GIs, Beware Radioactive Showers!

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Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:13:08 -0700 (PDT)

GIs, Beware Radioactive Showers!

 

 

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12861.htm

 

 

 

GIs, Beware Radioactive Showers!

 

By Irving Wesley Hall

 

Bush's impending, insane nuclear attack on Iran has provoked

an unprecedented rebellion within the top leadership of the United

States military. At the same time, depleted uranium (DU) is steadily

taking down our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's time for the

soldiers to follow the lead of their commanders in order to end the war.

 

Was Army Sgt. Michael Lee Tosto the first American victim of

the Bush administration's March 2003 " Shock and Awe " attack on Iraq?

The 24-year-old North Carolina tank operator died " mysteriously " in

Baghdad on June 17, 2003.

 

The Iraqi capital was saturated with radioactive dust from the

initial explosions of 1,500 American bombs and missiles, many of them

made from solid depleted uranium. After the saturation bombing, the

city was the scene of street battles with M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley

Fighting Vehicles, A-10 Warthog attack jets and Apache helicopters

firing DU munitions.

 

The army told Sgt. Tosto's family that he died from pulmonary

edema and pericardial effusion, or cardiac failure, after showing

flu-like symptoms.

 

Young Michael Tosto believed George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and

Condoleezza Rice. He believed he had been deployed to Iraq to stop

Saddam Hussein from nuking the United States. Michael died before we

all learned that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are nuking the world.

 

Michael Tosto died, young and innocent, when they nuked him.

 

After Michael's funeral, a fellow soldier contacted Michael's

wife Stephanie and told her that his buddy started coughing up blood

and his lips turned blue and was dead within 48 hours after the first

symptoms.

 

According to Tom Flocco, upon whose story this account is

based, " . . . the Tostos say their GI was in excellent health — in

his prime of life. And Stephanie Tosto told United Press

International, `When my husband died, the casualty officer asked me,

" Is it possible that Michael had heart problems? " Michael did not have

heart problems. One other time they asked me if he had asthma. He was

never sick.' "

 

Inhaling depleted uranium causes pulmonary edema. Symptoms

include bleeding lungs, bronchial pneumonia and vomited blood.

Pericardial effusion is a common cause of death among leukemia

patients. Michael's mother, Janet Tosto, reported that military

officials told her that her son Michael's military autopsy exhibited

elevated levels of white blood cells. Exposure to depleted uranium can

cause lymphocytic leukemia.

 

Tom Flocco consulted Dr. Garth Nicolson of the Institute for

Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California who said, " Just one

microscopic particle — let alone thousands — trapped in a soldier's

pulmonary system for one year can result in 272 times the annual whole

body radiation dose permitted U.S. radiation workers. "

 

Gulf War Illness: the Sequel

 

It is happening again to a new generation of veterans. Some of

today's soldiers were in day care centers in 1991 when Dick Cheney

first authorized the wholesale use of radioactive munitions. It is

happening again despite the fact that a large number of Gulf War I

veterans are on medical disability 15 years after the end of the first

war against Saddam Hussein.

 

We are witnessing the same symptoms of radioactive poisoning

today as 15 years ago. We are hearing the same denial of reality from

Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense (DoD).

 

The government spokesman in Michael's death claimed, " We don't

think depleted uranium has anything to do with it. "

 

After the publication of " Depleted Uranium For Dummies " last

month, a reader emailed me with a demand. " You claim that half million

soldiers are sick because of the tons of depleted uranium used in

1991. I'd like to hear the government's side of the story. "

 

Well, the Department of Defense's estimate, as you might

expect, is lower.

 

Much lower.

 

According to the Pentagon, depleted uranium hasn't caused even

one GI's illness or a single veteran's death.

 

If you still believe that the Bush Administration doesn't lie

to its citizens or Rumsfeld's Department of Defense doesn't lie to the

troops, please click to another Web site. I don't want to be the first

to break the news to you.

 

Soon you might begin to doubt Condoleezza Rice's warning about

Saddam Hussein's imminent nuclear attack on America or Dick Cheney's

claim that Hussein was responsible for taking down the Twin Towers.

