Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
that it do singe yourself.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
The use of depleted uranium weaponry
by the United States, defying all international treaties,
will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the
human species, and yet this country continues to do so with
full knowledge of its destructive potential.
Since 1991, the United States has staged
four wars using depleted uranium weaponry, illegal under
all international treaties, conventions and agreements,
as well as under the US military law. The continued use
of this illegal radioactive weaponry, which has already
contaminated vast regions with low level radiation and will
contaminate other parts of the world over time, is indeed
a world affair and an international issue. The deeper purpose
is revealed by comparing regions now contaminated with depleted
uranium — from Egypt, the Middle East, Central Asia
and the northern half of India — to the US geostrategic
imperatives described in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997
book The Grand Chessboard.
|
Fig. 1: Brzezinski’s map
of the Eurasian Chessboard
|
SOUTH REGION:
“This huge
region, torn by volatile hatreds and surrounded by
competing powerful neighbors, is likely to be a major
battlefield, both for wars among nation-states and,
more likely, for protracted ethnic and religious violence.
Whether India acts as a restraint or whether
it takes advantage of some opportunity to impose its
will on Pakistan will greatly affect the regional
scope of the likely conflicts. The
internal strains within Turkey and Iran are likely
not only to get worse but to greatly reduce the stabilizing
role these states are capable of playing within this
volcanic region. Such developments
will in turn make it more difficult to assimilate
the new Central Asian states into the international
community, while also adversely affecting the American-dominated
security of the Persian Gulf region.
In any case, both America and the international
community may be faced here with a challenge that
will dwarf the recent crisis in the former Yugoslavia.”
Brzezinski
|
The fact is that the United States and
its military partners have staged four nuclear wars, "slipping
nukes under the wire" by using dirty bombs and dirty weapons
in countries the US needs to control. Depleted uranium aerosols
will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy
the genetic future of populations living in those regions,
where there are resources which the US must control, in
order to establish and maintain American primacy.
Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear
war, depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing.
The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years, the age
of the earth. And, as Uranium-238 decays into daughter radioactive
products, in four steps before turning into lead, it continues
to release more radiation at each step. There is no way
to turn it off, and there is no way to clean it up. It meets
the US Government’s own definition of Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
After forming microscopic and submicroscopic
insoluble Uranium oxide particles on the battlefield, they
remain suspended in air and travel around the earth as a
radioactive component of atmospheric dust, contaminating
the environment, indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing
disease in all living things where rain, snow and moisture
remove it from the atmosphere. Global radioactive contamination
from atmospheric testing was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima
bombs, and still contaminates the atmosphere and lower orbital
space today. The amount of low level radioactive pollution
from depleted uranium released since 1991, is many times
more (deposited internally in the body), than was released
from atmospheric testing fallout.
A 2003 independent report for the European
Parliament by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR),
reports that based on Chernobyl studies, low level radiation
risk is 100 to 1000 times greater than the International
Committee for Radiation Protection models estimate which
are based on the flawed Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies
conducted by the US Government. Referring to the extreme
killing effects of radiation on biological systems, Dr.
Rosalie Bertell, one of the 46 international radiation expert
authors of the ECRR report, describes it as:
"The concept of species annihilation
means a relatively swift, deliberately induced end to
history, culture, science, biological reproduction and
memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift
of life, an act which requires a new word to describe
it: omnicide."
1943 MANHATTAN PROJECT BLUEPRINT FOR
DEPLETED URANIUM
In a declassified memo to General Leslie
R. Groves, dated October 30, 1943, three of the top physicists
in the Manhattan Project, Dr James B Conant, A H Compton,
and H C Urey, made their recommendation, as members of the
Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee, on the ‘Use
of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon’:
"As a gas warfare instrument the material
would be ground into particles of microscopic size to
form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired
projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form
it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary
to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely
small … There are no known methods of treatment
for such a casualty … it will permeate a standard
gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely
damaging."
