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<div align="center"><h2><b>The horror of Depleted Uranium is not limited
to Iraq – it may well be at our doorsteps</b></h2><font size=3><b>James
Denver – Caduceus January 22, 2005 <br><br>
The information which some governments are concealing is presented
here.</b> <br><br>
<i>'I’m horrified. The people out there – the Iraqis, the media and the
troops – risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from
depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It’s going to destroy the
lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far
radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in
Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your
car.’<br><br>
</i></div>
The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr Chris Busby, the
British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the
Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on
Radiation Risk, talking about the best kept secret of this war: the fact
that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU)
against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the
Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons have released deadly,
carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that
– whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds – there is no
corner of the globe they cannot penetrate – including Britain. For the
wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity
persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukaemia,
brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects – killing
millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity
which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of
all time. <br><br>
These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic,
radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the
globe they cannot penetrate – including Britain. <br><br>
Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty
story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them
most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get
the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from
Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in
which depleted uranium was used. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>A dirty Tyson<br><br>
</b></div>
‘Depleted’ uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For ‘depleted’ sounds
weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt
cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production.
However, uranium is one of earth’s heaviest elements and DU packs a
Tyson’s punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal
ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people
alive. ‘Crispy critters’ is what US servicemen call those unfortunate
enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at
a greater distance he wrote: ‘The children’s skin had folded back, like
parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the
eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited.’ (Daily Mirror)
<br><br>
The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it
burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so
tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them
impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers
indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb
– and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>A terrible legacy<br><br>
</b></div>
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6
times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and
leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998
said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to
war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5
years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in
1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with
other cancers also increasing ‘at an alarming rate’. In men, lung,
bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase.
In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and
non-Hodgkin lymphoma (.1) <br><br>
On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic
Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defence a special report on the
potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could
cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In
that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU – although
the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons.
Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year’s war. The
devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the
people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.
<br><br>
The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions
of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity
which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time. <br><br>
We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody
knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their
world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for
the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8
years later and some had 100 times the so called ‘safe limit’ of uranium
in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans
of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact
of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects
in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three
times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go
there. <br><br>
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break
a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their
intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumours where their
eyes should be, or with a single eye – like Cyclops, or without eyes, or
without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects
are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb
test sites in the Pacific. Doctors report that many women no longer say
‘Is it a girl or a boy?’ but simply, ‘Is it normal, doctor?’ Moreover
this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have
been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.
<br><br>
<div align="center"><b>Blue on blue<br><br>
</b></div>
What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of
Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they
have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and
soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing.
Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a
vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental
vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their
tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American
troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough
medical checks on their return – even though identifying it quickly might
have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a
growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top
experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a
psychiatrist. <br><br>
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided
out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq – that’s 1 in
3. In contrast, the British government’s failure to fully assess the
health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even
knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return.
However, Gulf veterans’ associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting
fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died
prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are
thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the
innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their
sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability
to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are ‘on DU
death row, waiting to die’. <br><br>
Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are
strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example,
soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of
eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been
directly exposed to DU dust. They too have fathered children with stunted
arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation
damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukaemia. Tellingly, so are EU
soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also
used. Indeed their leukaemia rate has been so high that several EU
governments have protested at the use of DU. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>The vital evidence<br><br>
</b></div>
Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both
sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only ‘low
level’ radiation DU is harmless. Award winning scientist, Dr Rosalie
Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied ‘low level’
radiation for 30 years.(2 )She has found that uranium oxide particles
have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of
radiation as hitting surrounding cells ‘like flashes of lightning’ again
and again in a single second.(2) Like many scientists worldwide who have
studied this type of radiation, she has found that such ‘lightning
strikes’ can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel
through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that Dr
Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the
body’s communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in
many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking
fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable,
seemingly unrelated, ailments. <br><br>
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental
Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in
which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The
first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells
with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are
at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This ‘radiation induced genomic
instability’ is compounded by ‘the bystander effect’ by which cells
mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation –
rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two
mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of
radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there
are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to
radiation – with some being far more likely to develop cancer than
others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem
relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did
not damage others. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>The price of truth<br><br>
</b></div>
That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research
findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US
report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, ‘The potential for health
effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in
perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability
payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.(’3) <br><br>
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a
quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability
claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and
America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be
huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their
directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close
they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales
makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive
whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments
have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and
washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money. <br><br>
The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of
Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm
they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may
seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren’t used by the other side and no
other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and
America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.(4) One American
study in 1990 said DU was ‘linked to cancer when exposures are internal,
[and to] chemical toxicity – causing kidney damage’. While another openly
warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions
could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant
lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth
defects.(5) <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>A culture of denial<br><br>
</b></div>
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for
illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as ‘weapons of
mass destruction’ ‘incompatible with international humanitarian and human
rights law’. Since then, following leukaemia in European peacekeeping
troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU
has twice called for DU weapons to be banned. <br><br>
Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of
the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the
first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkan and
Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997,
while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed
to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr Asaf Durakovic, then
Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in
Washington was quoted as saying, ‘The [US government’s] Veteran
Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted
uranium in the human body.’ He concluded, ‘uranium… does cause cancer,
uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with
the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact
that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are
doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God
and to all generations who follow.’ Not what the authorities wanted to
hear and his research was suddenly blocked. <br><br>
During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have
abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized
research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims
could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the
gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have
refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the
contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says
‘it is judged that any radiation effects from…possible exposures are
extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently
being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.’ Note how over a quarter of
a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called ‘some’. <br><br>
<div align="center"><b>The way ahead<br><br>
</b></div>
Britain and America not only used DU in this year’s Iraq war, they
dramatically increased its use – from a minimum of 320 tons in the
previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the
use of DU wasn’t limited to anti-tank weapons – as it had largely been in
the previous Gulf war – but was extended to the guided missiles, large
bunker busters and big 2000 pound bombs used in Iraq’s cities. This means
that Iraq’s cities have been blanketed in lethal particles – any one of
which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in
huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge
plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried
high into the air – again and again and again as the bombs rained down –
ready to be swept worldwide by the winds. <br><br>
The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination
in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is
hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst
areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and
water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of
Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic
particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are
spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries
downwind of Iraq – and, indeed, the world? <br><br>
So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against
humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the
people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the
last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is
to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap
heap of history – along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then,
will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from
this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.
<br><br>
References: <br><br>
1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February 1998. <br><br>
2. Rosalie Bertell’s book Planet Earth the Latest Weapon of War was
reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28. <br><br>
3.<a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo" eudora="autourl">www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo</a>
<br>
rtSummaries <br><br>
4.<a href="http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm" eudora="autourl">www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm</a>
<br>
The secret official memorandum to Brigadier General L.R.Groves from Drs
Conant, Compton and Urey of War Department Manhattan district dated
October 1943 is available at the website <br>
<a href="http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-MoretGenGroves21feb03.htm" eudora="autourl">www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-MoretGenGroves21feb03.htm</a>
<br><br>
5.<a href="http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo" eudora="autourl">www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TABL_ResearchRepo</a> <br>
rtSummaries <br><br>
<div align="center">Last updated 23/01/2005<br><br>
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