DEPLETED URANIUM ALERT!

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THE PLAGUE OF 2006

[Veteran's and Family PRESS HERE]

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell -

VIDEOS: Invisible war 'Invisible War skillfully tackles the complicated debates concerning the health effects of DU (both radiological effects and heavy metal toxicity). The official views are neatly debunked by DU experts, including ex-US Army whistle blowers.'  | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4  | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 9/6/06 "The Charles Goyette Show" KNFX 1100 AM INTERVIEW: RE: Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets AUDIO: "The Whole World is in danger....!" http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A002I060906AM2.MP3  They are saying in the last video (Part 7) that its nuclear reactor waste, and that's BAD. full review: http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/442/442p24b.htm further info: http://www.cadu.org.uk/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2001/depleted_uranium/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/  Translate this Page! Download pdf brochure format on Depleted Uranium

Dr. Doug Rokke Depleted Uranium The Pentagon Betrayal Of GIs And Iraqis John Hanchette editor of USA Today from 1991 to 2001and Pentagon DU expert Dr. Doug Rokke, a serving officer for 30 years. [The Gulf War soldiers were in Iraq a tiny fraction of the time the soldiers are being kept in Iraq.] Rokke says he was ordered to lie about DU, because the military was determined to continue using it, despite the danger to US troops. Watch the Full Movie CLICK HERE. Army DU Specialist turned whistleblower Dr. Doug Rokke- Depleted Uranium Audio: http://www.apfn.org/audio/rokke-depleted_uranium.mp3 Environmental Cost of War While the death and destruction caused by war is reason enough to examine our current state of militarism, SourceCode investigates longterm costs of war's damage to the environment. Weapons of Mass Destruction in Washington DC? Chemical weapons from World War One were buried in the Spring Valley neighborhood in our nation's capital. Army Corp of Engineer whistleblowers tour us around the most toxic of the sites. Then, Truthout's Chris Hume talks with Azzam Alwash about the destruction and revitalization of the Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq, the birthplace of civilization. (And thurston Moore of Sonic Youth sings "they're bombing the garden of eden"). SourceCode looks at "depleted" uranium and the alarming claims of soldiers and Iraqis who have been exposed to it. And we'll join the Alterazioni Video Collective in New York to hear more about their Baghdad Space Sharing project, designed to connect people around the world to the struggles Iraqi civilians are facing. OUT NOW. Watch the Full Movie CLICK HERE. http://sourcecode.freespeech.org/sc306War TEDD WEYMAN: THE NUCLEAR WAR ON IRAQ It is known world wide, he says, that DU weapons have long-term implications that, right now corporations and governments are hiding Video: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_nuclear.htm "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre, "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre," featuring interviews with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international journalists on the U.S. attack on Fallujah. Produced by Italian state broadcaster RAI TV, the documentary charges U.S. warplanes illegally dropped white phosphorus incendiary bombs on civilian populations, burning the skin off Iraqi victims. One U.S. soldier charges this amounts to the U.S. using chemical weapons against the Iraqi people. Watch the Video Click Here Israel Drops White Phosphorus Bombs, Littlest Victims Suffer http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_Israel.htm

 

U.S. Soldiers Are Sick of It Associated Press 10:20 AM Aug, 12, 2006 NEW YORK -- It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills -- morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves. Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done. Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil. There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick. In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price. "I'm just a zombie walking around," he says. Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead. A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The United States has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective. Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk. "We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' " Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area. But the medic knew something the others didn't. Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins. "We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium." Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas. Then they hired a lawyer. Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came. The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain. The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks. The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome. Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along." The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only eight had DU in their urine, the VA said. The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides. "The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity." Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion. An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the United States in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein. Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it. Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous -- not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation. A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector. "I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes." At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitutes genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001. "The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans." There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects. Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion. Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported. Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms. In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops. Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium. Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000. The study group's size is controversial -- far too small, say experts including Fahey -- and so are the findings of the voluntary, Baltimore-based study. It has found "no clinically significant" health effects from depleted uranium exposure in the study subjects, according to its researchers. Critics say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting one soldier who developed cancer, and another who developed a bone tumor. So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million. About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit. Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it. But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals. But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested? It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers. It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange -- a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy -- was linked to those sufferings. It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb. In 2002, Congress voted to not let that happen again. It established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses -- composed of scientists, physicians and veterans' advocates. It reports to the secretary of Veterans Affairs. Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better? The answer, according to the committee, is no. "Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report. "Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective." And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq. Herbert Reed is an imposing man, broad shouldered and tall. He strides into the VA Medical Center in the Bronx with the presence of a cop or a soldier. Since the Vietnam War, he has been both. His hair is perfect, his shirt spotless, his jeans sharply creased. But there is something wrong, a niggling imperfection made more noticeable by a bearing so disciplined. It is a limp -- more like a hitch in his get-along. It is the only sign, albeit a tiny one, that he is extremely sick. Even sleep offers no release. He dreams of gunfire and bombs and soldiers who scream for help. No matter how hard he tries, he never gets there in time. At 54, he is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison. He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq. According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words depleted uranium long before he ended up at Walter Reed. He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. He says he didn't get anything of the kind. Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups. Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle. But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart. Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado. Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke -- one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over. "Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body." After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed. He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU. "A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles." No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the internet. Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle. He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same. "I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete. "Then we come back and we're all sick." They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name. http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71585-0.html?tw=wn_index_7

 