You might question why on 9/11 acting Commander-in-Chief Dick Cheney

couldn't find one available U.S. fighter jet to send aloft during the

hour that, allegedly, nineteen Saudis and Egyptians with box cutters

were crisscrossing the East Coast in hijacked commercial airliners!

 

These are the stories Sgt. Tosto took to his grave. But no one

ever told him that the depleted uranium munitions packed into his tank

could kill him.

 

That's right. As far as the Department of Defense is

concerned, depleted uranium is " 40 percent less radioactive than

natural uranium, " is " not a serious external radiation hazard, " and

thus is not considered dangerous.

 

According to the military's pamphlet, " Depleted Uranium

Information for Clinicians " revised Sept. 17, 2004, a year and a half

after Michael Tosto's death, " Findings have shown no kidney damage,

leukemia, bone or lung cancer, or other uranium-related adverse health

outcomes. "

 

The Pentagon commissioned several studies in the '90s as

hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets were becoming " mysteriously "

sick. One published in 2000, concluded that DU " could pose a chemical

hazard " but that Gulf War veterans " did not experience intakes high

enough to affect their health. "

 

According to Pentagon spokesman Austin Camacho, the only

soldiers meriting the military's concern are those wounded by depleted

uranium shrapnel or who were inside tanks during an explosion, and

" studies of about 70 such cases from the first Gulf War showed no

long-term health problems. "

 

This stupefying — vets call it criminal — DoD denial helps

explain the military's reaction to Michael Tosto's death. They would

not allow Stephanie Tosto to see her husband's body until after the

autopsy in Germany and after he was packed in a casket for burial.

 

Dan Tosto, the dead soldier's father, wondered why Michael was

wearing white gloves, appropriate for dress blues but not for

Michael's green burial uniform. At the funeral, Stephanie reached

under a glove and found Michael's wedding ring missing. The army later

explained that the dead soldier's belongings were possibly contaminated.

 

Wedding Ring Contaminated With What?

 

Perhaps the mysterious metal " contamination " explains why the

Army sent the family brand-new dog tags, rather than Michael's

original set, and why they didn't immediately call his wife at the

emergency phone number he was carrying.

 

After the tank driver was buried, Stephanie received her

husband's medical records. They described his arms as red and swollen,

classic signs of exposure to depleted uranium dust.

 

Dr. Rosalie Bertell, secretary general of the International

Commission of Health Professionals, and president of the International

Institute of Concern for Public Health, commented on Michael Tosto's

symptoms. She said that the armed services investigation was

incomplete without a thorough " testing for potential depleted uranium

[which] includes chemical analysis of uranium in urine, feces, blood

and hair; tests of damage to kidneys, including analysis for protein,

glucose and nonprotein nitrogen in urine; radioactivity counting; or

more invasive tests such a surgical biopsy of lung or bone marrow. "

 

As you will read in the next installment, according to the

DoD's own Regulation No. 700-48, such tests are mandatory. Surprised?

Wait until you read next time how the government responds to living

contaminated soldiers who request tests for radiation poisoning.

 

We cited Dr. Doug Rokke in previous installments. He was the

military's top expert on all aspects of depleted uranium, until he was

fired for telling the truth. He was the chief biological, chemical,

and nuclear weapons safety officer in the first Gulf War, and he

reports that many American deaths were from " friendly-fire " DU weapons.

 

The Tosto family will never know if this was Michael's fate.

 

According to Gay Alcorn of The Age, " Rokke was ordered to

decontaminate shot-up vehicles and tanks and to investigate health

effects on troops. Dressed in protective gear and masks, he and his

team crawled over tanks and other vehicles, sending some back to the

U.S. Those considered too radioactive to move were buried in a giant

hole in the ground.

