But the Pentagon continues to deny that there is a link between DU and
troop/civilian illness....and now, how many more DU weapons have been
detonated in Iraq once more - and of course Afghanistan. Check out
these links - but also read the forwarded info on testing done.
"We
have not found any link between illnesses and exposure to depleted
uranium," Kenneth Bacon, spokesman for Defense Secretary William
Cohen, said Thursday. "We're pretty confident of what we've said,
which is we have found no direct link."
The Pentagon has been investigating the question since the 1991 Gulf
War, when such weapons were used in combat for the first time.
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2001nn/0101nn/010105nn.htm#09h
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml
Begin forwarded message:
High
Uranium Levels Found in Troops and Civilians
URANIUM MEDICAL RESEARCH CENTER, January 2003
Title: “UMRC’s Preliminary Findings from Afghanistan & Operation
Enduring Freedom”
and
“Afghan Field Trip #2 Report: Precision Destruction- Indiscriminate
Effects”
Author: Tedd Weyman, UMRC Research Team
AWAKENED WOMAN, January 2004
Title: “Scientists Uncover Radioactive Trail in Afghanistan”
Author: Stephanie Hiller
DISSIDENT VOICE, March 2004
Title: “There Are No Words…Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki
Bombs”
Author: Bob Nichols
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, April 5,2004
Title: “Poisoned?”
Author: Juan Gonzalez
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, March 2004
Title: “International Criminal Tribune For Afghanistan At Tokyo, The
People vs. George Bush”
Author: Professor Ms Niloufer Bhagwat J.
Evaluator: Jennifer Lillig, Ph.D.
Student Researcher: Kenny Crosbie
Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops have
been contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive depleted and
non-depleted uranium as a result of post-9/11 United States’ use of
tons of uranium munitions. Researchers say surrounding countries are
bound to feel the effects as well.
In 2003 scientists from the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC)
studied urine samples of Afghan civilians and found that 100% of the
samples taken had levels of non-depleted uranium (NDU) 400% to 2000%
higher than normal levels. The UMRC research team studied six sites,
two in Kabul and others in the Jalalabad area. The civilians were
tested four months after the attacks in Afghanistan by the United
States and its allies.
NDU is more radioactive than depleted uranium (DU), which itself is
charged with causing many cancers and severe birth defects in the
Iraqi population–especially children–over the past ten years. Four
million pounds of radioactive uranium was dropped on Iraq in 2003
alone. Uranium dust will be in the bodies of our returning armed
forces. Nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police serving in Iraq
were tested for DU contamination in December 2003. Conducted at the
request of The News, as the U.S. government considers the cost of
$1,000 per affected soldier prohibitive, the test found that four of
the nine men were contaminated with high levels of DU, likely caused
by inhaling dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops.
Several of the men had traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that
are produced only in a nuclear reaction process.
Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets,
tank shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of
radioactive uranium. Depleted or non-depleted, these types of weapons,
on detonation, release a radioactive dust which, when inhaled, goes
into the body and stays there. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion
years. Basically, it’s a permanently available contaminant,
distributed in the environment, where dust storms or any water nearby
can disperse it. Once ingested, it releases subatomic particles that
slice through DNA.
UMRC’s Field Team found several hundred Afghan civilians with acute
symptoms of radiation poisoning along with chronic symptoms of
internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in
newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke
plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by
burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract.
Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and
chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the
cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower
back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties,
headaches, memory problems and disorientation.
At the Uranium Weapons Conference held October 2003 in Hamburg,
Germany, independent scientists from around the world testified to a
huge increase in birth deformities and cancers wherever NDU and DU had
been used. Professor Katsuma Yagasaki, a scientist at the Ryukyus
University, Okinawa calculated that the 800 tons of DU used in
Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs.
The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.
At the Uranium Weapons Conference, a demonstration by British-trained
oncologist Dr. Jawad Al-Ali showed photographs of the kinds of birth
deformities and tumors he had observed at the Saddam Teaching Hospital
in Basra just before the 2003 war. Cancer rates had increased
dramatically over the previous fifteen years. In 1989 there were 11
abnormalities per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per
100,000an increase of over a thousand percent. In 1989 34 people
died
of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths. The 2003 war has
increased these figures exponentially.
At a meeting of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan
held December 2003 in Tokyo, the U.S. was indicted for multiple war
crimes in Afghanistan, among them the use of DU. Leuren Moret,
President of Scientists for Indigenous People and Environmental
Commissioner for the City of Berkeley, testified that because
radioactive contaminants from uranium weapons travel through air,
water, and food sources, the effects of U.S. deployment in Afghanistan
will be felt in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China and India. Countries
affected by the use of uranium weapons in Iraq include Saudi Arabia,
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, and Iran.