Please help APFN by supporting our sponsor links!   Why Has Our Military Refused to Show This Training Video To Our Troops Now Serving In Iraq? US ARMY TRAINING VIDEO: Depleted Uranium Hazard Awareness Video: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_training_video.htm Depleted Uranium Audios: Doug Rokke AUDIO: Wed., June 7, 2006: Playlists: M3U | RAM (Individual MP3: Click Here) Christopher Bollyn speaks with Doug Rokke, and Leuren Moret about the military's use of Depleted Uranium in munitions. Mr.Rokke is the former Director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project. Ms. Moret is a geophysicist specializing in atmospheric sciences, a nuclear activist, and a former scientist and whistle blower at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Piper06.html White phosphorus White phosphorus called Shake and Bake http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_shake_&_bake.htm Democracy Now! Lebanese President Accuses Israel of Using White Phosphorus Bombs in Lebanon July 25, 2006 Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who exposed how the U.S. used white phosphorus bombs in Iraq, says Israel is using the same tactic in Lebanon. We speak to him in Beirut. While Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of using cluster bombs, the Lebanese president Emile Lahoud says Israel is also using white phosphorus. Lebanese doctors have reported witnessing the effects of white phosphorus on their patients. Independent journalist is in Beirut and has spoken to some of those doctors. Audio: http://www.apfn.org/audio/dn2006-0725-1_64kb.mp3 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/25/1442242 INTERVIEW: JOYCE RILEY... IRAQ DU PROBLEM FREE: BEYOND TREASON (CD) TO ANY GULF WAR VET 877 GULF VET Audio: http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A002I060712-goyette2.MP3 RANT: CHARLES, ABOUT DU & NUKE WEAPONS Audio: http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A003I060712-goyette3.MP3 United States Code TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I - CRIMES CHAPTER 118 - WAR CRIMES U.S. Code as of: 01/19/04 Section 2441. War crimes (a) Offense. - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death. (b) Circumstances. - The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act). (c) Definition. - As used in this section the term "war crime" means any conduct - (1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party; (2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907; (3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or (4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/ts_search.pl?title=18&sec=2441 ==================================== § 2332a. Use of weapons of mass destruction (a) Offense Against a National of the United States or Within the United States.— A person who, without lawful authority, uses, threatens, or attempts or conspires to use, a weapon of mass destruction— (1) against a national of the United States while such national is outside of the United States; (2) against any person or property within the United States, and (A) the mail or any facility of interstate or foreign commerce is used in furtherance of the offense; (B) such property is used in interstate or foreign commerce or in an activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce; (C) any perpetrator travels in or causes another to travel in interstate or foreign commerce in furtherance of the offense; or (D) the offense, or the results of the offense, affect interstate or foreign commerce, or, in the case of a threat, attempt, or conspiracy, would have affected interstate or foreign commerce; (3) against any property that is owned, leased or used by the United States or by any department or agency of the United States, whether the property is within or outside of the United States; or (4) against any property within the United States that is owned, leased, or used by a foreign government, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, and if death results, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.   (b) Offense by National of the United States Outside of the United States.— Any national of the United States who, without lawful authority, uses, or threatens, attempts, or conspires to use, a weapon of mass destruction outside of the United States shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, and if death results, shall be punished by death, or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.   (c) Definitions.— For purposes of this section— (1) the term “national of the United States” has the meaning given in section 101(a)(22) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(22)); (2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means— (A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title; (B) any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors; (C) any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector (as those terms are defined in section 178 of this title); or (D) any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life; and (3) the term “property” includes all real and personal property. ==================================== http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002332---a000-.html The 1925 Protocol is part of the Geneva Conventions.  The War Crimes Act of 1996, in turn, specifically makes it a crime to commit a "grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party."  See Section (c)(1) of the War Crimes Act of 1996. The U.S. National Safety Council states that "White phosphorus is a poison . . . If its combustion occurs in a confined space, white phosphorus will remove the oxygen from the air and render the air unfit to support life . . . It is considered a dangerous disaster hazard because it emits highly toxic fumes.  The EPA has listed white phosphorus as a Hazardous Air Pollutant. Depleted Uranium The U.S. military's bombardment of Iraq in the current war and in the first Gulf War is also likely a war crime which violates the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act of 1996. Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defense with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of Depleted Uranium ("DU") was a war crime. According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Since the use of DU violates the Geneva Conventions of 1949, it also likely violates the War Crimes Act of 1996. The use of white phosphorous as a weapon against civilians and the use of thousands of metric tons of DU could thus be prosecuted as war crimes under the 1996 Act.  Such actions -- especially when taken together with the numerous war crimes discussed previously -- could provide the basis for imposing life sentences or even the death penalty against the high-level U.S. officials who ordered, condoned or covered up such crimes, including those who provided the philosophical framework which allowed such crimes to occur. Source: http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/... Congress Calls For Truth About DU Troop Poisoning 'Definitive answer' on depleted uranium sought for troops audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com July 30, 2006, Associated Press DAYTONA BEACH -- After years of veterans pleading for help with illnesses occurring after service in the Gulf wars, the U.S. House and Senate are calling for an immediate study of health effects of exposure to a radioactive metal used in U.S. weapons and armor.   Lori Brim photo Dustin Brim with his mother, Lori Brim, in the summer of 2004 at Fisher House near Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., co-author of a Senate bill on depleted uranium that passed June 20, said other studies have been done on the subject. Those studies concluded there was no evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses.  "It is time for a review by the Pentagon to see if there has been scientific progress that would provide a more accurate and definitive answer to possible links to adverse health," Lieberman said in a written statement to The News-Journal. "This amendment would require the Pentagon to provide that assessment." The House passed a similar bill in May, and details are being hashed out in a joint committee. If the proposal becomes law, results of the study would be submitted to Congress within one year from its effective date. But the study comes too late for one Ormond Beach mother of an American soldier who believes exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq killed her son. UNCOVERING A CONTROVERSY In 2004, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Lori Brim's son, Army Spc. Dustin Brim, died at 22 of very aggressive cancers. The military physicians who tried to save him said exposure to depleted uranium did not cause his diseases. But Lori Brim took the whispered advice of a social worker there and started looking into the issue. She discovered political and medical controversies -- about whether the U.S. military should be using depleted uranium munitions and what effects exposure brings -- that have been raging since soldiers began returning home from the first Gulf War with mysterious ailments. Though that war marked the first time depleted uranium munitions had been used in combat, military sources have consistently discounted a link. Risks of exposure are minimal and abated by training, they say. And, they add, because tank armor and munitions made with the extremely dense material are so effective, use of depleted uranium saves U.S. lives. Brim said she has been frustrated in her efforts to acquire medical records that might offer evidence the cancers that killed her son resulted from exposure to depleted uranium. "I'm trying to share Dustin's voice, create awareness and make a difference," Brim said. "I believe to this day that, if soldiers and other personnel had been made aware of the risks of exposure to DU and how dangerous it is -- Dustin said he went for medical help 11 times while he was in Iraq -- somebody may have paid attention to him." Brim said she has been unable to find a Florida legislator willing to introduce a bill similar to several passed by other states, demanding study of the issue and testing for National Guard members returning from Iraq. She also has been disappointed by attorneys unwilling to help her and other mothers she knows pursue a class-action lawsuit against manufacturers of weapons she believes are polluting the Earth. She's hired Holly Hill author Lonnie Story to write her son's story. BODY MAY BE EXHUMED Dr. Asaf Durakovic, founder and head scientist at Uranium Medical Research Centre in Toronto, Canada, said Brim could exhume her son's body to be tested for radiation exposure. "If I found DU in his bones, it could prove his sickness could have been related to DU contamination," said Durakovic in a phone interview from Washington D.C, where he also has an office. "Radiation will not decompose." Brim said that's too emotional a decision for her to make now but continues to try to obtain the medical records. Those who, like Brim, are looking for answers about depleted uranium's health effects, "are facing a multibillion-dollar industry making radioactive ammunition," Durakovic said. Attempts to talk with some manufacturers of weapons containing depleted uranium went either unanswered or spokespeople declined interviews. The Department of Defense takes the position that depleted uranium is the best metal available for tank armor and munitions to penetrate armor on enemy vehicles. The military says that all personnel who use such equipment are adequately trained to safely handle depleted uranium. Doug Rokke, a veteran of the Gulf War, who has a doctorate in technology from the University of Illinois and was charged with cleanup of depleted uranium contaminated equipment after the first Gulf War, has been outspoken about the issue. He said soldiers are not properly trained and that "medical care has been willfully denied to a majority of DU casualties who are supposed to receive care." He said he's not sure that, if the bill before the joint committee makes it to law, it would have any effect on the use of weapons or treatment of soldiers. "The directive is to continue to use uranium munitions and avoid all liability," said Rokke, 57, of Rantoul, Ill. He said he is seeking medical care for exposure to radiation from depleted uranium. "The legal requirement to provide medical care has always existed, but the military disregards that." The military said more than 2,100 Operation Iraqi Freedom service members have been tested for exposure to depleted uranium, and eight were found to be positive. "All eight were involved in combat situations where they were exposed to depleted uranium fragments," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of Deployment Health Support in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, in a written statement. "The depleted uranium testing that is done for the military personnel is done at the U.S. Army laboratory at the Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, and at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology." He said all testing is paid for by the Department of Defense. At Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns said her recent studies should make the issue hard to ignore. Her results -- published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at a recent Society of Toxicology conference -- established that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA, and the cells mutate. She said exposure during the Gulf wars may link to increased cancers and birth defects in soldiers and in civilian survivors of exposure in the Middle East. Congress Calls For Truth About DU Troop Poisoning WantToKnow.info White House proposes retroactive war crimes protection Fri Aug 11, 2006 14:19   This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/060811newsarticles White House proposes retroactive war crimes protection August 10, 2006, 2006, Boston Globe/Associated Press http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/08/10/white_house_proposes_retroactive_war_crimes_protection/ The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policy makers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal. At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA and the degree to which harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. When interrogators engage in waterboarding, prisoners are strapped to a plank and dunked in water until nearly drowning. One section of the draft would outlaw torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, but it does not contain prohibitions from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." Another section would apply the legislation retroactively. The initiative is "not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations." Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration." Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai August 6, 2006, 2006, Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,92368.story Kill anything that moves. Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying. Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted. Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth. The files are part of a once-secret archive...that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known. The Times...obtained copies of about 3,000 pages — about a third of the total — before government officials removed them from the public shelves, saying they contained personal information that was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators. Many war crimes did not make it into the archive. The archive...includes investigative fies, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass. The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese. Hundreds of soldiers...described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity. Abuses...were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam. Ultimately, 57 [soldiers] were court-martialed and just...fourteen received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most won significant reductions on appeal. The stiffest sentence went to a military intelligence interrogator. He served seven months of a 20-year term. Many substantiated cases were closed with a letter of reprimand, a fine or, in more than half the cases, no action at all.   http://www.stopclustermunitions.org Technical analysis of cluster munitions CLICK, WATCH A CLUSTER "F" Cluster munitions are weapons that work by dispersing several smaller submunitions, often referred to as bomblets or grenades, over a wide area to destroy dispersed, moving and unseen targets. A cluster munition consists of a canister and several submunitions. After being dropped or fired, the canister opens in mid-air and ejects its cargo of submunitions. These submunitions then scatter over the target area and are designed to explode on impact.Cluster munitions can be delivered from aircraft, via rockets, missiles or bombs. Cluster munitions can also be launched from land-based systems such as artillery, from rockets, artillery shells or missiles. Cluster munitions are area weapons. This means they have effects that are not confined to one precise target, such as an indidual tank for example. Other examples of area weapons include napalm or incendiary bombs, or even nuclear weapons. Area weapons can be distinguished from point weapons, which attack single, pre-identified targets. An example of a point weapon is a guided missile set to destroy an anti-aircraft gun. Depending on the type of cluster munition and the type of delivery system, one cluster munition will strike an area as large as one square kilometre. This impact area is known as a footprint (click to watch). As noted above, cluster munitions are designed to explode on impact, or in other words each submunition will explode on impact, projecting shrapnel that is deadly over a radius of up to 50 metres. However, as with all munitions, a certain number of submunitions in each canister fail to explode on impact due to technical malfunction, inappropriate launch or drop conditions, soft terrain in the target area or a variety of other reasons. MORE: Watch different videos of cluster munitions: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/dokumenti/dokument.asp?id=24 Depleted Uranium Situation Worsens Requiring Immediate Action By President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert Dr. Doug Rokke, PhD., former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project July 24, 2006 The delivery of at least 100 GBU 28 bunker busters bombs containing depleted uranium warheads by the United States to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon will result in additional radioactive and chemical toxic contamination with consequent adverse health and environmental effects throughout the middle east. Today, U.S., British, and now Israeli military personnel are using illegal uranium munitions- America's and England's own "dirty bombs" while U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and British Ministry of Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing, and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium. The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU contamination. U.S. and British officials have arrogantly refused to comply with their own regulations, orders, and directives that require United States Department of Defense officials to provide prompt and effective medical care to "all" exposed individuals. Reference: Medical Management of Unusual Depleted Uranium Casualties, DOD, Pentagon, 10/14/93, Medical Management of Army personnel Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) Headquarters, U.S. Army Medical Command 29 April 2004, and section 2-5 of U.S. Army Regulation 700-48. Israeli officials must not do so now. They also refuse to clean up dispersed radioactive Contamination as required by Army Regulation- AR 700-48: "Management of Equipment Contaminated With Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities" (Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington, D.C., September 2002) and U.S. Army Technical Bulletin- TB 9-1300-278: "Guidelines For Safe Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor Which Contain Depleted Uranium" (Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington, D.C., JULY 1996). Specifically section 2-4 of United States Army Regulation-AR 700-48 dated September 16, 2002 requires that: (1) "Military personnel "identify, segregate, isolate, secure, and label all RCE" (radiologically contaminated equipment). (2) "Procedures to minimize the spread of radioactivity will be implemented as soon as possible." (3) "Radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place, or abandonment" and (4) "All equipment, to include captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded, decontaminated and released IAW Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48" (Note: Maximum exposure limits are specified in Appendix F). The previous and current use of uranium weapons, the release of radioactive components in destroyed U.S. and foreign military equipment, and releases of industrial, medical, research facility radioactive materials have resulted in unacceptable exposures. Therefore, decontamination must be completed as required by U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 and should include releases of all radioactive materials resulting from military operations. The extent of adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons contamination is not limited to combat zones but includes facilities and sites where uranium weapons were manufactured or tested including Vieques; Puerto Rico; Colonie, New York; Concord, MA; Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana; and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Therefore medical care must be provided by the United States Department of Defense officials to all individuals affected by the manufacturing, testing, and/or use of uranium munitions. Thorough environmental remediation also must be completed without further delay. I am amazed that fifteen years after was I asked to clean up the initial DU mess from Gulf War 1 and over ten years since I finished the depleted uranium project that United States Department of Defense officials and others still attempt to justify uranium munitions use while ignoring mandatory requirements. I am dismayed that Department of Defense and Department of Energy officials and representatives continue personal attacks aimed to silence or discredit those of us who are demanding that medical care be provided to all DU casualties and that environmental remediation is completed in compliance with U.S. Army Regulation 700-48. But beyond the ignored mandatory actions the willful dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium munitions is illegal ( http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_illegality.pdf  ) and just does not even pass the common sense test and according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DHS, is a dirty bomb. DHS issued "dirty bomb" response guidelines, http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html , on January 3, 2006 for incidents within the United States but ignore DOD use of uranium weapons and existing DOD regulations. These guidelines specifically state that: "Characteristics of RDD and IND Incidents: A radiological incident is defined as an event or series of events, deliberate or accidental, leading to the release, or potential release, into the environment of radioactive material in sufficient quantity to warrant consideration of protective actions. Use of an RDD or IND is an act of terror that produces a radiological incident." Thus the use of uranium munitions is "an act or terror" as defined by DHS. Finally continued compliance with the infamous March 1991 Los Alamos Memorandum that was issued to ensure continued use of uranium munitions can not be justified. In conclusion: the President of the United States- George W. Bush, the Prime Minister of Great Britain-Tony Blair, and the Prime Minister of Israel Olmert must acknowledge and accept responsibility for willful use of illegal uranium munitions- their own "dirty bombs"- resulting in adverse health and environmental effects. President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Olmert should order: 1. medical care for all casualties, 2. thorough environmental remediation, 3. immediate cessation of retaliation against all of us who demand compliance with medical care and environmental remediation requirements, 4. and stop the already illegal the use (UN finding) of depleted uranium munitions. References- these references are copies the actual regulations and orders and other pertinent official documents: http://www.traprockpeace.org/twomemos.html http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_dtic_wakayama_Aug2002.html http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_illegality.pdf http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html http://cryptome.org/dhs010306.txt http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m25045&hd=0&size=1&l=e Nuns and Priests File Depleted Uranium Bunker Buster Resolution at Three Weapons Companies by Bill Baue - July 26, 2006 The resolution goes to vote next week at Alliant Techsystems, and already received more than double the support needed to re-file next year at Lockheed Martin and Textron. SocialFunds.com -- Depleted uranium (DU), the radioactive byproduct of uranium enrichment, is in the headlines as the US recently agreed to send 100 Guided Bomb Unit-28 bunker buster bombs containing DU warheads to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon, as reported by Reuters and others. Shareowner activists are also placing DU on the corporate agenda by filing a new resolution expressing health and environmental concerns and asking for a report from three companies on their involvement with DU. Concern centers on the pyrophoric properties of DU, which burns and loses much of its mass upon impact, dispersing a fine radioactive dust that can be carried long distances by winds or absorbed by soil and groundwater--not to mention human bodies. The resolution received 6.4 percent support at Lockheed Martin (ticker: LMT) and 9 percent support at Textron (TXT), both well over the 3 percent threshold required by the SEC for re-filing next year. The proposal goes to vote next week at Alliant Techsystems (ATK), which manufactures 120 mm rounds containing DU for penetrating tanks and light armor vehicles. "It's one thing to make a weapon that 'does the job' on the battlefield; it's another to manufacture and use one that destroys not only tanks, armored personnel carriers and underground bunkers but may also leave a potentially poisonous legacy in the bodies of the people who return to those areas after hostilities have ceased," said John Celichowski, head of the corporate responsibility program for the Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order, which filed the resolution at Alliant. "We believe that the choice to use particular weapons in areas that are bound to be inhabited or re-inhabited by civilians raises serious moral questions which need to be addressed by our policy-makers, our armed services, the society they claim to be defending, and the companies that make such weapons." "The pyrophoric qualities of these weapons also creates potential risks for our own soldiers," he told SocialFunds.com. The resolutions make not only a moral and ethical case, but also a business case against DU. "The business case against DU centers around the potential liability for human and environmental impacts and damage to the companies' reputations," said Valerie Heinonen, a corporate social responsibility consultant to the Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Detroit Charitable Trust, which filed the resolution at Lockheed. "Rather than seeking a market for radioactive waste, the federal government and corporations should work with NGOs to find solutions for long-term storage." PROXY Governance, one of the three major proxy advisory firms, recommends voting for the resolution at Alliant "PROXY Governance acknowledges that there are serious concerns regarding the health effects of using munitions containing depleted uranium (DU)," states PROXY Governance. "While we are not aware of significant litigation involving the health and safety of workers at DU munitions production facilities at this time, the potential for future such litigation exists." In fact, Richard David of the UK filed suit against Honeywell in 2004 claiming adverse health effects from working at a munitions factory during the first Gulf War where DU was used in manufacturing, according to an article in The Observer. "And while the World Health Organization and others have stated that there is no conclusive medical evidence linking DU to health problems, reports by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights have suggested that the weapons may well be illegal under The Geneva Conventions, The Hague Conventions and other international law," continues the PROXY Governance report. "Such a finding could complicate efforts by DU weapons manufacturers to defend themselves against potential future litigation involving health effects or environmental clean-up efforts." The Alliant board argues in its proxy statement that the company discloses information regarding its military- and defense-related contracting in its SEC filings, but PROXY Governance notes that these filings do not discuss the specific matters brought up in the resolution. PROXY Governance also recommended voting for the resolution at Lockheed, but against it at Textron, as the company's board points out in its proxy statement that the company is not involved in DU production and has no plans to be. Both ISS and Glass Lewis recommend voting against the resolution at all three companies. "We were in conversation with Textron management following the filing of the resolution, but we did not get satisfactory answers and therefore the lead filer, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary decided to leave the resolution on the ballot," Sr. Heinonen told SocialFunds.com. "The vote at Textron may lead to further, more satisfactory conversation." http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2067.html DU discussion with Leuren Moret and others, USA http://www.apfn.org/apfn/audio/WBAIDepletedUranium.mp3 "Radio Your Way" DAY 15: AUDIO: "Crisis in the Middle East" UPDATE: CNN: Anderson Cooper.... White Phosphorus (DU) Burns Explained http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060724-anderson-cooper360.MP3 Depleted Uranium In India, Spreading Worldwide They Kill Us For Sport http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_india.htm  Interview with GleInterview with Glen Milner of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action about new nukes, depleted uranium and harassment by the Coast Guard 07/24/05 http://www.gzcenter.org/ http://www.apfn.org/apfn/audio/072405cf.mp3 Military OPT-OUT FORM http://www.apfn.org/pdf/military_opt_out.pdf

Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets A death sentence here and abroad by Leuren Moret At an April press conference, a group of New York Army National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their recent tour in Iraq. At an April press conference, a group of New York Army National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their recent tour in Iraq. “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam” Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation. And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period. This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months. Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue. This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff. Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as “spectacular … and a matter of concern.” This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate ­ the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define. In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.” Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure. Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems. The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II. They brought it home Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health problems. In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases. In some veterans’ families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war. The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans. How did they hide it? Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully tested. The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project. Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent. Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly. They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust. The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs. The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries. Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment. Women living around these facilities have reported increases in endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past decade. The military denies that DU is the cause. The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only. Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail. Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, D.C. Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12. Although I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me I could only talk about DU in Oregon “and nothing overseas … nothing political.” Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several months later. When that didn’t work, he contacted Dr. Allan Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr. Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq. Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR, reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her last job had been with the CIA. How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel serving in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen. Paul Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95 percent of Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the military by 1995. Any of those continuing in military service were isolated from each other, preventing critical information being transferred to new troops. The “next DU war” had already been planned, and those planning it wanted “no skunk at the garden party.” The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael Collins Piper, “The High Priests of War: The Secret History of How America’s Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their Drive for Global Empire,” details the early plans for a war against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide with getting the DU “show on the road” and the oil crisis in the Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon. The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the oil in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the Iraqis and Kurds in 1912. The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their “godfather” and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a “war against terrorism” long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the most influential men in the United States. Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby’s neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch. Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group, who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II, with the same faces. When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John McCarthy, who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU to destroy the genetic code and genetic future of large populations of Arabs and Moslems in the Middle East and Central Asia - just coincidentally the areas where most of the world’s oil deposits are located - he replied: “It has all the handprints of Henry Kissinger.” In Zbignew Brzezinski’s book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,” the map of the Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S. foreign policy. The “South” region corresponds precisely to the regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S. bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU. A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from atmospheric testing! No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from Agent Orange, “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used for foreign policy.” Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will be carried around the world and deposited in our environments just as the “smog of war” from the 1991 Gulf War was found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii. In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by 2020. What else do they know that they aren’t telling us? I know that depleted uranium is a death sentence … for all of us. We will all die in silent ways. http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml Poison Dust: A New Look At Radioactive Weapons in the Gulf-- Forum at the UN Church Center Tuesday, May 25, 2004 As the brutal occupation of Iraq continues, new revelations of U.S. war crimes emerge every day. One such crime is the use of Depleted Uranium weapons. Depleted Uranium is both chemically toxic and radioactive, and is linked to the symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome. Today, half of the 697,000 veterans of the First Gulf War suffer serious medical problems and a significant increase in birth defects. The effects on the Iraqi people have been much greater. This crime against humanity must be exposed. The Depleted Uranium Project was formed to expose the impact of this illegal weapon and to put an end to its use. Over the past 6 years, we have produced a great deal of educational material, including a widely-read book and companion video, Medal of Dishonor. To that end, we are currently working on several projects, which include: The production of a new, updated documentary exposing the use and effects of depleted uranium. This film, Poison Dust, will be available to educators, activists, military personnel, and others. This film, which will graphically document the horrifying damage caused by depleted uranium weapons, will be an important tool in building a movement to stop this crime. A national tour to screen the DU film Poison Dust near military bases. The documentary, along with presentations by veterans and health care professionals, will bring this important information directly to military personnel and their families, who are directly affected by depleted uranium. “Poison Dust,” a forum to be held at the UN Church Center on Tuesday, May 25, to launch this new project before the media and the international community and to demand: full testing, full health care and compensation, decontamination, and reparations to all victims of depleted uranium. Speakers will include: former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; physicist Dr. Michio Kaku; Juan Gonzalez, Daily News reporter and host of Democracy Now; and GIs and Veterans affected by DU weapons. The publication of new educational literature to expose the use of these deadly and illegal weapons of mass destruction by the U.S. military. Please join us in building a movement to stop this war crime. This is an ambitious but urgently needed educational program. A great deal of work has been done already, but much more remains to be done. We need your help to finish the video and educational resources. Please consider sending a tax-deductible donation to the People’s Rights Fund /DU Project to help us with this important work. (All Donors will be listed in the film credits) Yours in the struggle, Dustin Langley, SNAFU Sue Harris, Peoples Video Network Billy Martin, Movement in Motion Sara Flounders, International Action Center  http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-26623.html Sailors sort blue-tipped depleted uranium MK-38 25mm machine-gun shells while another fires them out to sea in exercises at Shoalwater Bay. Notice the protective clothing and gloves. CAN YOU HELP US , PLEASE! Do you know what kind of weapons causes this damage? Israeli aggression on Lebanon July 2006 More photos: http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=55&p=24885&s2=21 INTERVIEW: JOYCE RILEY... IRAQ DU PROBLEM FREE: BEYOND TREASON (CD) TO ANY GULF WAR VET 877 GULF VET http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A002I060712-goyette2.MP3 RANT: CHARLES, ABOUT DU & NUKE WEAPONS http://www.apfn.net/pogo/A003I060712-goyette3.MP3 Philip Dru interviews Doug Rokke Ph.D. about depleted uranium. He is a former Army Lieutenant who was in charge of clean up and disposal of Iraqi (and American) tanks that were hit with depleted uranium in 1991. He is now working to have d.u. rounds banned. http://www.apfn.org/apfn/audio/072405cf.mp3