 

" The U.S. Army made me their expert, " Rokke told reporter

Julie Flint. " I went into the project with the total intent to ensure

they could use uranium munitions in war, because I'm a warrior. What I

saw as director of the project led me to one conclusion: Uranium

munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical

care must be provided for everyone — those on the firing end and those

on the receiving end. "

 

According to Flint, Rokke " suffers from serious health

problems including brain lesions and lung and kidney damage. When

government doctors finally agreed to test him in November 1994,

three-and-a-half years after he fell ill, while he was director of the

Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, he was found to have 5,000 times

the permissible level of radiation in his body — enough to light up a

small village. "

 

Rokke's crew — 100 employees — was devastated by exposure to

the fine dust. " When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, "

Rokke said. " However, after performing clean-up operations in the

desert. . .30 staff members died, and most others — including Rokke

himself — developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive

airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems. "

 

I conducted a telephone interview with Doug Rokke last month,

after sending him " Dummies " to fact-check. He described the permanent

rashes on his arms. " They're weeping as we speak, " he said.

 

I recalled Michael Tosto's autopsy report. What was hidden

under the white gloves?

 

The papers Rokke wrote describing his findings are sobering.

He recorded levels of contamination that were 15 times the Army's

permissible levels in tanks hit by DU, and up to 4.5 times such levels

in clothing exposed to DU.

 

Rokke told Alcorn, " After everything I've seen, everything

I've done, it became very clear to me that you just can't take

radioactive wastes from one nation and just throw it into another

nation. It's wrong. It's simply wrong. . .

 

" One way or another, the Pentagon will pay a price. Using DU

is a war crime. It's that simple. Once you've scattered all this stuff

around, and then refuse to clean it up, you've committed a war crime. "

 

According to Denise Nichols, a Gulf War vet and retired Air

Force major, there are many reasons why Rumsfeld's Department of

Defense won't admit that DU is harmful.

 

" They don't want to assume responsibility for the astronomical

health-care costs of so many poisoned veterans . . . and they don't

want the rest of the world to know that they have essentially poisoned

two entire nations. "

 

If They Admit It's Killing Our Troops, They Can't Use It

 

Doug Rokke gave journalist Vince Guarisco another reason. " We

warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their

arrogance is beyond comprehension. Once they acknowledge that there

are actual health effects of depleted uranium munitions, then they

can't use them any more; the house of cards falls apart. "

 

Now, can you understand the DoD's secrecy about the details of

Michael Tosto's death? Can you understand the strange silence last

month of Maj. Richard J. McNorton, the U.S. Central Command's special

officer in charge of helping bloggers obtain accurate information? He

is still ignoring my requests to confirm or to allow me to disprove

the following account in " Dummies " :

 

" An official June 2005 United States Central Command

communiqué reported that soldiers of the 62nd Quartermaster Company

from Fort Hood, Texas were supplying Camp Forward Danger's water from

the Tigris River . . . it seems that it is not tested for radioactivity.

 

" Our men and women of the New York State National Guard have

just spent six months taking radioactive showers and washing small

open wounds in a depleted uranium broth. They've eaten more than 500

meals with food, plates, and silverware washed with hot water, in two

senses of the word . . . without knowing it. "

 

Given the serious implications for my neighbors in the Rainbow

Division, they expected a prompt response from McNorton. Not a word.

 

Does it still seem strange to you that the Pentagon maintains

that, from 1991 to 2005, only 7,035 Gulf War vets — were " wounded " in

the conflict?

 

In the opinion of those now responsible for defending our

country, the discrepancy between 7,000 and 518,000 vets on disability

(many with Gulf War Illness' " ill-defined symptoms " ) is just a " mystery. "

 

What is no mystery is that, within the last month, seven

high-ranking retired military officers have publicly called for the

resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Most are immediate

retirees high in the chain of command in the Middle East deeply

involved in Cheney and Rumsfeld's war.

 

On Democracy Now! April 17, 2006, retired Col. Sam Gardiner,

respected lecturer at several United States military war colleges,

called these denunciations " unprecedented in United States history. "

 

Unprecedented Officers' Revolt

 

The military revolt against the Bush Administration's

catastrophic Middle East policies surfaced last November when

previously hawkish Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha channeled the

top brass's opposition to the war.

 

Col. Gardiner suggested that the seven recently retired

officers were being encouraged to speak out by those still in service.

The brass is horrified by the military consequences of bringing Iran

into a war we've already lost. Nothing like this happened even during

the military's darkest days when Nixon secretly invaded neighboring

Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

 

In another first, a group of West Point graduates, has

denounced the war. The graduates pledged to refuse to serve in Iraq.