As a Terrain Contaminant:
"To be used in this manner, the radioactive
materials would be spread on the ground either from the
air or from the ground if in enemy controlled territory.
In order to deny terrain to either side except at the
expense of exposing personnel to harmful radiations …
Areas so contaminated by radioactive material would be
dangerous until the slow natural decay of the material
took place … for average terrain no decontaminating
methods are known. No effective protective clothing for
personnel seems possible of development. … Reservoirs
or wells would be contaminated or food poisoned with an
effect similar to that resulting from inhalation of dust
or smoke."
Internal Exposure:
"… Particles smaller than 1µ
[micron] are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli
where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed
into the lymphatics or blood. … could get into the
gastro-intestinal tract from polluted water, or food,
or air. … may be absorbed from the lungs or G-I
tract into the blood and so distributed throughout the
body."
Both the fission products and depleted
uranium waste from the Atomic Bomb Project were to be utilised
under this plan. The pyrophoric nature of depleted uranium,
which causes it to begin to burn at very low temperatures
from friction in the gun barrel, made it an ideal radioactive
gas weapon then and now. Also it was more available because
the amount of depleted uranium produced was much greater
than the amount of fission products produced in 1943.
Britain had thoughts of using poisoned
gas on Iraq long before 1991:
"I am strongly in favour of using
poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect
should be good... and it would spread a lively terror..."
(Winston Churchill commenting on the British use
of poison gas against the Iraqis after the First World
War).
GUIDED WEAPONS SYSTEMS
Depleted uranium weapons were first given
by the US to Israel for use under US supervision in the
1973 Sinai war against the Arabs. Since then the US has
tested, manufactured, and sold depleted uranium weapons
systems to 29 countries. An international taboo prevented
their use until 1991, when the US broke the taboo and used
them for the first time, on the battlefields of Iraq and
Kuwait.
The US military admitted using depleted
uranium projectiles in tanks and planes, but warheads in
missiles and bombs are classified or referred to as a ‘dense’
or ‘mystery metal’. Dai Williams, a researcher
at the 2003 World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, reported
finding 11 US patents for guided weapons systems with the
term ‘depleted uranium’ or ‘dense metal’,
which from the density can only be depleted uranium or tungsten,
in order to fit the dimensions of the warhead.
Figure 2 - Hard target guided weapons
in 2002: smart bombs & cruise missiles with "dense metal"
warheads (updated September 2002)
|
Warhead weight
Warhead
weights include explosives (~20%) and casing. Dense
metal ballast or liners (suspected to be DU) estimated
to be 50-75% of warhead weight - necessary to double
the density of previous versions. AUP = Advanced
penetrators. S/CH = Shaped Charge. BR
= BROACH Multiple Warhead System (S/CH+AUP). P
= older 'heavy metal' penetrators. © Dai Williams
2002
source:
Depleted
Uranium weapons in 2001-2002 : Occupational, public
and environmental health issues - Mystery Metal Nightmare
in Afghanistan? Collected studies and public domain
sources compiled by Dai Williams, first edition 31
January 2002
|
Extensive carpet bombing, grid bombing,
and the frequent use of missiles and depleted uranium bullets
on buildings in densely populated areas has occurred in
Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. The discovery that bomb
craters in Yugoslavia in 1999 were radioactive, and that
an unexploded missile in 1999 contained a depleted uranium
warhead, implies that the total amount of depleted uranium
used since 1991 has been greatly underestimated. Of even
greater concern, is that 100 per cent of the depleted uranium
in bombs and missiles is aerosolized upon impact and immediately
released into the atmosphere. This amount can be as much
as 1.5 tons in the large bombs. In bullets and cannon shells,
the amount aerosolized is 40-70 per cent, leaving pieces
and unexploded shells in the environment, to provide new
sources of radioactive dust and contamination of the groundwater
from dissolved depleted uranium metal long after the battles
are over, as reported in a 2003 report by the UN Environmental
Program on Yugoslavia. Considering that the US has admitted
using 34 tons of depleted uranium from bullets and cannon
shells in Yugoslavia, and the fact that 35,000 NATO bombing
missions occurred there in 1999, potentially the amount
of depleted uranium contaminating Yugoslavia and transboundary
drift into surrounding countries is staggering.