 

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Some pictures are classified because they reveal the secret ways the United States wages war. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/24/politics/24PHOT.html?ex=1398139200&en=61b6f8b9749b1c66&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND  President Bush has not attended the funeral of a single U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. And veterans are starting to notice. http://www.alternet.org/story/17079/

Is depleted Uranium the reason Bush does not want us to see the coffins? Is this why there are closed caskets? Is this why there are mass graves to bury the fallen? Kind of makes one wonder........ Pentagon eyes mass graves From Denver Post Snip) If soldiers are killed by "something like smallpox in which bodies cannot be decontaminated, we would have to cremate them right there," Kuykendall said. He said he recently discussed the option in detail with Brig. Gen. Steve Reeves, program executive officer for the Army's chemical and biological defense office. Reeves declined to comment. "You would have to protect the living, so you'd have to get rid of the (contaminated) bodies as quickly as possible," Kuykendall said. "You don't want to contaminate any survivors who are not already contaminated." It is possible to decontaminate bodies, but such efforts would be "very sensitive, expensive and time-consuming," particularly for corpses infected with contagious biological agents, Kuykendall said. http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/war/iraq/mass_graves.shtml

 

Learn About Depleted Uranium From The US Army's Expert on Depleted Uranium (DU) : Nuclear Holocaust and The Politics of Radiation http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Rokke-Depleted-Uranium-DU21apr03.htm Depleted Uranium Information about depleted uranium in question and answer form. www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm

 

Special Report on Depleted Uranium Charred bodies Bodies of Iraqi soldiers abandoned in the desert. Charred black by fires ignited by depleted uranium projectiles, they look all too familiar to those of us who have seen the A-bomb Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. (Courtesy of Carol Picou, taken February 1991 in southern Iraq) Click to view larger picture (54K) http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/special/index2.html

Uranium Munitions = Depleted Uranium half life of 4.5 billion years * http://www.criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium.htm House Passes McDermott Depleted Uranium Study Amendment Possible DU Health Effects on Soldiers Will Be Studied May 11, 2006 For Immediate Release http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr060511b.shtml PDF] The Silent Genocide from America File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML "DU [deleted uranium] is released from fired weapons in the form of small. particles that may be inhaled, ingested or remain in the environment." ... www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/MirakiSGfromA.pdf  Depleted Uranium Watch http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/ Depleted Uranium: A slow, silent killer A crime against humanity http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11107.htm

 

Teeshirts with large logo printing are relatively cheap at say $6.50 each plus a one time setup fee. Printing back and front gets attention at malls, stores, walking, working.... the message gets out! Ralph Charles Whitley, Sr. a decorated Veteran of One 4532 W. Kennedy Blvd. PMB-276 Tampa, Florida 33609-2042 backflow.prevention@verizon.net Killing our own with depleted uranium The United States has no business employing such weapons. The Minnesota Daily September 29, 2005 Imagine a weapon equivalent to Agent Orange combined with a nuclear bomb. Such weapons exists - and are in regular use. They are depleted-uranium weapons, made from the waste products of nuclear power plants and weapons facilities. U.S. forces are using them in Iraq, even after horrific side effects of their use surfaced during the 1991 Gulf war. The United States has no business employing such cruel weapons. The United Nations classifies depleted-uranium ammunition as an illegal weapons of mass destruction because of their long-term impacts on the land over which they explode and the long-term health problems they cause when people are exposed to them. Apparently, the United States is hypocritical enough to disregard a plea not to use weapons of mass destruction. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers suffer from Gulf war syndrome and have had children with severe birth defects after being exposed to depleted uranium; other health risks include cancer and radiation sickness-like syndromes. Enough studies have confirmed these harmful effects of radiation and heavy metal toxicity. It is not just U.S. soldiers who will feel the effects this time. While much of the depleted uranium use in the Gulf war occurred over desert, in Iraq the weapons are exploding over heavily populated civilian areas. Iraqis will feel the effects of the radiation and uranium years after the United States leaves the scene - U.S. forces are poisoning the very population they are supposedly seeking to liberate. And while U.S. citizens and Iraqis are dying, the Pentagon insists depleted uranium is "safe" for U.S. troops. This blatant disregard for scientific, medical proof that these weapons are damaging is a crime against humanity - some justifiably label it a war crime. Just as Agent Orange still affects Vietnam veterans and radiation sickness remains in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, depleted uranium-related illnesses will haunt thousands of soldiers and civilians for years to come. And the number of those affected will steadily increase the longer these weapons remain in use in Iraq. The U.S. armed forces must cease their use and regain an iota of compassion for human suffering. http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/09/28/65337 KNOWN ILLNESSES INFLICTED BY INTERNALIZATION OF DEPLETED URANIUM PARTICLES Table 1: Compiled by Leuren Moret from Interviews with Gulf War Vets and their families GENERAL abnormal births and birth defects abnormal metabolism of semen: contains  amine & ammonium alkaline  acute autoimmune symptoms  (lung-, liver-, kidney failure)  acute myeloid leukemia  (deadly within days or weeks) acute immune depression  acute respiratory failure  asthma auto-immune deficiencies Balkan-syndrome  blood in stools and urine body function control loss bone cancer  brain damage brain tumors  burning semen  burning sensations  calcium loss in body cardiovascular signs or symptoms chemical sensitivities Chronic Fatigue Syndrome  chronic kidney and liver disorders  chronic myeloid leukemia  chronic respiratory infections  colon cancer  confusion diarrhea  digestive problems  dizziness Epstein Barr Syndrome fluid buildup fibromyalgia gastrointestinal signs/symptoms general fatigue  genetic alterations glandular carcinoma  Gulf war-syndrome  headaches (severe)  heart attack/disease  high blood pressure  high frequency of micturition  Hodgkin lymphoma  immune system deficiency  infections  insomnia  involuntary movements  joint/muscle/leg pain  kidney failure/damage leukemia  liver carcinoma loss of feeling in fingers  Lou Gehrigs Disease -ALS low blood oxygen saturation ( low HbO2)  low lung volume lung damage lung cancer  lymph cancer  lymphoma melanoma  memory loss  metallic taste Microplasma fermentans/  incognitis infections mood swings ­ violence  homicide/suicide multiple cancers multiple myeloma  myeloma  muscle pain nerve damage  neuro-muscular degenerative  disease non-Hodgkin lymphoma  other malignancies  pancreas carcinoma  Parkinsons disease petit & grand mal fits rashes  reactive airway disease reduced IQ respiratory ailments  shortness of breath sinus diseases  skin cancer  skin damage: sweat glands  with trapped du-particles  skin infections  skin spotting  smell, loss of sleep disturbances stiffening of fingers  teeth crumbling thyroid cancer  thyroid disease unable to walk unusual fevers/night sweats unusual hair loss  vision problems weight loss CHILDREN alimentary disorders  asthma  bladder & sphincter paralysis  blindness  complete range of known and  unknown Congenital Defects  deafness  dyspraxia  headache  kidney disease  leukemia  lymphoma  malformations of legs, arms,  toes & fingers  respiratory disorders  stillbirth  neural tube defects FEMALE abdominal pain  breast cancer  breast cancer at very young  age (20)  cervix cancer  endometriosis headaches  incontinence  joint pain  lung cancer at age 20 and  non-smoker  menstrual problems  miscarriages  nausea  ovarian cancer  paralysis of digestive system  thyroid problems  uterine cancer MALE (acute) headache  acute myeloid leukemia  arthritis  avoiding people  breathing problems  (stridor)  chemical sensitivity  chronic myeloid leukemia  endometriosis in partners gastrointestinal disorder  hip and leg pain  joint pain  lung cancer at young age  lymphoma  skin cancer  skin eruptions  stomach pain  suicide  testicular cancer  unable to walk  VISIE: http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/du-diagnosis.html  DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM website: http://www.ushostnet.com/gulfwar/articles.htm  04/1504 http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm

 

UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Fifty-third session Item 5 of the provisional agenda Human Rights and Toxics: Depleted Uranium and the Gulf War Written statement submitted by International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project a non-governmental organization on the Roster 1. International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project welcomes the progress made on the issue of toxics and the innovative and necessary work of the Commission's rapporteur Fatma-Zohra Ksentini. We have submitted information to the rapporteur on the use of weapons containing depleted uranium by the United States forces in the Gulf War. We are also continuing to compile information on this subject in light of Sub-Commission resolution 1996/[ ] (U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1996/L.18) which requests that information on the use of weapons of mass destruction, including those containing depleted uranium, is including in a report by the Secretary-General to the Sub- Commission at its forty-ninth session. 2. During the Gulf War up to 800 tons of munitions containing depleted uranium were used by United States forces in military actions in Kuwait and Iraq. This was the first field test of these weapon in actual combat, and they proved to be exceptionally effective anti-tank projectiles due to their superior armour-piercing capacity. It is unclear how much of the discarded shell casings and other radioactive material still remains in Iraq, but several investigators who have traveled to the area reports that shell casings containing depleted uranium are scattered all over the ground in many areas, including in school yards and other similar civilian locales. 3. Depleted uranium contain about 30% less than normal of 235/U, a dangerous radioisotope of uranium used in nuclear bombs and commercial power plants. It is a byproduct of extraction of 235/U form natural uranium. Much of depleted uranium is 238/U with a half life of 4 billion years. 4. Depleted uranium vaporizes when deployed in armour-piercing bullets. Scientific studies indicate if as much as one small particle (<5 microns in diameter) enters the lungs, the lungs and surrounding tissue will be exposed to 270 times the radiation permitted for workers in the radiation industry. 5. We first raised this issue at the fifty-second session of the Commission when, in conjunction with Margarita Papandreou and Women for Mutual Security and the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions, we addressed the serious situation of especially children in Iraq. Thousands of children in Iraq suffer from illnesses related to depleted uranium compounded in gravity by the effects of the economic sanctions. Now, children and animals in the area are being born with the serious congenital anomalies and disabilities associated with low grade radiation poisoning. At that session we presented Dr. Horst Gunther who has traveled to Iraq and who has documented, in report and by photograph, the devastating situation in Iraq. 6. Since that time, more evidence of the use of depleted uranium and the Iraqi medical catastrophe has been presented while at the same time the controversy over "Gulf War Syndrome" escalates in the United States. It now appears that key information relating to this situation has been removed from top secret files or destroyed. 7. Evidence compiled in the United States indicates as many as 50,000 veterans of the United States forces in the Gulf War and 4,000 or more from the allied countries have conditions that appear to be clear consequences of military service. There are no available statistics on the number of Iraqis showing similar symptoms, although Dr. Gunther's investigations indicate many thousands. 8. In addition to the serious problems faced by those exposed to DU during the Gulf War, there is a worldwide problem of the disposal of DU. These is an estimated billion pounds of DU tailings in the United States, and the United States Department of Energy is seeking opportunities to dispose of it. There are an estimated 30 million KGs DU tailings stored in Europe at URENCO plants. The United States Army Environmental Policy Institute (USAEPI) reports that the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, France and other unspecified countries have developed or are developing DU weapons. 9. We urge the Special Rapporteur to investigate the situation of the use of DU in the Gulf War and its effect on human rights. We also urge the Rapporteur to monitor the situation of DU storage and transport. http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker/c97-5w.html (original UN Report .pdf file is down)

 