Additional reports suggest that the Joint Chiefs have made clear that

they oppose an attack on Iran. Another group of officers has

threatened to resign if the United States continues its plans to

expand the war in the Middle East to a second major oil producer.

 

Think about that next time you pump gas.

 

It's time for the troops to seize this brief opportunity to

transform American history. Why? Let's examine the price our brave

citizen-soldiers are paying for the arrogance of the Bush

Administration and Donald Rumsfeld's DoD. In future installments we'll

show in detail what the troops in Iraq can do legally when we review

the recent documentary, " Sir! No Sir! " It shows the critical role of

Vietnam GIs in ending that earlier war of aggression against a people

who posed no threat to the United States.

 

Last February, Juan Gonzales of the New York Daily News

reported that " nearly 120,000 veterans — more than one of every four

who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — have already sought treatment at

Veterans Health Administration hospitals for a wide range of

illnesses, according to an internal study the VHA completed late last

year.

 

" An additional 35,000 — more than 29% of the total — were

diagnosed with `ill-defined conditions, ' according to the study,

which was prepared in October by VHA epidemiologist Dr. Han Kang but

has yet to be publicly released. "

 

" `Those numbers are way higher than during the Persian Gulf

War for `ill-defined' symptoms, ' " said one Department of Veterans

Affairs official who asked not to be identified. "

 

As we detailed in " Dummies, " depleted uranium contamination

causes virtually every known illness from acute skin rashes, severe

headaches, muscle and joint pain, and general fatigue, to major birth

defects, liver infection, kidney failure, depression, cardiovascular

disease, brain tumors, and almost every type of cancer.

 

In fact, the figure of 35,000 sick vets coming home from Iraq

and Afghanistan with " ill-defined conditions " may be too low.

 

Gonzalez reported that, " more than 30% of those sick veterans

are afflicted with some type of mental disorder, mostly post-traumatic

stress and depression . . . a far higher rate of mental problems among

our troops than during the Persian Gulf War, and levels comparable to

what was found among U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. "

 

Two previous military studies of combat troops in Iraq found

that 17% to 25% of U.S. soldiers suffer from major depression or

combat stress. "

 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is defined as a

debilitating change in the brain's chemistry that includes flashbacks,

sleep disorders, panic attacks, acute anxiety, emotional numbness and

violent outbursts. Dozens of soldiers have committed suicide or

murdered their spouses.

 

Can PTSD, in some cases, be another phrase for Gulf War Illness?

 

Sara Flounders reported in August 2003, shortly after Michael

Tosto's death, " 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. "

 

Dr. Leuren Moret reports that a medical doctor in Northern

California told her that he and other doctors, trained by the Pentagon

before the 2003 war, were advised to diagnose and treat soldiers

returning from Afghanistan and Iraq for mental problems only.

 

What's Going To Happen To All These Sick Vets?

 

How can so many get the specialized care they need? The half

million Gulf War vets who are already on medical disability have never

received adequate care from the VA.

 

Paul Rieckhoff is a former lieutenant with the 1st Infantry

Division in Iraq and founder and executive director of Iraq and

Afghanistan Veterans of America. Juan Gonzalez quoted him as saying,

" With numbers this high, the problem is going to grow fast. We're

seeing systemwide there are major problems. Most local VAs [Veterans

Administration centers] just aren't prepared for the influx of sick

veterans. "

 

In February, the U.S. General Accountability Office reported

that the Department of Veterans Affairs " does not have sufficient

capacity to meet the needs of new combat veterans while still

providing for veterans of past wars. "

 

What's worse is that, since 1998, veterans are eligible for

free health care only for the first two years after being demobilized.

After that, an ailing veteran has to prove his or her illness is

service-connected. In the next installment we'll describe what that

burden has meant to ailing Iraq vets.

 

Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating

returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan have been threatened with

$10,000 fines and jail if they talk about the soldiers or their

medical problems.

 

Reporters have been prevented access to more than 14,000

medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly from Germany to Walter Reed

Hospital near Washington, D.C. What is the DoD hiding?