Because of mysterious illnesses and post-war
birth defects reported among Gulf War veterans and civilians
in southern Iraq, and radiation related illnesses in UN
Peacekeepers serving in Yugoslavia, growing concerns about
radiation effects and environmental damage has stirred up
international outrage about the use of radioactive weapons
by the US after 1991. At the 2003 meeting of parties to
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, discussing the U.S.
desire to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile, the Hiroshima
Mayor Tadatoshi AKIBA stated,
"It is incumbent upon the rest of
the world ... to stand up now and tell all of our military
leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected
by nuclear weapons. We refuse to live in a world of
continually recycled fear and hatred".
ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Four reasons why using depleted uranium
weapons violates the UN Convention on Human Rights:
LEGALITY TEST FOR WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL
LAW
TEMPORAL TEST – Weapons
must not continue to act after the battle is over.
ENVIRONMENTAL TEST – Weapons
must not be unduly harmful to the environment.
TERRITORIAL TEST – Weapons
must not act off of the battlefield.
HUMANENESS TEST – Weapons
must not kill or wound inhumanly.
International Human Rights and humanitarian
lawyer, Karen Parker, determined that depleted uranium weaponry
fails the four tests for legal weapons under international
law, and that it is also illegal under the definition of
a ‘poison’ weapon. Through Karen Parker’s
continued efforts, a sub-commission of the UN Human Rights
Commission determined in 1996 that depleted uranium is a
weapon of mass destruction that should not be used:
RESOLUTION 1996/16 ON STOPPING THE USE
OF DEPLETED URANIUM - DU
The military use of DU violates current
international humanitarian law, including the principle
that there is no unlimited right to choose the means and
methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV);
Art. 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva (GP1);
the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and superfluous
injury (Art. 23 §le HCIV; Art. 35 §2 GP1), indiscriminate
warfare (Art. 51 §4c and 5b GP1) as well as the use of poison
or poisoned weapons.
The deployment and use of DU violate the
principles of international environmental and human rights
protection. They contradict the right to life established
by the Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on Human
Rights.
FOUR NUCLEAR WARS
"Military Men Are Just Dumb,
Stupid, Animals To Be Used
As Pawns In Foreign Policy"
— Henry Kissinger
|
Although restricted to battlefields in
Iraq and Kuwait, the 1991 Gulf War was one of the most toxic
and environmentally devastating wars in world history. Oil
well fires, the bombing of oil tankers and oil wells which
released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Arabia
and desert, and the devastation from tanks and heavy equipment
destroyed the desert ecosystem. The long term and far reaching
effects, and dispersal of at least 340 tons of depleted
uranium weapons, had a global environmental effect. Smoke
from the oil fires was later found in deposits in South
America, the Himalayas and Hawaii. Large annual dust storms
originating in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central
Asia will quickly spread the radioactive contamination around
the world, and weathering of old depleted uranium munitions
on battlefields and other areas will provide new sources
of radioactive contamination in future years. Downwind from
the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering
from large increases in breast cancer, leukemia and childhood
diabetes.
RADIATION RESPECTS NO BORDERS, NO SOCIOECONOMIC
CLASS, AND NO RELIGION
The expendability of the sanctity of life
to achieve US political ends was described by US soldiers
on the ground, and from the air, along the Highway of Death
in Iraq in 1991:
"Iraqi soldiers [whether they] be
young boys or old men. They were a sad sight, with absolutely
no fight left in them. Their leaders had cut their Achilles’
tendons so they couldn’t run away and then left
them. What weapons they had were in bad repair and little
ammunition was on hand. They were hungry, cold, and scared.
The hate I had for any Iraqi dissipated. These people
had no business being on a battlefield."