Iraq's real WMD crime By Lawrence Smallman http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E8C356F9-E89F-4CD3-88B5-BBBDF9E085C1.htm Thursday 30 October 2003, 9:55 Makka Time, 6:55 GMT Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years; that means thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer. There are weapons of mass destruction all over Iraq and they were used this year. Iraqi children continue to find them every day. They have ruined the lives of just under 300,000 people during the last decade - and numbers will increase. The reason is simple. Two hundred tonnes of radioactive material were fired by invading US forces into buildings, homes, streets and gardens all over Baghdad. The material in question is depleted uranium (DU). Left over after natural uranium has been enriched, DU is 1.7 times denser than lead - effective in penetrating armoured objects such as tanks. After a DU-coated shell strikes, it goes straight through before exploding into a burning vapour which turns to dust. "Depleted uranium has a half life of 4.7 billion years; that means thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of thousands of years to come. This is what I call terrorism," says Dr Ahmad Hardan. As a special scientific advisor to the World Health Organisation, the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr Hardan is the man who documented the effects of depleted uranium in Iraq between 1991 and 2002. But this year's invasion and occupation has doubled his workload. Terrible history repeated "American forces admit to using over 300 tonnes of depleted uranium weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people", Dr Ahmad Hardan, scientific advisor to the World Health Organisation "This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tonnes more in Baghdad alone this April. I don't know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that." Hardan is particularly angry because he says there is no need for this type of weapon; US conventional weapons are quite capable of destroying tanks and buildings. "In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying." Leukaemia has already become the most common type of cancer in Iraq among all age groups, but is most prevalent in the under-15s. It has increased way above the percentage of population growth in every single province of Iraq without exception. Women as young as 35 are developing breast cancer. Sterility amongst men has increased ten-fold. Barely human But by far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved foetuses, barely human in appearance. Depleted uranium has caused severe deformities in babies There is no doubt that DU is to blame. "All children with congenital anomalies are subjected to karyotyping and chromosomal studies with complete genetic back-grounding and clinical assessment. Family and obstetrical histories are taken too. These international studies have produced ample evidence to show that DU has disastrous consequences." Not only are there 200 tonnes of uranium lying around in Baghdad, the containers which carried the ammunition were discarded. For months afterwards, many used them to carry water – others used them to sell milk publicly. It is already too late to reverse the effects. After his experience in Basra, Hardan says that within the next two years he expects to see significant rises in congenital cataracts, anopthalmia, microphthalmia, corneal opacities and coloboma of the iris, and that's just in people's eyes. Add to this foetal deformities, sterility in both sexes, an increase in miscarriages and premature births, congenital malformations, additional abnormal organs, hydrocephaly, anencephaly and delayed growth. Soaring cancer rates "I had hoped the lessons of using DU would have been learnt – especially as it is affecting American and British troops stationed in Iraq as we speak, they are not immune to its effects either." Many affected foetuses are so deformed they cannot survive If the experience of Basra is played out in the rest of the country, Iraq is looking at an increase of over 300% in all types of cancer over the next decade. The signs are already here in Baghdad - the effects are starting to be seen. Every form of cancer has jumped up at least 10% with the exception of bone tumours and skin cancer, which have only reason 2.6% and 9.3% respectively. Another tragic outcome is the delayed growth of children. Skeletal age comparisons between boys from southern Iraq and boys from Michigan show Iraqi males are 26 months behind in their development by the time they are 12-years-old, and girls are almost half a year behind. "The effects of ionising radiation on growth and development are especially significant in the prenatal child", adds Dr Hardan. "Embryonic development is especially affected." Action needed Those who have seen the effects of DU hope the US and its allies will never use these weapons again, but it seems no such decision is likely in the foreseeable future. "A world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq" Dr Ahmad Hardan, scientific advisor to the World Health Organisation "I arranged for a delegation from Japan's Hiroshima hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological related diseases we are likely to face over time," says Hardan. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they had decided not to come. "Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq." Secondly, Hardan believes, the authorities need to produce precise information about what was used and where, and there needs to be a clean-up operation and centres for specialist cancer treatment and radiation-related illnesses. Iraq only has two hospitals that specialise in DU-related illnesses, one in Basra and one in Mawsil; this needs to change and soon. "I'm fed up of delegations coming and weeping as I show them children dying before their eyes. I want action and not emotion. The crime has been committed and documented; but we must act now to save our children's future." http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/wmd.htm

 

ANOTHER WAR CRIME? IRAQI CITIES "HOT" WITH DEPLETED URANIUM Download pdf brochure format By Sara Flounders August 18, 2003--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. The original expose came from M.H.J. van den Berg of RISQ "the Review of International Social Questions" and was picked up by the Dutch media. 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 COVERUP 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. RESISTENCE: 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.  http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:X5a8gZYJ3_kJ:www.iacenter.org/depleted/du-warcrime.htm+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

 

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Lebanon to Present Files to UN on Israel's Use of DU Weapons Lebanon will inform the United Nations about Israel's use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons in south Lebanon, the National News Agency NNA reported on Friday. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud has instructed Lebanese permanent representative to the U.N. Salim Tadmali to contact with concerned U.N. institutes to present files on Israel's use of DU warheads in south Lebanon. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and set up a so-called security zone in south Lebanon in 1985 to allegedly protect its northern areas from attacks by Lebanese Muslim guerrillas. The Jewish state withdrew its occupation troops from Lebanon last May. Steffan de Mistura, the new personal representative of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for south Lebanon, said on Thursday that the world organization was very concerned about the issue. "We will make investigations on the ground in the south and compare results with those from Europe and Iraq," de Mistura said in Beirut. "If we find that the results were caused by DU weapons, we will make an announcement immediately as it would be a serious matter," he added. The Lebanese government was verifying reports that cases of cancer among south Lebanon's 1 million people have increased considerably possibly as a result of Israel's use of DU weapons. Blood cancer cases have trebled among the population of south Lebanon over the past four years, the official NNA said, quoting a report by a hospital in the southern city of Sidon. Israel has admitted limited use of DU weapons during its military occupation of south Lebanon. http://english.people.com.cn/english/200101/20/eng20010120_60955.html Middle East Conflict World War III http://www.apfn.org/apfn/WWIII.htm

 

