- "Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity."
- Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist
-
- The international dispatches about the U.S. invasion
and occupation of Iraq - replete with graphic details about overcrowded
hospitals, U.S. cluster bomb shrapnel buried in the flesh of children,
babies deformed by U.S. depleted uranium, farms and markets destroyed by
U.S. bombs - do not make pleasant reading.
-
- The mounting evidence from the invasion of Iraq establishes
what many Americans may not want to face: that the highest leaders of our
land violated many international agreements relating to the rules of war.
Unless we address the war crimes of the Bush administration - and the prima
facie evidence is overwhelming - we betray our conscience, our country,
and our own faith in democracy.
-
- The United States is bound by customary law and international
laws of war: the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions
of 1949, and the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations, December
11, 1945 - all of which set limits beyond which, by common consent, decent
peoples will not go. Under the Constitution, all treaties are part of the
supreme law of the land. Humanitarian law rests on a simple principle:
that human rights are measured by one yardstick. Without that principle,
all jurisprudence descends into mere piety and power. Nor do violations
of the laws of war by one belligerent vindicate the war crimes of another.
-
- Of all the violations of the laws of war by the highest
officials of our country, none is more alarming or portentous than the
widespread, premeditated use of depleted uranium in Iraq.
-
- Eleven miles north of the Kuwaiti border on the "Highway
of Death," disabled tanks, armored personnel carriers, gutted public
vehicles - the mangled metals of Desert Storm - are resting in the desert,
radiating nuclear energy. American soldiers who lived for three months
in the toxic wasteland now suffer from fatigue, joint and muscle pain,
respiratory ailments - a host of maladies often known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
-
- Ever since the end of Desert Storm, when the Pentagon
unloaded 350 tons of depleted uranium, American officials have been well
aware of the health hazards of the residue that is collected from the processing
of nuclear fuel.
-
- When President [sic] Bush and the Pentagon authorized
the use of depleted uranium for the shock-and-awe campaign against Iraq
in March 1983, the Bush administration not only committed a war crime against
the people of Iraq, it demonstrated reckless disregard for the health and
safety of American troops.
-
- Article 23 of the Geneva Convention IV is clear and unambiguous:
"It is forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously
individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms, projectiles
or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." The Geneva
Protocol of 1925 explicitly prohibits "asphyxiating, poisonous or
other gasses, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices."
-
- The radiation produced by depleted uranium in battle
is a poison, a carcinogenic material that causes birth defects, lung disease,
kidney disease, leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and neurological
disabilities.
-
- Depleted uranium is much denser than lead and enables
U.S. weapons to penetrate steel, a great advantage in modern war. But under
the Geneva Conventions, "the means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited."
When DU munitions explode, the air is bathed in a fine radioactive dust,
which carries on the wind, is easily inhaled, and eventually enters the
soil, pollutes ground water, and enters the food chain. Unexploded casings
gradually oxidize, releasing more uranium into the environment. Handlers
of depleted uranium in the U.S. are required to wear masks and protective
clothing - a requirement that Iraqi and American soldiers, not to mention
civilians, are unable to fulfill.
-
- After the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi hospitals recorded
a surge in cancer and birth defects. Hospital statistics from Basra show
that in 1988 there were 11 cancer cases per 100,000 people. By 2001, after
schools, homes, and entire neighborhoods were leveled from the air, the
number increased to 116 per 100,000. Breast and lung cancer and leukemia
showed up in all areas contaminated by depleted uranium. Dr. Jawad al-Ali,
cancer specialist at the Basra Training Hospital, noted that, "The
only factor that has changed here since the 1991 war is radiation."
Thirteen members of his staff, all present when the hospital area was bombed,
are now cancer patients.
-
- The Christian Science Monitor recently sent reporters
to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer
Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable
stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing
shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing,
he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times
the normal background radiation. The families who survived the tragic decade
of sanctions, even the children who recently survived the bombing of Baghdad,
may not survive the radiated aftermath of military profligacy. Uranium
remains radioactive for two billion years. That's a long time for reconstruction.
-
- According to Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist
who led the first clean-up of depleted uranium after the Gulf War, "Depleted
uranium is a crime against God and humanity." Rokke's own crew, a
hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. "When
we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," he said. After performing
clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear),
30 members of his staff died, and most others - including Rokke himself
- developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease,
neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems. "We warned the
Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond
comprehension."
-
- The growing outcry against the use of depleted uranium
is not a matter of minor legal technicalities. The laws of war prohibit
the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field
of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known
to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes.
-
- The use of depleted uranium is a crime whose horrific
consequences have yet to run their course.
-
- Years ago in the midst of France's brutal war in Algeria,
the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre admonished the French intelligentsia:
-
- "It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who
know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right
that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own
soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing
to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening;
later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know,
and still you hold your tongues."
-
- - Paul Rockwell (rockyspad@hotmail.com) is a columnist
for In Motion Magazine.
-
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