(S
Hersh, New Yorker , May 22, 2000)
American pilots bombing and strafing, with
depleted uranium weapons, helpless retreating Iraqi soldiers
who had already surrendered, exclaimed:
"We toasted him…. we hit the
jackpot….a turkey shoot….shooting fish in
a barrel….basically just sitting ducks… There’s
just nothing like it. It’s the biggest Fourth of
July show you’ve ever seen, and to see those tanks
just ‘boom’, and more stuff just keeps spewing
out of them… they just become white hot. It’s
wonderful."
(L A Times and Washington Post, both
February 27, 1991)
Nearly 700,000 American Gulf War Veterans
returned to the US from a war that lasted just a few weeks.
Today more than 240,000 of those soldiers are on permanent
medical disability, and over 11,000 are dead. In a US Government
study on post-Gulf War babies born to 251 veterans, 67 per
cent of the babies were reported to have serious illnesses
or serious birth defects. They were born without eyes, ears,
had missing organs, fused fingers, thyroid or other malfunctions.
Depleted uranium in the semen of the soldiers internally
contaminated their wives. Severe birth defects have been
reported in babies born to contaminated civilians in Iraq,
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the incidence and severity
of defects is increasing over time. Women in Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Iraq are afraid now to have babies, and
when they do give birth, instead of asking if it is a girl
or a boy, they ask ‘is it normal?’.
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
Soldiers who served in Bradley fighting
vehicles, where it was common to sit on ammunition boxes
where depleted uranium ammunition was stored, are now reporting
that many have rectal cancer.
For the first time, medical doctors in
Yugoslavia and Iraq have reported multiple in situ unrelated
cancers developing in patients, and even in families who
are living in highly contaminated areas. Even stranger,
they report that cancer was unknown in previous generations.
Very rare and unusual cancers and birth defects have also
been reported to be increasing above normal levels prior
to 1991, not only in war torn countries, but in neighbouring
countries from transboundary contamination.
Dr. Keith Baverstock, a senior radiation
advisor who was on the staff of the World Health Organization,
co-authored a report
in November 2001, warning that the long-term health effects
of depleted uranium would endanger Iraq’s civilian
population, and that the dry climate would increase exposure
from the tiny particles blowing around and be inhaled for
years to come. The WHO refused to give him permission to
publish the study, bowing to pressure from the IAEA. Dr.
Baverstock released the damning report to the
media in February 2004. Pekka Haavisto, Chairman
of the UN Environment Program’s Post-Conflict Assessment
Unit in Geneva, shares Baverstock’s anxiety about
depleted uranium but UNEP experts have not been allowed
into Iraq to assess the pollution.
"DEPLETED URANIUM SCARE" - Claimed by President
George W. Bush on the official White House website:
"During the Gulf War, coalition
forces used armor-piercing ammunition made from depleted
uranium, which is ideal for the purpose because of its
great density. In recent years, the Iraqi regime has
made substantial efforts to promote the false claim
that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition
forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq.
Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of children
with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium.
The campaign has two major propaganda assets:"
"Uranium is a name that has frightening
associations in the mind of the average person, which
makes the lie relatively easy to sell; and Iraq could
take advantage of an established international network
of antinuclear activists who had already launched their
own campaign against depleted uranium."
"But scientists working for the
World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Programme,
and the European Union could find no health effects
linked to exposure to depleted uranium."