More Links: A death sentence here and abroad - Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets by Leuren Moret http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml  A Two Part Warning to the Citizens for the World: "Do Not Use Depleted Uranium Munitions Again"  http://www.downwinders.org/rokke.htm  American Free Press four-part series on DU by Christopher Bollyn. Part I: “Depleted Uranium: U.S. Commits War Crime Against Iraq, Humanity,” www.americanfreepress.net/depleted_uranium.html; Part II: “Cancer Epidemic Caused by U.S. WMD: MD Says Depleted Uranium Definitively Linked,” www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html Another US war crime: the use of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/depu-m29.shtml  Article by Helen Caldicott http://www.savewarchildren.org/Text/caldicott.htm  At Hunters Point Shipyard, cyclotron smashed atoms where Lennar wants to build homes Dennis Kyne Bibliography: Miliary Use of Depleted Uranium  http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/dlit.html  Contamination of Persian Gulf War Veterans and Others by Depleted Uranium  http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/dfac.html Chris Busby on Uranium Contamination http://www.traprockpeace.org/chris_busby_08may04.html  Current Issues - Depleted Uranium Weapons in the Gulf Wars (1991, 2003) http://www.wise-uranium.org/dissgw.html  Dan Fahey Document Library  http://www.danfahey.com/  Death By Slow Burn: How America Nukes Its Own Troops  http://proliberty.com/observer/20030401.htm Department of Transportation rules against secret shipments of radioactive munitions by the Department of Defense June 8, 2005 Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action http://www.gzcenter.org/DOT%20rules%20against%20secret%20radioactive%20shipments.htm  Depleted Uranium from Proposed Enrichment Plant Risks Long-Term Violation of Health and Environmental Standards http://www.ieer.org/reports/du/LESprfeb05.html May Become Multi-Billion Dollar Taxpayer Liability Press release | Report [PDF, 398 kB] February 23, 2005 Depleted Uranium Webpage Links http://www.llrc.org/du/duframes.htm from the Low Level Radiation Campaign Depleted Uranium and Health (PDF file) Glen Lawrence, Ph.D. Essential information for soldiers and civilians who are at risk for uranium contamination in areas where DU munitions have been used. http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_health.pdf  Depleted Uranium: Cause and Effect http://criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium_cause_effect.htm  Depleted Uranium: Devastation at Home and Abroad by Leuren Moret http://www.savewarchildren.org/Text/Moret.htm  Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets  http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml by Leuren Moret Depleted Uranium Education Project  http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm   Depleted Uranium: The Real Dirty Bombs  http://www.rense.com/general56/dep.htm  By Christopher Bollyn Depleted Uranium: Trojan Horse of Nuclear War Leuren Moret http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm  Depleted Uranium Munitions - A Weapon of Mass Destruction  http://www.iraqjournal.org/journals/030330.html    Depleted Uranium Follow-Up Program Veterans Health Administration http://www.vethealth.cio.med.va.gov/DUProgram.htm  Depleted Uranium Kills : A Death By Slow Burn  http://www.barremore.net/depleted-uranium-kills.html  Depleted Uranium Special  http://www.writers-against-war.org/public/depleted-uranium.html [Graphic] Depleted Uranium - The Stone Unturned http://www.nuclearfiles.org/redocuments/1997/970328-plowshares.html Depleted Uranium Munitions  http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList136/3105566F330BC2ECC1256B66005F8843  Depleted Uranium Munitions: The Use of Radiological Weapons as a Violation of Human Rights http://hlp.home.igc.org/docs/depleteduranium.htm  Depleted Uranium  http://traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_hamburg03.html#veterans  'Depleted' Uranium and Health Glen Lawrence, Ph.D. http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_health.pdf   Depleted Uranium Coming Home To Roost - Dillon Bill In Connecticut Legislature  by Sepp Hasslberger http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/02/13/depleted_uranium_coming_home_to_roost_dillon_bill_in_conn_legislature.htm  Depleted Uranium from Proposed New Mexico Enrichment Plant May Become Multi-Billion Dollar Taxpayer Liability without a Hefty Financial Guarantee http://www.ieer.org/reports/du/LESprfeb05.html  Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act (Introduced in House) H.R. 2410 Rep. Jim McDermott http://criticalconcern.com/hr_2410.htm  Depleted Uranium Released During Canadian Plane Crash http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium.html  Depleted Uranium Situation Requires Action By President Bush and Prime Minister Blair - -Doug Rokke,Ph.D http://www.traprockpeace.org/doug_rokke_12july04.html  Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons fired by U.S. Navy on Washington coast Jan 7, 2003 http://www.nukewatch.com/du/20030107gz.html  Depleted Uranium:Wonder Weapon or Toxic Hazard? http://www.citizen-soldier.org/CS09-uranium.html  A description of DU http://www.balkansyndrome.com/ Despite Continued Threats, DU Expert Pushes On Dr. Asaf Durakovic, undeterred by death threats and harassment over the past year, continues his fight to break the "conspiracy of silence" surrounding depleted uranium. By Brian Ohkubo Covert, Independent Journalist Thursday, May. 12, 2005. http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/05/1714441.php  Discounted Casualties - the human cost of depleted uranium  http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/special/index2.html "The Doctors, the Depleted Uranium, and the Dying Children" http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_iraq.html German television production (available here as VHS video), shows the US has used radioactive bombs in the current war against Iraq. Dr. George Hill Speaks Out on Depleted Uranium Not all physicians agree with the Physician for Social Responsibility report on Depleted Uranium. http://www.criticalconcern.com/dr_hill-on-DU.htm  Read Dr. Hill's letter to the PSR (.doc)  Dr. George Hill Testimony on the SB6732DU Bill   http://www.criticalconcern.com/george_hill_testimony_on_du_bill.htm (New) Don’t drink the water by Dennis Kyne  http://www.sfbayview.com/033005/dontdrink033005.shtml  DU Death Toll Tops 11,000 http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_death_toll.html  DU - Health Concerns (Military) http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_library/health.shtml  DU Library: Depleted Uranium Information Page (Govt) http://lii.org/search?goto=024062 DU Munitions in Okinawa  http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/okinawa_e/index.html  DU Watch - a source for all kinds of DU information  http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/index.htm   DU - Hysteria or Real Health Threat? by Judy Blyth http://www.anawa.org.au/weapons/du.html Effects of Depleted Uranium by Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, India http://www.thepowerhour.com/articles/du_effects.htm  Evidence Mounts that Gulf War Syndrome is Related to the Use of Depleted Uranium Shells by NATO http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/kosovo/balkansyndrome010701.html  Exposing The Myth Of The ‘Casualty-Free War’: Gulf War Syndrome http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_04_02/EXPOSING_THE_MYTH_/exposing_the_myth_.html  Fact Sheet on Depleted Uranium U.S. Department of State  http://www.usembassy.hu/docs/uranium.htm   Former Head Of Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project Says Thousands Of Troops Are Sick And Dying From Illegal DU Use And Military's Failure To Admit Responsibility http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/31934.htm  German language DU Website http://www.uranmunition.de/   Gulf War Syndrome - Depleted Uranium  http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du.htm by American Gulf War Veterans The Gulf War Battlefield Still "Hot" with Depleted Uranium by Scott Peterson http://www.merip.org/mer/mer211/211_peterson.html  The Fabulous Factsheet File  http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/index.html Is uranium hazardous? What is plutonium? Find out here. Heads Roll At The Veterans Administration: Mushrooming Depleted Uranium (DU) Scandal Blamed http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_15334.shtml Health and Environmental Effects of 'Depleted' Uranium  Diane Hensel, Ph.D. http://www.traprockpeace.org/diane_henshel.html  Health hazards of depleted uranium munitions http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/policy/cur_du.htm  Horror of USA's depleted Uranium http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050429121615724  If Depleted Uranium is Safe, Let Them Prove It  Congressman Jim McDermott May 11, 2005 http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp050517.shtml  Immediate Action Required on Depleted Uranium (a primer for the beginner) By Doug Rokke, Ph.D. http://www.axisoflogic.com/cgi-bin/exec/view.pl?archive=137&num=16946  International Action Center http://www.iacenter.org/  International Depleted Uranium Study Team http://www.idust.net/   Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium   http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200410191947-1213-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia Japan may be Next Victim of Depleted Uranium in Iraq, Claims DU Expert  http://japan.indymedia.org/newswire/display/1317/index.php    Letter from Leuren Moret to Congressman McDermott http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm   Louisiana - 1st State to Pass DU Bill  http://www.criticalconcern.com/Louisiana_DU_Bill.htm Low Level Radiation Campaign http://www.llrc.org/ Researching the low level effects of ionising radiation  “Marin Depleted Uranium Resolution Heats Up ­ GI’s Will Come Home To A Slow Death,”  August 2004 Coastal Post Online. Carol Sterrit: www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01 Military Toxics Project http://www.miltoxproj.org/ National Gulf War Resource Centre http://www.ngwrc.org/Issues.cfm?NewsTopicID=8   Nationwide campaign against secret shipments of radioactive ammunition announced  Nov 21, 2003  http://www.gzcenter.org/NavyDU.htm Ode To Nuha - US Depleted Uranium Takes Another  http://www.rense.com/general57/urani.htm By Rana El-Khatib Our Tools of War, Turned Blindly Against Ourselves - Rob Nixon   http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i24/24b00701.htm  The Queen's Death Star - Depleted Uranium -Measured in British Atmosphere From Battlefields in the Middle East  Leuren Moret http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Depleted_Uranium_British.html new Radioactive Tank No. 9 comes limping home  by Bob Nichols http://www.sfbayview.com/110905/radioactivetank110905.shtml Radioactive Wounds of War http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082605A.shtml  Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq  http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html   Research Report Summaries on Depleted Uranium from 1974-1999, conducted at National Laboratories and military labs. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TAB%20L_Research%20Report%20Summaries Science of Science Fiction? Facts, Myths and Propaganda In The Debate Over Depleted Uranium Weapons http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/pdf/dumyths.pdf  Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y. demands that all veterans of Iraq get checked. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a former Army doctor and nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested the nine men at The News' request, concluded four of them "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops. http://www.nydailynews.com/04-05-2004/news/story/180644p-156921c.html  Soldier's new mission is exposing risk of depleted uranium http://www.postindependent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040815/VALLEYNEWS/108150002&rs=2 Glenwood Spring CO article on Dennis Kyne The "Dump Nuclear" Campaign to persuade the UK Government that they should drop this expensive, dangerous and outdated technology. http://www.dumpnuclear.org The Hazard Posed by Depleted Uranium Munitions  http://www.puaf.umd.edu/faculty/papers/fetter/sags-du.pdf    Heads roll at Veterans Administration Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed  http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml  Karen Parker: Fighting to stop the use of illegal weapons http://www.awakenedwoman.com/karen_parker.htm The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/ The Laka Foundation is a documentation and research centre on nuclear energy. It has a good online library section on depleted uranium http://www.laka.org/indexeng.html The National Online - Depleted Uranium - The Silver Bullet  http://www.tv.cbc.ca/national/pgminfo/du/index.html Nuclear Information and Resource Service & World Information Service on Energy  http://www.nirs.org/  The War Against Ourselves: An Interview with Major Doug Rokke  http://www.futurenet.org/25environmentandhealth/rokke.htm    Research Report Summaries on Depleted Uranium from 1974-1999, conducted at National Laboratories and military labs http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TAB%20L_Research%20Report%  Toxic ammo is tested in fish areas - U.S. Navy uses depleted uranium in coast waters; activists may go to court http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/103402_fife09.shtml?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=795   The Tail of a Bullet -  The Depleted Uranium Issue  Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/specials/uranium/index.html?s=lni  The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm like a growing number of Gulf War veterans, some of whom remain apparently healthy, he has fathered a child with devastating birth defects. http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html  Troops In Iraq Will Once Again Be Exposed To Deadly Chemicals Congressman Jim. McDermott  Mar 5, 2003 "I was in Iraq in 1991, and I was there again this year; and the evidence is overwhelming of the impact of what Iraq has suffered from depleted uranium and what we, the United States, are about to suffer." http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp030305b.shtml   The United States Used Depleted Uranium (DU) Weapons in Iraq www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=15&q=http://www.sumeria.net/politics/duweapons.html&e=747 Uranium Medical Research Centre http://www.umrc.net/ Current and recent developments, published research, conference proceedings, reports Uranium Wars: The Pentagon Steps Up its Use of Radioactive Munitions  http://www.cursor.org/stories/uranium.htm  US Military, President Out of Control -- What Does "Mildly Radioactive" Mean, Anyway? By Bob Nichols, Project Censored Award Winner http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_15814.shtml U.S. use of depleted uranium under fire - KING5 Video 11/11/04 http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_111104WABdepleteduraniumSW.49604608.html US says Pacific arms tests use depleted uranium http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/19387/story.htm  U.S. Radiation Sites WA http://www.prop1.org/prop1/radiated/wa0rept.htm  U.S. Army Training Video on Depleted Uranium Our military refuses to show this training film to our troops in Iraq http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3581.htm or http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1/DU-A28K.WMV  Use of DU: A Crime Against Humanity by Doug Rokke http://prop1.org/2000/du/00du/000413dr.htm Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Lingers as Health Concern http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0804-04.htm  WAC 246-233-010   General licenses -- Source material  http://www.leg.wa.gov/WAC/index.cfm?section=246-233-010&fuseaction=section  WAC 246-235-091   Manufacture and distribution of industrial products containing depleted uranium under general license  http://www.leg.wa.gov/WAC/index.cfm?section=246-235-091&fuseaction=section Warning of Toxic Aftermath from Uranium Munitions Veterans for Peace Workshop on DU (radioactive munitions), Boston, July 23, 2004 http://www.traprockpeace.org/vfp_du_july04/   http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0722-03.htm  Warning of Toxic Aftermath from Uranium Munitions http://www.truthout.com/docs_03/072303I.shtml  Warning of uranium contamination risks to NGO staff, Coalition forces, foreign contract personnel and civilians in Iraq  http://www.umrc.net/UMRC_bulletin_07_Feb_2004.asp  War's Littlest Victim http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-pfriendly/story/236934p-203326c.html  War's Unintended Effects: Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Lingers as Health Concern  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/iraq2002/133581_du04.html  Weapons of Mass Deception: What the Pentagon Doesn’t Want Us To Know About Depleted Uranium  http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/062903H.shtml   Weapons Dust Worries Iraqis http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1101-01.htm   Weapons of Self Destruction - Is Gulf War syndrome - possibly caused by Pentagon ammunition - taking its toll on G.I.'s in Iraq?  www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/041115roco04 What does the US know about DU?  -  Leuren Moret  http://www.traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf  What does depleted mean in depleted uranium (DU)? Secondly, is the DU in DU rounds (ammunition) considered naturally occurring radioactive material?  Health Physic Society.  http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q1281.html  What happened to the test tube paradigm? Dennis Kyne  http://www.sfbayview.com/020905/whathappened020905.shtml  WISE Uranium Project - Depleted Uranium  http://www.wise-uranium.org/indexd.html  WHO Blocked Depleted Uranium Study by Sepp Hasslberger http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/03/05/who_blocked_depleted_uranium_study.htm   Why are Depleted Uranium Munitions a Local Issue? October 16 at the Public Park across from the entrance to Naval Magazine Indian Island. Douglas Milholland, Port Townsend. http://www.criticalconcern.com/Why_are_Depleted_Uranium_Munitions_a_Local_Issue.htm Press Conference Saturday,  World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, Hamburg, Germany, October 16-19, 2004: www.worlduraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers/speakers.htm World Information Service on Energy http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/#DU   World is blind to real situation in Iraq: activists  OSAKA -- An Iraqi journalist and a Japanese human rights activist said the public has a poor idea of the situation in Iraq and warned of an impending health catastrophe as more Iraqis contract cancer from exposure to depleted uranium shells used by the U.S. and Britain. http://www.bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=12101 World Uranium Weapons Conference http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_hamburg03.html  * This means that it will go releasing ionizing radiation into the environment, essentially forever. After the Gulf War DU remained suspended in the air above Kuwait City for two years. http://www.criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium.htm   Has killing become part of the Pentagon “Press Policy”? 5/29/2006 3:00:00 PM GMT "Nobody has any idea how many Iraqis may have developed leukemia or fallen ill" From the few credible reports, from very few news agencies around the world that are keen on presenting truth, we know that Iraq is now descending into a black hole, thanks to the decadent, bloated, demon-possessed, Neo-Con followers, who might now be sitting on their easy chairs, cheering the death of over a hundred thousand innocent people. http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11301   National Association of Atomic Veterans, Inc non-profit organization http://www.NAAV.com EXTREME BIRTH DEFORMITIES http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU2.htm   The Truth about Depleted Uranium More information: http://www.infonature.org/english/cultural_issues/eng-depleted_uranium.htm http://thepowerhour.com/du.htm Flash animation: http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html http://www.amcmh.org/PagAMC/ciar/articulos/cr_fotos.htm DU is a waste product of the process that produces enriched uranium for use in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants. Much like natural uranium, it is both toxic and radioactive. Over a billion pounds of DU exists in the United States and must be safely stored or disposed of by the Department of Energy. With its half-life of 4.5 billion years, DU's radioactivity effectively lasts forever. DU is so abundant the government gives it away to arms manufacturers. Because it is extremely dense--1.7 times as dense as lead--when turned into a metal DU can be used to make a shell that easily penetrates steel. In addition it is pyrophoric--that is, when it strikes steel, heat from the friction causes it to burn. When DU burns, it spews tiny particles of poisonous and radioactive uranium oxide in aerosol form, which can then travel for miles in the wind. Humans can ingest or inhale the small particles. Even one particle, when lodged in a vital organ--which is most likely to happen from inhalation-- can cause illnesses from headaches to cancer. The Pentagon tested DU shells at various sites around the U.S. and used it in combat for the first time against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. It was very effective in destroying Iraqi tanks, as well as their occupants and anyone in the area. At least 600,000 pounds of DU and uranium dust was left around Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia by U.S. and British forces during that war. Although the U.S. government and military continue to minimize the environmental and health dangers from depleted- uranium weapons, even they have to admit these dangers exist. DU is also considered at least a contributing cause to the 130,000 reported cases of "Gulf War Syndrome." The chronic symptoms of this ailment range from sharp increases in cancers to memory loss, chronic pain, fatigue and birth defects in veterans' children. Dr. Mona Kammas is a professor of pathology at Baghdad University and director of a study of the environmental impact of U.S. aggression against Iraq. At the Gijon symposium, she reported on a paper that showed an almost five-fold increase in cancers, a more than three-fold increase in spontaneous abortions, and a nearly three-fold increase in congenital anomalies in a study group of those exposed to combat. The paper also reported on environmental damage due to the Pentagon's destruction of the water-supply and sanitation systems and the destruction of oil refineries and factories that used toxic chemicals in the production process. Iraqi researchers believe that the different relative frequency of various types of cancer now as compared with before 1990 in the Basra region was a significant indication of a major change, and that this pattern continuing long after the war indicated that DU's impact was long- lasting. Besides the contents listed below, the second edition of Metal of Dishonor has chapters reporting on a study from Iraq and from Bosnia, and a new chapter by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a physicist and medical doctor who examined U.S. troops hit by DU "friendly fire."  http://gaia.org.pt/pipermail/gaia-geral/2005-November/005603.html   The U.S. radiates civilians with depleted uranium http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=10745                     US Proving Grounds with DU Test Firing Ranges     DU Testing Amount of DU Ethan Allen Firing Range (Vermont) 1969 ­ 1973 4,500 kg Lake City Ammunition Plant (Missouri) until 1985 3,500 kg China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center (California) 10 years 11,300 kg NM Institute of Mining & Technology (New Mexico) since 1972 --- Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico)   100,000 kg Jefferson Proving Ground (Indiana) 1982 - 1988 69,000 kg Aberdeen Proving Ground (Maryland)   70,000 kg Eglin Air Force Base (Florida) - Gunnery Ballistic Facility  - High Explosive Test Area 1973 - 1978 at present 100,000 kg Nellis Air Force Base (Nevada) since 1982 27,800 kg Total (known) amount DU fired   386,100 kg More: http://www.laka.org/teksten/Vu/where-how-much-01/main.html Broadcast Exclusive: U.S. Soldiers Contaminated With Depleted Uranium Speak Out Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3       Watch 128k stream       Watch 256k stream http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/05/1356248 Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium Nation / World News http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml Depleted Uranium - A Hidden Looming Worldwide Calamity http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEN20060119&articleId=1754   DEPLETED URANIUM ETHICS OF THE SILVER BULLET http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/StudentWebPages/IPesic/ResearchPaper.htm Depleted Uranium Congressman Dennis Kucinich The United States must order an end to illegal use of depleted uranium munitions and lead an international effort to recover depleted uranium. We must promote environmental remediation. Also, we must develop a program to provide care and restitution for people suffering as a result of the United States' use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons production, nuclear testing, and uranium mining. More: http://www.kucinich.us/issues/depleted_uranium.php

 

A U.N. study names the five most serious environmental hot spots in Iraq. Working with Iraq to clean up contaminated sites throughout the country, The United Nations has released the findings of a study of environmental hot spots. There are five top areas of concern. The most seriously contaminated site found to date is an industrial metal plating facility south of Baghdad that is contaminated with numerous types of hazardous waste, including several tons of cyanide compounds. U.N. environmental officials have secured $900,000 for the cleanup and hope to use some of the funds for at least one of the other top priority spots. U.N. officials warn that the five locales identified in their report released Nov. 10 are likely the tip of the iceberg in terms of environmental hot spots. The country has a significant legacy of contaminated and derelict industrial and military sites, the report says. The report also states that destruction of the Iraqi military arsenal is creating new contamination and hazardous waste problems at scrap yards and munitions dumps that could be better managed through improved working practices. The U.N. estimates that $40 million would be necessary to address all the issues contained in its report. Unfortunately, this first report doesn't seem to address the problem of radioactive waste from US missiles and munitions carrying so-called depleted uranium, or DU. For more news on hazardous waste, in America and many parts of the world, check the daily headlines at wastenews.com http://www.podzy.com/podcasts/Arts?&offset=30 This needs more Research: John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to Depleted Uranium Dust researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of Depleted Uranium Dust on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY. According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing "in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers". Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization's chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report " on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust " was  also deliberately suppressed. The information released by the U.S. Dept. of Defense is not reliable, according to some sources even within the military. 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] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body." http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060503&articleId=2374 NUCLEAR POWER & WASTE http://web.archive.org/web/20000421110627/http://www.public.iastate.edu/~smevela/nuchome.html

 

DU NIGHTMARE The Last Outpost - DU Death For Next 4.5 Billion Years Diabetes And DU - Italian Embassy Coverup Continues US Uranium Bombing In Iraq Contaminates Europe The Insanity Of Depleted Uranium - Video DU - Top Indian Doctor Denied Visa To Meet Moret Depleted Uranium - The Perfect Monster Kills Quietly Elephant Talk CHLY 101.7FM Nanaimo, British Columbia: Depleted Uranium: The Gift That Keeps On Giving   My Video One Hour, Download In 15 Minute Segments   US Uranium Bombing In Iraq Contaminates Europe   Depleted Uranium For Dummies Radioactive US Tanks From Iraq Sit In Open In Kansas, Etc   Depleted Uranium In India, Spreading Worldwide   Depleted Uranium - US Lung Cancer Rates Soar Depleted Uranium - Diagnosed Lung Cancers Up 6X In 2006! Depleted Uranium Kills Indiscriminately US DU Covered UK/Europe From Iraq Shock And Awe! Is The Problem Weather - Or Is It War? DU Report From Gulf War 2 (pdf) Depleted Uranium - US Lung Cancer Rates Soar   CARD GIVEN BRITISH TROOPS IN IRAQ NOTE: THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE WEB PAGE HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN http://www.prorev.com/du.htm Yucca Mountain Nevada 5 MILLION DIE OF RADIATION POISONING.. http://www.apfn.org/APFN/5million.htm

Pentagon DU Death Star In Bush's Hometown Paper   Leuren Moret - Weapons To Die For   Depleted Uranium - The Health Debate   New DU Story About Los Alamos Nuclear Lab & DU   The Queen's Death Star   The US Military Is In DU Denial From The Pentagon Death Star To The University That Poisoned The World   Weapon Of Mass Destruction UNITED STATES: Expert: `Depleted uranium use is a war crime' Geographic Distribution of DOE Sites Storing MIN Depleted Uranium http://web.em.doe.gov/takstock/fig219.html Daughter of Soldier Contaminated with Depleted Uranium in Iraq Born with Deformities Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3       Watch 128k stream       Watch 256k stream       Read Transcript http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/1411222 Depleted uranium Recycling death http://www.prorev.com/du.htm Depleted Uranium as a Weapon of War by Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH More: http://www.iicph.org/docs/DU_Human_Rights_Tribunal.htm The health hazards of depleted uranium munitions-Part 1 (Full Report) http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/document.asp?tip=1&id=1431 WASTE LINK http://www.radwaste.org/  Environmental Justice at Yucca Mountain-Nevada An Analysis of the U.S. Department of Energy "Draft Environmental Impact Statement" For the Proposed Nuclear Waste Repository At Yucca Mountain http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/moret.html Depleted Uranium In India, Spreading Worldwide http://www.rense.com/general70/deple.htm Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and Environmental Commissioner in the City of Berkeley. She is featured in documentary films on depleted uranium: BEYOND TREASON (2005), BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND (2005), BAGDAD RAP(2004). They can be purchased by contacting her at < leurenmoret@yahoo.com