 

As you know from reading " Depleted Uranium For Dummies, " all

of us may eventually become victims of Bush's " Shock and Awe " campaign

against the Iraqi people, because the radioactive fallout has already

permeated the world's atmosphere. We reported the February findings of

Dr. Chris Busby, scientific secretary of the European Committee on

Radiation Risk, who was able to obtain official U.K. readings of the

astounding spike in European radiation levels after the massive

bombings in Iraq.

 

Depleted uranium particles traveled 2,400 miles in nine days

from Iraq to Aldermaston England. The invisible cloud quadrupled

Europe's atmospheric radiation. According to Dr. Busby, " This research

shows that rather than remaining near the target, as claimed by the

military, depleted uranium weapons contaminate both locals and whole

populations hundreds to thousands of miles away. "

 

Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's " time-release poison " from the

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took only a year to mix completely into

the world's atmosphere. Take a deep breath, and recall your initial

reaction to the stunning TV images of a city of five million people

engulfed in a firestorm, with mushroom-shaped clouds of radioactive

debris illuminating the skyline.

 

Take a minute to check on your kids playing outside the window

in the fresh spring air. Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at

Okinawa's Ryukyus University, has estimated that depleted uranium

munitions since Cheney's 1991 Gulf War has contaminated the global

atmosphere with radiation equivalent to 400,000 Nagasaki bombs.

Greenpeace has just estimated that 93,000 deaths occurred because of

the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine.

 

U.K. environmental scientist Busby was quoted as saying, " To

my mind, it's a human rights issue. Originally, it was an issue

relating to whether or not it should be used in Iraq and if the

population of Iraq is being contaminated and possibly the Gulf War

veterans being contaminated, but now we are seeing that everybody is

being contaminated. We are all Gulf War veterans. "

 

Soldier Says Bush Worse Than Bin Laden

 

Veterans and soldiers have been contacting " Over the Rainbow "

after we guaranteed anonymity. A soldier serving in Iraq, already

showing the symptoms of Gulf War Illness, expressed his bitterness.

 

" I came over here thinking I was fighting to protect our

freedoms. It was all bullshit. I'm sick and probably dying. I want to

come home. But, that's really scary because I'm contagious. If I come

home I'll give this shit to my wife and kids.

 

" This was a suicide mission for all of us. Bush, Cheney,

Rumsfeld and the bunch of them are no better than Osama bin Laden and

those sleezebags. The government took patriots and turned us into

terrorists.

 

" It's just like Osama bin Laden and 9/11. They sent us over

here on a suicide mission to murder innocent people.

 

" Actually our government is worse than bin Laden. At least

when a car bomber volunteers, they tell the guy the truth. He knows he

will die quickly and painlessly. When he's blown to bits, he knows his

people will take care of his wife and kids.

 

" Nobody told me I was volunteering to be nuked by DU. The

recruiter never said I was going die slowly and painfully. And when

I'm dead they'll dump on my family just like they're dumping on the

people over here. "

 

The soldier asked if I had heard from public relations

officer, Maj. Richard J. McNorton, about the radioactive showers at

Camp Forward Danger.

 

I wonder if the major thinks he lives a charmed life. He's

sucking up depleted uranium particles from Iraq whether he's stationed

downwind in CENTCOM headquarters in Qatar or across the Atlantic in

Florida. Right now GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan are hunkered down as

Cheney's bloody adventure collapses around them. Our men and women are

primarily concerned about looking out for each other. Who is McNorton

looking out for?

 

Obviously Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to keep

depleted uranium and the radioactive showers a secret from the

officers and troops. If the Jews of Europe had known the Nazi shower

rooms were poison gas chambers, it would have been much harder to get

them to board the trains.

 

DU must be the stuff of nightmares for Bush, Cheney,

Condoleezza Rice and Rumsfeld. Can you imagine the four of them trying

to corral United States Army, Reserves and National Guard troops into

transport planes bound for Iraq after they find out about depleted

uranium?

 

This is the fourth in a comprehensive series on depleted

uranium dedicated to the New York National Guard to appear on the

website We're Not in Kansas Anymore, where you will find sources, a

bibliography, and suggestions for citizen action to eliminate DU

munitions. www.notinkansas.us.