The Depleted Uranium Page

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Sat, 02 Apr 2005 08:23:08 -0000

The Bush Legacy of Death - The Depleted Uranium Page

 

 

Check out this Bush Legacy of Death Page - The Bush Radioactive

Uranium Death For Millions Site

 

http://tinyurl.com/5ng5u

 

 

http://www.justview.org/depleteduranium.html

 

Depleted Uranium: Nuclear Threat

On this page: Excerpts of Recent articles on DU

LINKS TO INTERNATIONAL DU SITES

Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant

Alliant TechSystems - weapons (link to corporation site)

Does Hennepin County Harbor War Criminals? below

 

DEMOCRACY BETRAYED

 

The horror of Depleted Uranium is not limited to Iraq ­ it may well be

at our

doorsteps. The information which some governments are concealing is

presented

here.

 

By James Denver

 

Remixed Propaganda Poster by Micah Wright www.micahwright.com

'I'm horrified. The people out there ­ the Iraqis, the media and the

troops

­ risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted

uranium

can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of

thousands of

children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel.

Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes

get red dust

from the Sahara on your car.'

 

The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr Chris Busby, the

British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the

Faculty of

Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation

Risk,

talking about the best kept secret of this war: the fact that, by

illegally using

hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and

America

have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For these

weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive

particles in

such abundance that ­ whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade

winds ­

there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate ­ including

Britain. For

the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity

persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukaemia,

brain damage,

kidney failure, and extreme birth defects ­ killing millions of every

age for

centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of

historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

 

These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic,

radioactive

particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they

cannot

penetrate ­ including Britain.

 

Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a

dirty story

in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them

most. It is

also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical

care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq,

are not to

suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which

depleted uranium

was used.

 

A dirty Tyson

 

'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak.

The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap,

toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However,

uranium is

one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing

through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously

catching fire as

it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US

servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John

Pilger encountered

children killed at a greater distance he wrote: 'The children's skin had

folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that

seeped blood,

while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited.' (Daily Mirror)

 

The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns

can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so

tiny they

pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible.

Yet, small

is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men,

women, children and even babies in the womb ­ and do the gravest harm

of all to

children and unborn babies.

 

A terrible legacy

 

Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6

times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and

leukaemia since

1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as

many as

500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions

and that

the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from

23 per

1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic

leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at

an alarming

rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers

showed the

highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and

bladder

cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1

 

On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy

Authority sent the Ministry of Defence a special report on the

potential damage

to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million

additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the

authorities only

admitted to using 320 tons of DU ­ although the Dutch charity LAKA

estimates

the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been

spread

across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all this DU

will do to the

health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to

come,

is beyond imagining.

 

The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing

millions of

every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity

which may

rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

 

We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody

knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated

their world. But

it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief

period

of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later

and some

had 100 times the so called 'safe limit' of uranium in their urine.

The lack

of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is

reflected

in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal

research has

found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the

wives of

men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the

wives of

servicemen who did not go there.

 

Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a

heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their

intestines

outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumours where their eyes

should be, or

with a single eye ­ like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs,

and even

without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown

outside

textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.

Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl or a boy?'

but simply,

'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end.

The genes

of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU

dust is

ever-present.

 

Blue on blue

 

What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of

Iraq

they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have

done it

knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers

have had

to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies

have

not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which

violated

normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and

organophosphate

pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known,

British

and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given

thorough medical checks on their return ­ even though identifying it

quickly might

have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when

a growing

number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in

radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.

 

Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now

invalided out

with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq ­ that's 1 in 3. In

contrast, the British government's failure to fully assess the health of

returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows

how many have

died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans'

associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who

saw active

service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000

may be ill.

An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable

to bear

the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take

away their

career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and

even their

ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are

'on DU

death row, waiting to die'.

 

Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are

strikingly

similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers

have also

fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose

babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU

dust. They

too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities

classically

associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and

leukaemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in

the Balkans,

where DU was also used. Indeed their leukaemia rate has been so high

that several

EU governments have protested at the use of DU.

 

The vital evidence

 

Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both

sides

of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level'

radiation DU is harmless. Award winning scientist, Dr Rosalie Bertell

who has led

UN medical commissions, has studied 'low level' radiation for 30

years.2 She

has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm

cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding

cells 'like

flashes of lightning' again and again in a single second.2 Like many

scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has

found that such

'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to

cancer. Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and

travel

through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that

Dr Bertell has

found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body's

communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many

vital organs of the

body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many

veterans of the

first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.

 

In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental

Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in

which such

radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is

that a cell

which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations

several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of

cancer and birth

defects.) This 'radiation induced genomic instability' is compounded

by 'the

bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with others which

have been

damaged by radiation ­ rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put

together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by

a single source

of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that

there are

marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation

­ with

some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that

some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their

exposure

to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.

 

The price of truth

 

That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research

findings of

such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in

late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health effects from DU

exposure is

real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial

implications

of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be

excessive.'3

 

Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a

quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability

claims might be

made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the

harm done

by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies

making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely

close to

the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for

speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to

British trade. So the

massive whitewashing of DU over

the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test

returning

troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be

purely to save money.

 

The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of

Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the

harm they

have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem

outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other

explanation

fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first

used DU in

war its hazards were no secret.4 One American study in 1990 said DU was

'linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical

toxicity ­ causing

kidney damage'. While another openly warned that exposure to these

particles

under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone,

kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders,

chromosomal

damage and birth defects.5

 

A culture of denial

 

In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for

illegally

breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as 'weapons of mass

destruction' 'incompatible with international humanitarian and human

rights law'.

Since then, following leukaemia in European peacekeeping troops in the

Balkans and

Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU

weapons

to be banned.

 

Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials

of the

harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first

Gulf

war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkan and Afghanistan

have become

seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing

experiments, by

others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of

cancer

of the lungs, Dr Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear

Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,

'The [uS

government's] Veteran Administration asked me to lie about the risks

of incorpora

ting depleted uranium in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does

cause

cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we

continue with

the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the

fact that

human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing

disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God

and to all

generations who follow.' Not what the authorities wanted to hear and

his research

was suddenly blocked.

 

During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have

abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized

research on

the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could

have built

up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling

symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full

pensions to many. For,

despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons

briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation effects

frompossible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory

factor to the

illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note

how over a

quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called 'some'.

 

The way ahead

 

Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they

dramatically increased its use ­ from a minimum of 320 tons in the

previous war to at

minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't

limited to

anti-tank weapons ­ as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war ­

but was

extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000 pound

bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been

blanketed in

lethal particles ­ any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In

addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles

higher

and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly

particles have

been carried high into the air ­ again and again and again as the

bombs rained

down ­ ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.

 

The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in

Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely

expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst

areas, it cannot

fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do

you clean

up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they

decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which

cannot be detected

with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And

how can

they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq ­ and, indeed, the world?

 

So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against

humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for

the people of

Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last

Gulf war

and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate

war, and

the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history ­

along with

slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against

humanity be

expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the

people of Iraq, and of the world.

 

Read the full article in issue 60 of Caduceus...

 

References

1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998.

2. Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was

reviewed

in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.

3. www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1. htm#TAB L_Research Report

Summaries

4. www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm The secret official

memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton

and Urey of

War Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is available at the

website www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm

5. www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.htm#tab L_research report summaries

 

Further information

 

The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able to arrange a limited

number

of private urine tests for those returning from the latest Gulf war.

It can

be contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod Wells, LD1

5LW. 01597

824771. Web: www.llrc.org

 

James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally on science and

technology.