 

The Siting of Radioactive Waste Storage Facilities M. Ali Mansouri Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1730 CNTWM Report Rev. A (DRAFT) November 29, 1994 Key words: siting Note: This is a draft report and is not to be cited. Comments can be emailed to ali@nuc.berkeley.edu Introduction Experiences Problems Agreement Questions Bibliography Introduction The siting of radioactive waste storage facilities is an extremely complex and a nearly impossible process. In this country, we have found no real solutions to this growing dilemma. We continue to produce both low-level (LLW) and high-level (HLW) radioactive wastes, yet the parties responsible for siting appropriate facilities for these wastes have had little success. We will never find the perfect site for our radioactive wastes, but at some point, the stuff has to go somewhere. Collectively, we have a responsibility to find solutions for this problem. This is reflected in polls which show that the public overwhelmingly acknowledges that we cannot leave this problem for future generations. The notion of the perfect site is a paradox. For example, it is desirable to have sites in waste producing regions which are isolated and sparsely populated, but the states which have acceptable isolated regions produce little or no radioactive waste. There is also no perfect prescription for the process of siting facilities. Having strict inflexible guidelines will ultimately lead to failure. The process must be able to adapt to the uniqueness of each situation. The numerous factors involved in the siting process will be discussed later.   Experiences We will now discuss some of the experiences of siting storage facilities for radioactive wastes. Currently, power reactors store their spent fuel assemblies in water pools at the reactor sites. These pools are reaching full capacity at most reactors. The utilities which run the reactors expect the federal government to fulfill its promise to accept the spent fuel by 1998. This date however is not likely to be realized. Some utilities have taken the initiative to solve their storage shortage by utilizing on-site dry casks. The process to site dry casks was met with great political opposition in the latter cases of the six existing sites. Most utilities are not so receptive to the dry cask idea, because they don't want to pay for the maintenance of the long term storage of the fuel arguing that they have paid into the fund which the federal government has promised to use to accept the waste. It is worth mentioning that the money that the utilities have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund is a small fraction of the total cost that the federal government would incur for properly disposing the waste. There are currently two sites, Barnwell, SC and Richland, WA, which accept LLW, and Barnwell is expected to shutdown completely by 1996. The Low Level Waste Policy Act of 1980 (LLWPA) placed the responsibility of the disposal of LLW on the states. The federal government encouraged the states to form compacts of two or more states whereby the members of a compact would together site a facility in a host state. So far there have been no new facilities successfully sited among the compacts or in individual states. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was built to store the transuranic wastes generated by military facilities. The development of the plant was authorized in 1979 and was initially met warmly by local officials. However, some structural failures and changing public attitude in the state of New Mexico have prevented the plant from starting operation. The plant is not expected to start receiving waste until the end of this decade. Even then, WIPP will only store 20 percent of the total transuranic waste. For the storage of HLW which are mainly spent fuel assemblies, the current focus of the DOE is mainly on the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, and a much smaller effort is directed toward the siting of monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facilities. From the outset, the siting effort at Yucca Mountain has faced considerable opposition from the state of Nevada. The federal government chose the Yucca Mountain site over two others mainly because Yucca appeared to have the least political obstacles. There is little political and public opposition in the local vicinity of the Yucca Mountain site, but there is great opposition at the state level. The governor of Nevada has used his veto power under federal law to block the development of this site. This veto can be overridden by a majority vote of both houses of the U.S. Congress. With all the different political forces at work, it seems unlikely that this issue will be resolved until well into the next decade. Until a repository is successfully sited, the DOE's Office of Waste Negotiator is seeking volunteer sites for an MRS. The Mescalero tribe in New Mexico has been receptive to the construction of such a site contingent upon a proper economic compensation package. In fact, the Mescaleros claim that the DOE is stalling negotiations, and they have consequently begun discussions with the utility companies.   Problems So why has it been so difficult to site a storage facility? This is the big question which has no simple answer. First, there are too many stakeholders in the process with diverse interests. Secondly, there is very little trust between any of the involved parties. Furthermore, the public perceives radioactive waste storage facilities as a high risk. There are also questions of legitimacy of authority both on the political and scientific levels. Finally, a process must be developed to justly allocate the sites given that all communities would like a NIMBY quota of zero. All siting processes involve several groups of stakeholders. These groups include but are not limited to the federal government, state governments, local governments, local public, neighboring communities, nuclear industry, environmental groups, and native tribes. It is extremely difficult to come up with a solution which satisfies all the different groups. Each of these groups has shown considerable ability to prevent the successful siting of a facility. The state of Nevada and environmental groups have successfully hindered the federal government from developing the site at Yucca Mountain. Local governments often can use zoning laws to prevent state governments from siting facilities. In California, environmental groups along with local native tribes have used their influence with the current federal administration to prevent the state from siting a LLW facility at Ward Valley. Although each of the stakeholders can hedge the siting process, none of them if desired has the ability to solely succeed in siting a facility. There is very little trust among the various stakeholders. The local public has the upper hand in this issue, because it is the trust of this group that the other groups most seek. Surveys have shown that the public most trusts the environmental groups and least trusts the nuclear industry. Although they seek the trust of the public, the groups which attempt to site facilities often do not trust the public to be open-minded or to be capable of participating in siting decisions. There is a struggle for authority among the various stakeholders. This authority is both political and technical. The battle for political authority is mainly between the different levels of government with influence from the other players such as the public and the environmentalists. There are many more groups which claim technical authority. The battle for technical authority is manifested in the perception of risks by the public. The nuclear industry would like to exercise this authority to convince the public that the risks of a waste facility is minimal while the environmental groups would render as experts scientists who would testify that such risks are extremely high. With all the different groups claiming technical authority, it is difficult for the public to find out who is right and in turn to determine what the real risks are. Part of this problem can be attributed to the inherent complexities of our society and this age of ten second sound bites. Most people have very little time to place truth meters on every statement they encounter. Surveys show that the majority of the public feel that we should site storage facilities for radioactive wastes, but only a small minority are willing to site such facilities in their geographic area. Given the choice, all communities would prefer to have zero NIMBY's. There are situations however where the economic conditions of a community make it receptive to a NIMBY that comes with favorable compensation. It is impossible to fairly distribute all the radioactive waste among all communities which have benefited from the production of the waste. We would need to build a site in almost every town in this country. This would be quite inefficient since a certain degree of centralization is required in the development of any system of waste storage sites.   Agreement So far we have discussed some of the obstacle that face the process of siting of storage facilities for radioactive wastes. As we have already mentioned, there is no particular recipe which can be applied to all siting processes. There is however some degree of consensus among those who have studied this issue about ways to proceed in the development of certain aspects of the citing process. We will now discuss these points of agreement. The first thing that must be established in the siting process is that there is a clear need for a facility. The imminence of the need must also be established. In the HLW case, there is a need for an education process to clearly demonstrate that there is no more pool space for new spent fuel. Some environmental groups would argue that if all reactors permanently stopped operations, there would be no need for new space. To counter this, a parallel effort may be needed to justify the continued operation of reactors. Nevertheless, the fuel already in the pools along with the structural materials of reactors decommissioned in the future must ultimately go somewhere unless the reactors and their pools full of fuel are to permanently remain at their present sites. This notion must be made clear to all involved parties. It is generally agreed that sites should be selected on a voluntary basis. Any volunteer site must meet all technical requirements for the particular waste facility. In order to find volunteers, it is necessary to offer some form of compensation. Such compensation should in no way resemble a bribe. Most people would find bribes insulting especially if they initially perceive that a waste facility is a risk to the health of their children. A semblance of a bribe can only lead to further distrust by the public. In past siting experiences, citizen participation has been a part of the process. The role of the public in most cases has been an advisory one with no decision making power and little veto power. Siting agents usually hold hearings for the public long after all planning has been made. This is tantamount to sticking a pacifier in the mouth of a baby. Previous experiences have shown however that there is no pacifier large enough to fully occupy the mouth of the public. Instead of citizen participation, we must have citizen inclusion. The public must be involved in the process from the first stages and must have decision making powers. There must exist ongoing public outreach and education programs throughout the whole process. The siting agents must treat the public and their concerns with respect and must trust the public to be open- minded and capable of comprehending the fine details of the process. Any indication of secretiveness on the part of the siting agents diminishes the trust of the public. It is preferred that waste facility sites be centrally located with adequate access to transportation routes. It is also favorable to have one or a few high capacity sites as opposed to several small sites dispersed throughout the region of interest. Minimizing the number of sites allows for easier monitoring and maintenance of the total waste which must be monitored for thousands of years. Having centrally located sites minimizes the total time the waste spends in transport. In order to promote fairness, sites should be in regions which produce the most waste or reap the most benefits from the production of the waste. Opponents of the Yucca Mountain site often use this argument since Nevada has no nuclear power plants. It can also be argued that areas which produce high amounts of radioactive waste may have in place a culture which has come to have a low risk perception of radioactive waste. In South Carolina public opposition to radioactive waste is less than most other places, because the nuclear industry has been a part of the culture of many communities in that state for many decades. Another concept which must be stressed is waste minimization. This is applicable mostly to LLW which includes most of the liquid radioactive waste. It has been shown that as the cost of waste disposal increases, the rate of waste production decreases. Some system of economic disincentive may serve to induce waste producers to minimize their waste production.   Questions After reading the aforementioned desired properties of a radioactive waste site, one would think that such criteria are almost impossible to satisfy, and one would probably be right. A successful siting process is not limited to the satisfaction of these criteria, but without them, the process would almost certainly fail. Not only are the above requirements difficult to follow, but they also raise other questions which must be answered. The first thing that must be asked is whether or not there truly is a need for siting radioactive waste facilities and if so, how urgent is it? The average person certainly does not see radioactive waste lying around in the streets, so if there is a need, it must be made tangible. Is it absolutely necessary to have the HLW picked up by 1998? What would happen if nothing is done? If there is a need for storage facilities in the case of HLW's , should there be siting of a single repository or several MRS's, or should dry casks be placed at all power plants with the plants ultimately transforming themselves into waste storage facilities? The strong possibility of not finding enough or any suitable volunteer sites should also be considered. If volunteers are found and compensation is offered to the host communities, should compensation also be offered to neighboring communities? What are the rights of the neighboring communities? How far does a host community geographically extend? Since volunteerism is mainly induced by the poor economic conditions of a community, we will end up having facilities in areas where the public would most likely be in the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. This raises the question of fairness in the distribution of sites as a function of socioeconomic status. The future generations of a volunteer site must also be considered. What if future generations reject the waste facility? Would it be moved? Would compensation continue for several generations? Other questions that are that are difficult to answer include how a siting process would maximize trust among the stakeholders, and how would the process minimize the risk perception among the public. Aside from economic disincentives, how else could the regulating agencies promote waste minimization? These are questions that have not adequately been answered and must be addressed in order to solve the siting quagmire. The intent of this report was to lay out some of the experiences and characteristics of the process of siting storage facilities for radioactive wastes. There is no solution presented here, and only more questions are raised. We have however outlined the general points of agreement among the experts in this field. These points are derived from past experiences with siting, but they do not constitute a guideline for siting a facility. The only conclusion that this paper offers is that the siting process is extremely complex, and there is a need to address the shortcomings of the siting methods in use today.   Bibliography American Bar Association, "Siting of Hazardous Waste Facilities & Transport of Hazardous Substances," Presentations Delivered at the 13th Annual Conference of the Environment, 1984 Basset, G. et. al., "Attitudes and Perceptions Regarding On-Site Storage of High Level Nuclear Waste," To be published, 1994 Burns, M., Low-Level Radioactive Waste Regulation: Science, Politics, and Fear, Lewis Publishers, Chelsea, MI, 1989 Chatterji, M., Hazardous Materials Disposal, Gower Publishing, Brookfiled, VT, 1987   English, M., Siting Low-Level Radioactive Disposal Facilities: The Public Policy Dilemma, Quorum Books, New York, 1992 Gerard, M., "Fear and Loathing in The Siting of Hazardous and Radioactive Waste Facilities: A Comprehensive Approach to a Misperceived Crisis," Tulane Law Review, Vol. 68, No. 5, p. 1047, 1994 Kraft M., & Clary, B., "Citizen Participation and the Nimby Syndrome," The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 2, p.299, 1991 Kunreuther, H. et al., "Siting Noxious Facilities: A Test of the Facility Siting Credo," Risk Analysis, Vol. 13, No. 3, p. 301, 1993 Kunreuther, H. et al., "Siting Hazardous Facilities: Lessons from Europe & America," Proceedings of an International Conference on Energy, Environment, and the Economy: Asian Perspectives, Taipei, Taiwan, 1994 Lester, J. & Bowman, A., The Politics of Hazardous Waste Management, Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1983 Portney, K., Siting Hazardous Waste Treatment Facilities: The Nimby Syndrome, Auburn House, New York, 1991 Richards, M., "Siting Industrial Facilities: Lessons from the Social Science Literature," A Review Paper Prepared for the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness, 1992 Tsoulfadinis, N. & Chochran, R., "Radioactive Waste Management," Nuclear Technology, Vol. 93, p.263, 1991 http://web.archive.org/web/20001203095200/http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc130hwR24b.html

 