The US war in Afghanistan made it clear
that this was not a war IN the third world, but a war AGAINST
the third world. In Afghanistan where 800 to 1000 tons of
depleted uranium was estimated to have been used in 2001,
even uneducated Afghanis understand the impact these weapons
have had on their children and on future generations:
"After the Americans destroyed our
village and killed many of us, we also lost our houses
and have nothing to eat. However, we would have endured
these miseries and even accepted them, if the Americans
had not sentenced us all to death. When I saw my deformed
grandson, I realized that my hopes of the future have
vanished for good, different from the hopelessness of
the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost
my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know
we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us
by America, a silent death from which I know we will
not escape." (Jooma Khan of Laghman province, March
2003)
In 1990, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Authority (UKAEA) wrote a report warning about the potential
health and environmental catastrophe from the use of depleted
uranium weapons. The health effects had been known for a
long time. The report sent to the UK government warned "in
their estimation, if 50 tonnes of residual DU dust remained
‘in the region’ there could be half a million
extra cancers by the end of the century [2000]." Estimates
of depleted uranium weapons used in 1991, now range from
the Pentagon’s admitted 325 tons, to other scientific
bodies who put the figure as high as 900 tons. That would
make the number of estimated cancers as high as 9,000,000,
depending on the amount used in the 1991 Gulf War. In the
2003 Gulf War, estimates of 2200 tons have been given —
causing about 22,000,000 new cancer cases. Altogether the
total number of cancer patients estimated using the UKAEA
data would be 25,250,000. In July of 1998, the CIA estimated
the population of Iraq to be approximately 24,683,313.
Ironically, the UN Resolution 661 calling
for sanctions against Iraq, was signed on Hiroshima Day,
August 6, 1990.
THE PARALLELS
War can really cause no economic
boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth
never does result from destruction of goods. –
Ludwig von Mises
The parallels between Iraq, Yugoslavia
and Afghanistan are startlingly similar. The weapons used,
the unfair treaties offered by the US, and the bombing and
destruction of the environment and entire infrastructure.
In every city of Iraq and Yugoslavia, the television and
radio stations were bombed.
Educational centres were targeted, and
stores where educational materials were sold were destroyed
on nearly the same day. Under UN sanctions, Iraq was not
even allowed pencils for schoolchildren. Cultural antiquities
and historical treasures were targeted and destroyed in
all three countries, a kind of cultural and historical cleansing,
a collective national psychic trauma.
The permanent radioactive contamination
and environmental devastation of all three countries is
unprecedented, resulting in huge increases in cancer and
birth defects following the attacks. These will increase
over time from unknown effects due to chronic exposure,
increasing internal levels of radiation from depleted uranium
dust, and permanent genetic effects passed on to future
generations. Clearly, this has been a genocidal plan from
the start.
Fig. 3: Map of regions
within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan which
have been contaminated with depleted uranium since 1991.
Depleted uranium dust will be repeatedly recycled throughout
this dry region, and also carried around the world. More
than ten times the amount of radiation, released during
atmospheric testing, has been released from depleted uranium
weaponry since 1991. In 2002 the US government admitted
that every person living in the US between 1957 and 1963
was internally contaminated with radiation. Note that
the contaminated region corresponds with the "South" region
on the Eurasian chessboard in Fig. 1.
What has happened to Human Rights, to the
Rights of the Child, to civil society, and to common humanity?
It is up to the citizens of the world to
stop the depleted uranium wars, and future nuclear wars,
causing irreversible devastation. There are just a few generations
left before the collapse of our environment, and then it
will be too late. We can be no healthier than the health
of the environment — we breathe the same air, drink
the same water, eat food from the same soil.
"Our collective gene pool of life,
evolving for hundreds of millions of years has been
seriously damaged in less than the past fifty. The time
remaining to reverse this culture of ‘lemming
death’ is on the wane. In the future, what will
you tell our grandchildren about what you did in the
prime of your life to turn around this death process?"
(Rosalie Bertell, 1982)
THE DEEPER PURPOSE: G*O*D* [Gold, Oil,
and Drugs]
"We must become the owners, or at
any rate the controllers at the source, of at least
a proportion of the oil which we require." (British
Royal Commission, agreeing with Winston Churchill's
policy towards Iraq 1913).
"It is clear our nation is reliant
upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come
from overseas."
(US President George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, Sep.
25, 2000).
"If they turn on the radars we're
going to blow up their goddamn SAMs (surface-to-air
missiles). They know we own their country. We own their
airspace... We dictate the way they live and talk. And
that's what's great about America right now. It's a
good thing, especially when there's a lot of oil out
there we need."
(US Brig. General William Looney in 1999, referring
to Iraq).
