as guilty as those who caused it in the
first place, because we have not hindered them on their destructive path.
We also have a responsibility to our children and grand-children and the
generations coming after them. If we leave nothing for them, but wars,
pollution, suffering and certain death, then indeed we are as bad as those,
who seem to care for nothing but the wealth they can acquire and the power
they are able to exert for as long as they walk this earth.
-
- Make no mistake: They won't be the ones suffering from
illness and poverty and they couldn't care less even about their own children
and grand-children. Their actions confirm this.
-
- We should be more afraid of the consequences, if we don't
stop them , rather than being afraid of opening our eyes to their doings.
-
- Ani Corné
- Writer/Italy
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