Air Force Col: Bush, Cheney, NeoCONs TREASONous US Air Force Col Robert Bowman: “I want to start with a scary thought: Can you imagine what would have happened if George W. Bush had been President during the Cuban missile Crisis” “You know our freedoms are not under attack from the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Bathist Party. They’re under attack by the likes of John Ashcroft. They’re trampled by Donald Rumsfeld, they’re disdained by Dick Cheney, and they’re not even understood by George W. Bush.” http://benfrank.net/blog/2005/09/18/treason/ Col Bowman’s speech Audio: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/audio/col_bowman-treason.mp3 Col Bowman’s speech Video: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/DU_treason.htm Depleted Uranium Weapons Kill Us All http://www.brumm.com/antiwar/mar15/026.html Du Exhibit draws hundreds in Washington, DC on September 24, 2005 The exhibit drew hundreds - educating activists on the illegal and inhumane use of uranium weapons by the US in Iraq and elsewhere. The exhibit was a national collaboration of Traprock Peace Center, DC Antiwar Network, Carlisle Peace College (PA), and Blomington Peace Action Coalition (IN), Veterans for Peace and the DU Media Campaign (NY State - they don't have a website yet so we've linked to a great program they organized). Please advise of additions to this list. Photos: http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_092405/ "The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children" http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_children.html   If this chemical warfare keeps up will we have people like this movie? This maybe a Sci/Fi, but so was the movie 1984 The Backstory - The mutants have a story. Yes, they're people too, you see. Their families were the residents of the area back when the U.S. was doing nuclear tests in the desert, and they refused to leave their homes. That's why they're attacking ... for revenge. Military fears public reaction Protection test at Nevada Nuclear Test Site http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/us_e/000411.html Death By Slow Burn - How America Nukes Its Own Troops What 'Support Our Troops' Really Means By Amy Worthington The Idaho Observer 4-16-3 On March 30, an AP photo featured an American pro-war activist holding a sign: "Nuke the evil scum, it worked in 1945!" That's exactly what George Bush has done. America's mega-billion dollar war in Iraq has been indeed a NUCLEAR WAR. Bush-Cheney have delivered upon 17 million Iraqis tons of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, a "liberation" gift that will keep on giving. Depleted uranium is a component of toxic nuclear waste, usually stored at secure sites. Handlers need radiation protection gear. Over a decade ago, war-makers decided to incorporate this lethal waste into much of the Pentagon's weaponry. Navy ships carrying Phalanx rapid fire guns are capable of firing thousands of DU rounds per minute.1 Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. ships and subs are DU-tipped.2 The M1 Abrams tanks are armored with DU.3 These and British Challenger II tanks are tightly packed with DU shells, which continually irradiate troops in or near them.4 The A-10 "tank buster" aircraft fires DU shells at machines and people on the battlefield.5 DU munitions are classified by a United Nations resolution as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Their use breaches all international laws, treaties and conventions forbidding poisoned weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering. Ironically, support for our troops will extend well beyond the war in Iraq. Americans will be supporting Gulf War II veterans for years as they slowly and painfully succumb to radiation poisoning. U.S and British troops deployed to the area are the walking dead. Humans and animals, friends and foes in the fallout zone are destined to a long downhill spiral of chronic illness and disability. Kidney dysfunction, lung damage, bloody stools, extreme fatigue, joint pain, unsteady gait, memory loss and rashes and, ultimately, cancer and premature death await those exposed to DU. Award-winning journalist Will Thomas wrote: "As the last Gulf conflict so savagely demonstrated, GI immune systems reeling from multiple doses of experimental vaccines offer little defense against further exposure to chemical weapons, industrial toxins, stress, caffeine, insect repellent and radiation leftover from the last war. This is a war even the victors will lose."6 When a DU shell is fired, it ignites upon impact. Uranium, plus traces of plutonium and americium, vaporize into tiny, ceramic particles of radioactive dust. Once inhaled, uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system according to British radiation expert Roger Coghill.7 The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney failure within days.8 Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing. In the first two weeks of combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds.9 Millions of DU tank rounds liter the terrain. Cleanup is impossible because there is no place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris. Bush Sr.'s Gulf War I was also a nuclear war. 320 tons of depleted uranium were used against Iraq in 1991.10 A 1998 report by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances confirms that inhaling DU causes symptoms identical to those claimed by many sick vets with Gulf War Syndrome.11 The Gulf War Veterans Association reports that at least 300,000 Gulf War I vets have now developed incapacitating illnesses.12 To date, 209,000 vets have filed claims for disability benefits based on service-connected injuries and illnesses from combat in that war.13 Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, is a former army medical expert. He told nuclear scientists in Paris last year that tens of thousands of sick British and American soldiers are now dying from radiation they encountered during Gulf War I. He found that 62 percent of sick vets tested have uranium isotopes in their organs, bones, brains and urine.14 Laboratories in Switzerland and Finland corroborated his findings. In other studies, some sick vets were found to be expressing uranium in even their semen. Their sexual partners often complained of a burning sensation during intercourse, followed by their own debilitating illnesses.15 Nothing compares to the astronomical cancer rates and birth defects suffered by the Iraqi people who have endured vicious nuclear chastisement for years.16 U.S. air attacks against Iraq since 1993 have undoubtedly employed nuclear munitions. Pictures of grotesquely deformed Iraqi infants born since 1991 are overwhelming.17 Like those born to Gulf War I vets, many babies born to troops now in Iraq will also be afflicted with hideous deformities, neurological damage and/or blood and respiratory disorders.18 As an Army health physicist, Dr. Doug Rokke was dispatched to the Middle East to salvage DU-contaminated tanks after Gulf War I. His Geiger counters revealed that the war zones of Iraq and Kuwait were contaminated with up to 300 millirems an hour in beta and gamma radiation plus thousands to millions of counts per minute in alpha radiation. Rokke recently told the media: "The whole area is still trashed. It is hotter than heck over there still. This stuff doesn't go away."19 DU remains "hot" for 4.5 billion years. Radiation expert Dr. Helen Caldicott confirms that the dust-laden winds of DU-contaminated war zones "will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time."20 The murderous dust storms which ensnared coalition troops during the first few days of the current invasion are sure to have significant health consequences. Rokke and his clean-up team were issued only flimsy dust masks for their dangerous work. Of the 100 people on Rokke's decontamination team, 30 have already "dropped dead." Rokke himself is ill with radiation damage to lungs and kidneys. He has brain lesions, skin pustules, chronic fatigue, continual wheezing and painful fibromyalgia. Rokke warns that anyone exposed to DU should have adequate respiratory protection and special coveralls to protect their clothing because, he says, you can't get uranium particles off your clothing. The U.S. military insists that DU on the battlefield is not a problem. Colonel James Naughton of the U.S. Army Material Command recently told the BBC that complaints about DU "had no medical basis."21 The military's own documents belie this. A 1993 Pentagon document warned that "when soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk."22 A U.S. Army training manual requires anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection.23 The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."24 The Institute also stated that, if the troops were to realize what they had been exposed to, "the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive."25 For pragmatic reasons, DOD chooses to lie and deny. Dr. Rokke confirms that the Pentagon lies about DU dangers and is criminally negligent for neglecting medical attention needed by DU-contaminated vets. He predicts that the numbers of American troops to be sickened by DU from Gulf War II will be staggering.26 As they gradually sicken and suffer a slow burn to their graves, the Pentagon will, as it did after Gulf War I, deny that their misery and death is a result of their tour in Iraq. Dr. Rokke's candor has cost him his career. Likewise, Dr. Durakovic's radiation studies on Gulf War I vets were not popular with U.S. officials. Dr. Durakovic was reportedly told his life was in danger if he continued his research. He left the U.S. to continue his research abroad.27 Naive young coalition soldiers now in Iraq are likely unaware of how deadly their battlefield environment is. Gulf War I troops were kept in ignorance. Soldiers handled DU fragments and some wore these lethal nuggets around their necks. A DU projectile emits more radiation in five hours than allowed in an entire year under civilian radiation exposure standards. "We didn't know any better," Kris Kornkven told Nation magazine. "We didn't find out until long after we were home that there even was such a thing as DU."28 George Bush's ongoing war in Afghanistan is also a nuclear war. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. announced it would stockpile tactical nuclear weapons including small neutron bombs, nuclear mines and shells suited to commando warfare in Afghanistan.29 In late September, 2001, Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. would use tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan while Putin would employ nuclear weapons against the Chechnyans.30 Describing the Pentagon's B-61-11 burrowing nuke bomb, George Smith writes in the Village Voice: "Built ram tough with a heavy metal casing for smashing through the earth and concrete, the B-61 explodes with the force of an estimated 340,000 tons of TNT. It is lots of bang for the buck, literally two apocalypse bombs in one, a boosted plutonium firecracker called the primary and a heavy hydrogen secondary for that good old-fashioned H-bomb fireball."31 Drought-stricken Afghanistan's underground water supply is now contaminated by these nuclear weapons.32 Experts with the Uranium Medical Research Center report that urine samples of Afghanis show the highest level of uranium ever recorded in a civilian population. Afghani soldiers and civilians are reported to have died after suffering intractable vomiting, severe respiratory problems, internal bleeding and other symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning. Dead birds still perched in trees are found partially melted with blood oozing from their mouths.33 Afghanistan's new president, Hamid Karzai, is a puppet installed by Washington. Under the protection of American soldiers, Karzai's regime is setting a new record for opium production. Both UN and U.S. reports confirm that the huge Afghani opium harvest of 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer.34 Thanks to nuclear weapons, Afghanistan is now safe for the Bush-Cheney narcotics industry.35 ABC News asserts that keeping the "peace" in Afghanistan will require decades of allied occupation.36 For years to come, "peacekeepers" will be eating, drinking and breathing the "hot" carcinogenic pollution they have helped the Pentagon inflict upon that nation for organized crime. As governor of Arkansas during the Iran-Contra era, Bill Clinton laundered $multi-millions in cocaine profits for then vice-president George Bush Sr.37 As a partner in the Bush family's notorious crime machine, President Clinton committed U.S. troops to NATO's campaign in the Balkans, a prime heroin production and trans-shipment area. DOD's campaign to control and reorganize the drug trade there for the Bush mafia was yet another nuclear project. For years, the U.S. and NATO fired DU missiles, bullets and shells across the Balkans, nuking the peoples of Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. As DU munitions were slammed into chemical plants, the environment became hideously toxic, also endangering the peoples of Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary. By 1999, UN investigators reported that an estimated 12 tons of DU had caused irreparable damage to the Yugoslavian environment, with agriculture, livestock and air water, and public health all profoundly damaged.38 Scientists confirm that citizens of the Balkans are excreting uranium in their urine.39 In 2001, a Yugoslavian pathologist reported that hundreds of Bosnians have died of cancer from NATO's DU bombardment.40 Many NATO peacekeepers in the Balkans now suffer ill health. Their leukemias, cancers and other maladies are dubbed the "Balkans Syndrome." Richard Coghill predicts that DU weapons used in Balkans campaign will result in at least 10,000 cases of fatal cancer.41 U.S. citizens at home are also paying a heavy price for criminal militarism gone mad. DOD is a pollution monster. The General Accounting Office (GAO) found 9,181 dangerous military sites in USA that will require $billions to rehabilitate. The GAO reports that DOD has been both slothful and deceitful in its clean-up obligations.42 The Pentagon is now pressing Congress to exempt it from all environmental laws so that it may pollute and poison free from liability.43 The Navy uses prime fishing grounds off the coast of Washington state to test fire DU ammunition. In January, Washington State Rep. Jim McDermott chastised the Navy: "On one hand you have required soldiers to have DU safety training and to wear protective gear when handling DU...and submarines must stay clear of DU-contaminated waters. These policies indicate there is cause for concern....On the other hand the Department of Defense has repeatedly denied that DU poses any danger whatsoever. There has been no remorse about leaving tons of DU equipment in the soil in foreign countries, and there appears to be no remorse about leaving it in the waters of your own country."44 DU has been used in military practice maneuvers in Indiana, Florida, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Maryland and Puerto Rico. After the Navy tested DU weaponry on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, one third of the island's population developed serious illness. Many people show high levels of uranium in their bodies. Hundreds have filed a class action suit against the Navy for $100 million, claiming DU contamination has caused widespread cancers.45 The Navy's Fallon Naval Air Station near Fallon, Nevada, is a quagmire of 26 toxic waste sites. It is also a target practice zone for DU bombs and missiles. Area residents report bizarre illnesses, including 17 children who have contracted leukemia within five years. A survey of groundwater in the Fallon area showed nearly half of area wells are contaminated with radioactive materials.46 The materials for DU weaponry have been processed mainly at three nuclear plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, where workers handling uranium contaminated with plutonium have suffered for decades with cancers and debilitating maladies similar to Gulf War Syndrome.47 Emboldened by power-grabbing successes made possible by his administration's devious 9-11 project, President Bush asserts that the U.S. has the right to attack any nation it deems a potential threat. He told West Point in 2002, "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."48 Thus, it is certain that Bush-Cheney future pre-emptive nuclear wars are lined up like idling jetson a runway. Both Cheney's Halliburton Corp. and the Bush family's Carlyle Group are profiteers in U.S. defense contracts, so endless war is just good business.49 The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon will create special nuclear weapons for use on North Korea's underground nuclear facilities.50 Next August, U.S. war makers will meet to consolidate plans for a new generation of "mini," "micro" and "tiny" nuclear bombs and bunker busters. These will be added to the U.S. arsenal perhaps for use against non-nuclear third-world nations such as Iran, Syria, Lebanon.51 The solution? Americans must stop electing ruthless criminals to rule this nation. We must convince fellow citizens that villains like Saddam Hussein are made in the U.S. as rationale for endless corporate war profits. Saddam was placed in power by the CIA.52 For years U.S. government agencies, under auspices of George Bush Sr., supplied him with chemical and biological weapons.53 Our national nuclear laboratories, along with Unisys, Dupont and Hewlett-Packard, sold Saddam materials for his nuclear program.54 Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton in the late 90s when its subsidiaries signed $73 million in new contracts to further supply Saddam.55 The wicked villain of Iraq was nurtured for decades as a cash-cow by U.S. military-industrial piranhas. If America truly supports its troops, it must stop sending them into nuclear holocaust for the enrichment of thugs. Time is running out. If the DU-maniacs at the Pentagon and their coven of nuclear arms peddlers are not harnessed, America will have no able-bodied fighting forces left. All people of the earth will become grossly ill, hideously deformed and short- lived. We must succeed in the critical imperative to face reality and act decisively. Should we fail, there will be no place to hide from Bush-Cheney's merciless nuclear orgies yet to come or from the inevitable nuclear retaliation these orgies will surely breed. Endnotes 1."DOD Launches Depleted Uranium Training," Linda Kozaryn, American Forces Press Service, 8-13-99. 2."Nukes of the Gulf War,"John Shirley, Zess@aol.com. See this article in archives at www.gulfwarvets.com . 3. BBC News, "US To Use Depleted Uranium," March 18, 2003; U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: "Early Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams," 1-2-92. 4."Nukes of the Gulf War," op. cit. 5. Ibid. 6. "Invading Hiroshima," William Thomas, 2-4-2003, www.willthomas.net 7. "US Shells Leave Lethal Legacy," Toronto Star, July 31, 1999; also "Radiation Tests for Peacekeepers in the Balkans Exposed to Depleted Uranium," www.telegraph.co.uk, 12-31-02. 