Millions of years ago, before India crashed
into the Eurasian continent and uplifted the Himalayas,
the ancient shallow Tethys sea stretched from the Atlantic
across what is now the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and
Aral seas. Rich oil deposits are now located where ancient
life accumulated and ‘cooked’ under just the
right conditions to form large oil deposits in the ancient
sediments. Long before 1991, Unocal in Afghanistan, Amoco
in Yugoslavia, and various oil companies interested in Iraq
oil deposits, had conducted extensive exploration and characterisation
of oil deposits in the Middle East and Central Asian regions,
including the northern half of India.
Britain has maintained an interest in Middle
Eastern oil deposits for a century, and has been the staunchest
military partner of the US since the first depleted uranium
war in 1991 in Iraq. Germany, another military partner in
Yugoslavia with forces now in Afghanistan, was one of the
major economic beneficiaries of the breakup of Yugoslavia
and the colonisation of the Balkans. US interest in Yugoslavia
had much to do with building pipelines from Central Asia
to the Mediterranean warm water ports in Yugoslavia. A silent
and hidden partnership between the US and Japan provided
large amounts of cash from Japan to finance the 1991 Iraq
and 1995/1999 Yugoslavian wars, with additional help in
Afghanistan by providing not only cash, but fuel for the
war, from Aegis warships of the Japanese Self Defense Forces
in the Indian Ocean. Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi, and Halliburton
are now partners in a Central Asian oil pipeline project.
In 2004, despite much citizen opposition in Japan, the Japanese
government has sent Self Defense Forces to Iraq for ‘reconstruction’.
This action taken by the Japanese government, of placing
troops on the ground in a war zone, will lead to rescinding
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which forever prohibits
military aggression by Japan.
THE IRON TRIANGLE (all under one roof):
MILITARY, BIG BUSINESS, POLITICS
The liberty of a democracy is not
safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power
to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic
State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership
of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling
private power.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
But what do oil, military partners, depleted
uranium wars, and US foreign policy have to do with nuclear
weapons? The answer came to me in 1991 when I became a whistleblower
at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory near San Francisco,
California. Richard Berta, the Western Regional Inspector
for the Department of Energy, told me "The Pentagon exists
for the oil companies… and the nuclear weapons labs
exist for the Pentagon."
Depleted uranium was used beginning in
1991 for three reasons:
-
To test the radiobiological effects
of 4th generation nuclear weapons, which
are still under development
-
To blur and break down the distinction
between conventional and nuclear weapons
-
To make it easier to reintroduce
nuclear weapons into the US military arsenal
Today, the US is number one in 4th
generation nuclear weapons research and development, followed
by Japan and Germany tied for number two, and Russia and
other countries follow.
Figure 4: Depleted uranium and 4th
generation nuclear weapons
Map by Mika TSUTSUMI 12/12/03
The Carlyle Group, a private massive equity
firm, the 12th largest defense business with
an obscenely high profit margin, is a business "arrangement"
between the Bush and Bin Laden families, wealthy Saudis,
former British Prime Minister John Major, James Baker III,
Afsaneh Masheyekhi, Frank Carlucci, Colin Powell, other
former US Government administrators, and Madeleine Albright’s
daughter. The Carlyle Group is the ‘gatekeeper’
to the Saudi investment community. It owns 70 percent of
Lockheed Martin Marietta, the largest military contractor
in the US, and because Carlyle is privately owned, has no
scrutiny or accountability whatsoever. A journalist who
calls himself ‘a skunk at the garden party’
described investigating the Carlyle Group, he said ‘it’s
like shadow boxing with a ghost’. The Group hires
as lobbyists the best known politicians from around the
world, in order to influence the politics of war, and privately
profit from their previous public policies. The conflict
of interest is obvious: President George W. Bush is creating
wars as his father, former President George Bush, is globally
peddling weapons and "protection". Lockheed Martin Marietta
now owns Sandia Laboratories, a private contractor that
makes the trigger for nuclear weapons, with a Sandia laboratory
facility across the street from Los Alamos and Livermore
National Laboratories, where the nuclear bombs are made.
At the May 2003 University of California
Regents meeting which I attended, Admiral Linton Brooks
was present and newly in charge of the nuclear weapons programme
under the Department of Energy. Admiral Brooks informed
California Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante and the UC Regents
that the management contract for the nuclear weapons laboratories,
held unchallenged by the University of California for over
60 years, will be put up for competitive bid in 2005. The
favoured institution, with a faculty member on the ‘blue
ribbon committee’ making the contract award, is the
University of Texas. This privatisation and management contract
transfer of the US nuclear weapons programme will put control
of the US nuclear weapons programme close to the Carlyle
Group. The incestuous relationship between the US government,
private companies, and the Bush and Bin Laden families in
a way answers many of the lingering questions in everyone’s
minds about many of the ill fated decisions and policies
that have been implemented.
Leuren Moret has worked at two US nuclear
weapons laboratories as a geoscientist. In 1991 she became
a whistleblower at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab, and
since then has worked as an independent citizen scientist
and radiation specialist in communities around the world,
and contributed to the UN subcommission investigating depleted
uranium. Her research on the environmental and public health
effects of low level radiation from atmospheric testing
fallout, nuclear power plants, and depleted uranium weaponry,
is available on the internet and at http://www.mindfully.org
. In 2003, she testified at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Afghanistan held in Japan, and presented at the World
Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Germany,
and at the World Court of Women at the World Social Forum
in Bombay, India in January 2004. She is a Global Research
Contributing Editor, a City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner,
and the Past President of the Association for Women Geoscientists.
More
on Mindfully.org by Leuren Moret
Websites:
-
International
Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan written opinion of
Judge N. Bhagwa t
: also at http://www.traprockpeace.org/tokyo_trial_13march04.doc
-
Question 11: What does the US Government
know about depleted uranium: http://traprockpeace.org/moret_25nov03.pdf
-
World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference:
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de
-
Radiation and Public Health Project:
http://www.radiation.org
-
"A comparison of delayed radiobiological
effects of depleted-uranium munitions versus fourth-generation
nuclear weapons" by A. Gsponer, J.-P. Hurni,
and B. Vitale, 4th International Conference
of the Yugoslav Nuclear Society, Belgrade, September
30-October 4, 2002. http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0210071
-
"Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons:
The Physical Principles Of Thermonuclear Explosives,
Inertial Confinement Fusion, And The Quest For Fourth
Generation Nuclear Weapons" by Andre Gsponer and Jean-Pierre
Hurni http://www.inesap.org/publ_tech01.htm
-
54 minute VPRO Dutch TV "Carlyle Group"
documentary on internet: http://www.vpro.nl/info/tegenlicht/index.shtml?7738514+7738518+7738520+11838857
-
Real
Player Video Documentary on the Carlyle Group, by
VPRO Dutch television [500 kbps real video]
-
Real
Player Video Documentary on the Carlyle Group, by
VPRO Dutch television [100 kbps real video]
-
Overview of documentary - Interactive
Flash Animation - with links to biographies
and articles (Dutch) and specific sections of video.
-
English
translation of Dutch introduction. Translation of
the first one minute forty seven seconds of this
program.
The
war in Iraq is over.
The rubble is still smoking. While the first dozers
are already entering the country.
After the coalition forces destroyed Baghdad it
is now primarily American companies who are to
rebuild Iraq.
An interesting point is that these companies usually
have people on the payroll who have been politicians.
Is this a conflict of interest or a new (global)
way of doing business?
One of the corporations that work this way is
the Carlyle Group. On their payroll are people
like : George Bush (Sr.), James Baker III and
old premier John Major.
The Carlyle Group is a private investment bank
which doesn't come to the publics attention very
often but it is one of the biggest American (ed:
USA) investors of the defense industry, telecom,
property and financial services.
What is the Carlyle Group? Who are the people
behind the name? And how much power does Carlyle
have?
-
Global Outlook: http://www.globalresearch.de