8. "Depleted Uranium May Stop Kidneys In Days," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.com, 3-12-02; also "Uranium Weapons Too Hot to Handle," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.co.uk, 6-9-99. 9. "Navy Seeks Cash for More Tomahawks," David Rennie in Washington, Telegraph Group Limited, 1-4-03, news.telegraph.co.uk . 10. "Going Nuclear in Iraq--DU Cancers Mount Daily," Ramzi Kysia, CounterPunch.org, 12-31-01. 11."Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01, www.guardianlimited.co.uk . 12. "Gulf War Illnesses Affect 300,000 Vets," Ellen Tomson, Pioneer Press, www.pioneerplanet.com . See also American Gulf War Veterans Association at www.gulfwarvets.com . 13. "2 of Every 5 Gulf War Vets Are On Disability: 209,000 Make VA Claims," World Net Daily, 1-28-03, WorldNetDaily.com. 14. "Research on Sick Gulf Vets Revisited, "New York Times, 1-29-01; "Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, The Sunday Times (UK) 9-3-02. 15. "Catastrophe: Ill Gulf Vets Contaminated Partners With DU," The Halifax Herald Limited, Clare Mellor, 2-09-01. This article is available in archives at www.rense.com . 16. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02; "US Depleted Uranium Yields Chamber of Horrors in Southern Iraq, Andy Kershaw, The Independent (London) 12-4-01. 17. "The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf War Region with Special References to Iraq," Ross Mirkarimi, The Arms Control Research Centre, May 1992. See also Gulf War Syndrome Birth Defects in Iraq at http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html . 18. "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Has Our Country Abandoned Them?," Life Magazine, November 1995; "Birth Defects Killing Gulf War Babies," Los Angeles Times, 11-14-94; "Depleted Uranium, The Lingering Poison," Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 6-7-99. 19. "Depleted Uranium, A Killer Disaster," Travis Dunn, Disaster News.net, 12-29-02. 20. San Francisco Chronicle, 10-10-02. 21. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03. 22. "Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01. 23. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02. 24. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03. 25. US Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report, June 1995. 26. "Pentagon Depleted Uranium No Health Risk," Dr. Doug Rokke, 3-15-03; also "The Terrible, Tragic Toll of Depleted Uranium," Address by Dr. Rokke before congressional leaders in Washington, D.C.,12-30-02; also "Gulf War Casualties," Dr. Doug Rokke, www.traprockpeace.org . 9-30-02. 27."Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Sunday Times (UK), Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, 9-3-00. 28. "The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet: An Investigative Report," Bill Mesler, The Nation, 5-28-99, see www.thenation.com/issue/961021/1021mesl.htm . 29. "Tactical Nukes Deployed In Afghanistan," World Net Daily, 10-7-01. 30. Ibid. 31. "The B-61 Bomb,The Burrowing Nuke" George Smith,VillageVoice.com 12-29-02.; also "Bunker-busting US Tactical Nuclear Bombs, Nowhere to Hide," Kennedy Grey, Wired.com, 10-9-01. 32."Perpetual Death From America," Mohammed Daud Miraki, Afghan-American Interviews, 2-24-03; also "Dying of Thirst," Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 11-17-2001. 33. Ibid. 34. "Afghanistan Displaces Myanmar as Top Heroin Producer," Agence France-Presse, 3-01-03. This article is at www.copvcia.com .;also "Opium Trade Flourishing In the `New Afghanistan,'" Reuters, 3-3-03. 35. "The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire," Michael C. Ruppert, Nexus Magazine, February-March 2000; The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill & Co., revised edition due May 2003; Drugging of America, Rodney Stich, Diablo Western Press, 1999; "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms," Bob Djurdjevic, Truth In Media, April 2000, www.truthinmedia.org . 36. ABC News, February 27, 2003. 37. Compromised, Clinton Bush and the CIA, Terry Reed and John Cummings, S.P.I. Books, 1994; The Clinton Chronicles and The Mena Cover-up, Citizens for Honest Government, 1996; "The Crimes of Mena, Grey Money," Ozark Gazette, 1995 (see www.copvcia.com .) 38. "Damage to Yugoslav Environment is Immense, Says a UN Report," Bob Djurdjevic, 7-4-99, truthinmedia.org. This report was submitted to the UN Security Council on June 9, 1999; also, "New Depleted Uranium Study Shows Clear Damage," BBC News,8-28-99; also "NATO Issued Warning About Toxic Ammo," Associated Press, 01-08-01. 39. CounterPunch.org, 12-28-01. 40. "Hundreds Died of Cancer After DU Bombing--Doctor," Reuters, 1-13-01. 41."Depleted Uranium Threatens Balkan Cancer Epidemic," BBC News, 7-30-99. 42. "Many Defense Sites Still Hazardous," Associated Press, 9-24-02; also Old US Weapons Called Hidden Danger, Los Angeles Times, 11-25-02. 43. "Pentagon Seeks Freedom to Pollute Land, Air and Sea," Andrew Gumbel in L.A., 3-13-03, Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. 44. "Radioactive DU Ammo Is Tested in Fish Areas," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-11-03; Letter from Rep. McDermott to Department of the Navy: see "Navy Fired DU Rounds Into Waters Off Coast of Washington," 1-20-03, rense.com. 45."Cancer Rates Soar From US Military Use of DU On `Enchanted Island,'" www.telegraph.co.uk,  2-5-01; also "Navy Shells With Depleted Uranium Fired in Puerto Rico," Fox News Online, 5-28-99. 46. "The Fallon, NV Cancer Cluster And a US Navy Bombing," Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch.org, 8-10-02. 47. "DU Shells Are Made of A Potentially Lethal Cocktail of Nuclear Waste," Jonathon Carr-Brown, www.sunday-times.co.uk , 1-22-01. 48. "Preventative War Sets Perilous Precedent," Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers, 3-20-03. 49. PIGS at the Trough, Arriana Huffington, Random House, 2003 (New York Times best seller.); also "The Best Enemies Money Can Buy, >From Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden Insider Connections and the Bush Family's Partnership With Killers of Americans;" Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness,10-10-01; also "Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group Gets Fat on War and Conflict," Jamie Doward, The Observer (UK), 3-25-03; also "Halliburton Wins Contract for Iraq Oil Firefighting, Reuters, 3-7-03; also "Cashing In-Fortunes in Profits Await Bush Circle After Iraq War, Andrew Gumbel, The Independent (London) 9-15-02; also "War Could Be Big Business for Halliburton," Reuters, 3-23-03. 50. "Pentagon Seeks a Nuclear Digger," Washington Post, March 10, 2003. 51. "Remember: Bush Planed Iraq War Before Taking Office," Neil Mackay, The Sunday Herald (UK) 3-27-03; also "US Mini-Nukes Alarm Scientists," The Guardian (UK) 4-18-01; also "US Nuclear First-Strike Plan--It Keeps Getting Scarier, Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review, 2-24-03. 52. Wall Street Journal, 8-16-90: The CIA supported the Baath Party and installed Hussein as Iraqi dictator in 1968. 53. "United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans," Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 1992, 1994; "U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup," Washington Post, 12-30-02. 54. "US Government, 24 US Corps Illegally Helped Iraq Build Its WMD," Hugh Williamson in Berlin, Financial Times, 12-19-02; "Full List of US Weapons Suppliers To Iraq," Anu de Monterice, coachanu@earthlink.net , 12-19-02. 55. Huffington, op. cit. Amy Worthington is a reporter for The Idaho Observer Observer@coldreams.com http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Health&Medicine/Doc-Health&Medicine-DepletedUraniumSickness/DUIsPoisoningEverything.htm 7/18/2006 3:30:00 PM Depleted uranium at JPG on meeting agenda for tonight Peggy Vlerebome Courier Staff Writer Depleted uranium can cause genetic mutations by attaching itself to the DNA in cells, which can lead to diseases such as cancer, an Arizona biochemist reported in a study published in May. Her study is of interest locally to Save the Valley because of the tons of depleted uranium the Army left behind at Jefferson Proving Ground after 10 years of testing munitions containing it. “We’ve been saying that for years,” said Richard Hill, president of Save the Valley and co-chairman of the JPG Restoration Advisory Board, which for years devoted most of its quarterly meetings to discussing depleted uranium and what the Army is going to do about it. The study findings probably are something concerned residents will want to bring up tonight when the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel has a listening session in Madison. It will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library. The session was contemplated long before the new study was published. The commission, which is made up of three administrative judges, will be in the area for a prehearing conference to set the final details for a public hearing on the Army’s proposal for how to proceed with decommissioning JPG. Save the Valley has been granted status to participate in the public hearing, whose date and location have not been set. The listening session is for anyone who is not a participant but who has concerns about depleted uranium at JPG, Hill said. The biochemist who published the study has said in interviews that she doesn’t want the public to panic over the study findings. Nonetheless, Save the Valley’s experts are taking a close look at the study, which was published in two scientific journals, Hill said. Depleted uranium is what is left over after uranium is processed for such uses as nuclear power plants. Uranium is found naturally in soil, and large deposits of it are mined for commercial use. Depleted uranium is more concentrated but less radioactive than what is taken out, Hill said. Depleted uranium is a heavy metal and is toxic as well as radioactive. Health problems caused by depleted uranium have long been the topics of study, but the new study is the first to say that regardless of DU’s toxicity or radioactivity, it can cause serious health problems such as cancer by altering the DNA. Depleted uranium stopped being a topic at the JPG Restoration Advisory Board meetings when Hill and the other co-chairman, Paul Cloud, agreed that depleted uranium had never been intended to be a topic of discussion by restoration advisory boards. The government set up local advisory boards when it embarked on massive military base closures. Cloud is a civilian who is the Army’s environmental coordinator for Jefferson Proving Ground. Another new study might pertain to Jefferson Proving Ground as well. It concludes that fires in forests where depleted uranium is present can cause the DU to be carried in the air. The study was done in another state after a wildfire. The study concluded, however, that only small amounts of depleted uranium are dispersed by fires. The study said the dispersal of DU can happen whether a fire is a wildfire or a controlled-burn conducted for forest management. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducts controlled burns each spring at JPG. Save the Valley wants the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to require the Army to include air tests as part of its data-gathering that will go into whatever plan is eventually approved for decommissioning JPG. The Army had to have a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to possess radioactive material at JPG, which was a munitions testing site. For the last 10 years JPG was in operation, from 1984 to 1994, munitions containing DU were tested there. As a heavy metal, depleted uranium is more dense than lead, and so it has both offensive and defensive uses for the U.S. military. Cladding a missile with DU can enable it to bore right through an enemy’s tanks and reinforced bunkers. Put on the outside of our own tanks can make them impenetrable by enemy weapons. There have been concern, however, around the world about depleted uranium and the health of soldiers and civilians exposed to DU in reinforced tanks that get hit by enemy fire or exposed to the depleted uranium left behind. http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=31145&TM=57803.59 7/19/2006 3:00:00 PM Email this article • Print this article Huntington wants depleted uranium testing extended Peggy Vlerebome Courier Staff Writer Five years of collecting data on depleted uranium would not be nearly long enough before the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission decides whether to allow the Army to decommission Jefferson Proving Ground, Mayor Al Huntington said in a letter Tuesday to the federal agency. “Protection against airborne and surface water migration of potential hazardous chemicals must be assured by expanding the testing period to a minimum of 25 years and expanding the JPG DU testing area with more monitoring wells to the west and southwest,” Huntington wrote. “This concern for human safety is supported by a study at Northern Arizona University which finds that depleted uranium can cause genetic mutations.” His letter was read by city official Betsey Vonderheide at a listening session conducted in Madison by a three-member panel of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which is part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The three-member panel was in Madison primarily for a conference today with attorneys from the NRC staff, the Army and Save the Valley environmental organization to talk about issues Save the Valley has raised in challenging the Army’s request to be given five years to collect data before it seeks decommissioning of JPG. Munitions containing depleted uranium were tested at JPG between 1984 and 1994. The conference today was at City Hall and was open to the public to observe but not participate. The panel will be back in Madison for a public hearing on whichever issues are approved for consideration. The date has not been set. Eighteen people attended the half-hour listening session at the Madison-Jefferson County Public Library. At least half of them are involved in the issue, representing Save the Valley, the Army, the NRC staff and the contractors who work for the Army doing monitoring and studies. The Army had to have an NRC license in order to use depleted uranium at the testing site. Depleted uranium is left over after uranium is processed such as for nuclear power plant fuel. Depleted uranium is radioactive and toxic, and the study Huntington referred to said that DU also can alter DNA. Only two other people spoke at the listening session. They were Joel Wientke, representing the Hoosier Environmental Council, and Joe Robb, refuge manager at the Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge. Wientke said there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Army’s plans at JPG. Robb said it is good a lot of information is being gathered, because the more data there is, the better decisions can be made. Huntington’s letter also said the Army “must guarantee sufficient appropriations to fund all aspects of the DU liability.” Otherwise, he wrote, problems “ will become the financial burden” of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The listening session was more informal than the NRC panel is accustomed to. Chairman Alan Rosenthal said he and panel members Paul Abramson and Richard F. Cole were in shirtsleeves in deference to the extreme heat. Ordinarily, he said, they wear suits — “ usually dark suits,” he added with a laugh — and ties. http://www.madisoncourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=253&ArticleID=31163&TM=54285.98   But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that.  What is Osama bin Laden?   He’s America’s family secret.  He is the American President’s dark doppelganger.  The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised.  He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy; its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of  "full spectrum dominance," its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts.  Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Arundhati Roy The Algebra of Infinite Justice http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm http://www.dubbs.info/ A declassified memo from 1943 regarding DU effects was sent to Rep Jim McDermott in 2003, who is alert to this problem can be found at http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm Sickened Iraq Vets Cite Depleted Uranium http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/13727 "The Abbi Hoffman Staire" "THE CULTURE WAR" AUDIO: "The only way to win, is with a CULTURE WAR!" Abbie Hoffman http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060627-abbie-hoffman.MP3 Crime against humanity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_against_humanity Diabetes and depleted uranium http://www.sfbayview.com/062806/dd062806.shtml How to Detox Your Body of Depleted Uranium Residues, the Effects of Radiation, and Radioactive Contamination http://www.radiationdetox.com/depleted-uranium-detox.htm UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2047373,00.html Depleted Uranium Environmental and Medical Surveillance in the Balkans http://www.deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_balkans/ Gulf War Vets Depleted Uranium http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du.htm DEPLETED URANIUM EDUCATION PROJECT http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm Aerosol and Electromagnetic Weapons In The Age Of Nuclear War http://www.rense.com/general59/aerosolandelectromag.htm Very Pissed Off Combat Veterans -- And Blueprints For Change By John McCarthy http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/ HOW DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS ARE KILLING OUR TROOPS http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id317.html Risk analysis of depleted uranium following an aircraft crash http://www.cyclone.nl/bijlmer/bijlmer.htm Depleted Uranium Birth Defect Lawyer If you or a loved one has been exposed to depleted uranium munitions & suffered cancer, birth defects or any other side effects our attorneys can help. Call for a free lawsuit case review. www.yourlawyer.com Teeshirts with large logo printing are relatively cheap at say $6.50 each plus a one time setup fee. Printing back and front gets attention at malls, stores, walking, working.... the message gets out! Ralph Charles Whitley, Sr. a decorated Veteran of One 4532 W. Kennedy Blvd. PMB-276 Tampa, Florida 33609-2042 backflow.prevention@verizon.net BCST 8/27/06 C-SPAN BOOK TV - 9/11 COMMISSION INTERVIEW 9/11 ACCOUNTABILTY Vs. "The Case For Impeachment" AUDIO (ABOUT 55 MINUTES) http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L002I060827-911-impeachment2.MP3 9/11 ACCOUNTABILITY....WE WHERE VERY UNJUDGEMENTAL THE 9/11 COMMISSION....THESE GUYS ARE SHOCKING!!!! AUDIO: http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I060827-911-impeachment1.MP3 Just click "search" for more information on Depleted Uranium:   Web www.apfn.org www.apfn.net Without Justice there is Just_US! American Patriot Friends Network "...a network of net workers..." 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