UPDATE BY BOB NICHOLS: (Oklahoma City) Throughout the
world people are familiar with the "smoking gun" solution so prized by
murder mystery writers. Many think that once the smoking gun in any
mystery is discovered, it is time for the "bad guys" to give up. Wish
it were only so.
The smoking guns are Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin
Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone from New York's 442nd Guard
Unitthey
are the first confirmed cases of inhaled uranium oxide exposure from
the current Iraq conflict. Dr. Asaf Durokovic, professor of Nuclear
Medicine at the Uranium Medical Research Centre
http://www.umrc.net/
conducted the diagnostic tests. The story was released April 3, 2004
in the New York Daily News. There is no treatment and there is no
cure.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html
Leuren Moret reports, "In my research on depleted uranium during the
past 5 years, the most disturbing information concerns the impact on
the unborn children and future generations for both soldiers serving
in the depleted uranium wars, and for the civilians who must live in
the permanently radioactive contaminated regions. Today, more than
240,000 Gulf War veterans are on permanent medical disability and more
than 11,000 are dead. They have been denied testing, medical care, and
compensation for depleted uranium exposure and related illnesses since
1991."
Moret continues "Even worse, they brought it home in their bodies. In
some families, the children born before the Gulf War are the only
healthy members. Wives and female partners of Gulf War veterans have
reported a condition known as burning semen syndrome, and are now
internally contaminated from depleted uranium carried in the semen of
exposed veterans. Many are reporting reproductive illnesses such as
endometriosis. In a U.S. government study, conducted by the Department
of Veterans Affairs on post-Gulf War babies, 67% were found to have
serious birth defects or serious illnesses. They were born without
eyes (anophthalmos), ears, had missing organs, missing legs and arms,
fused fingers, thyroid or other organ malformations."
"LIFE Photoessay:"
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html
Moret concludes, "In Iraq it is even worse where babies are born
without brains, organs are outside the body, or women give birth to
pieces of flesh. In babies born in Iraq in 2002, the incidence of
anophthalmos was 250,000 times greater (20 cases in 4,000 births) than
the natural occurrence, one in 50 million births. Takashi MORIZUMI's
photos: in
http://www.savewarchildren.org/
record the tragedy in Iraq."
For more information on the American President's continuing campaign
of contaminating the land, check the World Uranium Weapons Conference,
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/
,
Check the Uranium Medical Research Center and Dr. Asaf Durakovic at
http://www.umrc.net/ ,
and for updates on the related Nuclear Power Plants see Russell
Hoffman's website at:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm
.
Write Leuren Moret, Independent Scientist and radiation specialist,
City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner, Past President,
Association for Women Geoscientists:
leurenmoret@yahoo.com
"Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War" by Leuren Moret,
World Affairs Journal, July, 2004.
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm
These YahooGroups host discussions about uranium munitions:
<mailto:du-list@yahoogroups.com>du-list@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:du-watch@yahoogroups.com>du-watch@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:pandora-project@yahoogroups.com>pandora-project@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:nucnews@yahoogroups.com>nucnews@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com>abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com
<mailto:earthfirstalert@yahoogroups.com>earthfirstalert@yahoogroups.com
Read Bob Nichols at:
www.dissidentvoice.org .
UPDATE BY TEDD WEYMAN: UMRC found artificial uranium in
bomb craters, surrounding watercourses and the bodies of civilians
exposed to US Coalition bombing in Afghanistan. Civilians surveyed
presented with the classical symptoms of internal contamination by
uranium, which began after exposure to the bombing. The presence of
artificial uranium in environmental and biological samples indicates
that the bunker buster warheads used in Afghanistan are made of
uranium.
Uranium is a chemically and radiologically toxic element, clinically
proven to be a cause of various types of cancer and congenital
malformations (birth defects). Internal contamination of uranium is
responsible for variety of systemic and organ system problems, which
has never been considered or studied by the Defense Department or
Veterans health programs as possible cause of Gulf War Illness. The
symptoms of internal contamination by uranium in Iraq and Afghanistan
civilians are identical to the symptoms of US and Coalition veterans
complaining of Gulf War Illness.
The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its
studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent
misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use
of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific
findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff,
physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research
organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and
Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation
Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and
atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi
civilians.
The United States and several of its Coalition partners and NATO
allies have been deploying in battlefield and experimenting with
chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metals in various types of
bullets, bombs and warheads since the early 1970s. Uranium powder is
taken from the nuclear fuel reprocessing cycle, after it has been
mixed with nuclear reactor waste products and spent fuel, to supply
the non-fissile weapons' manufacturing industry.
Uranium is preferred over all other "ballistic" metals (e.g. lead,
iron, tungsten) because it offers a set of unique metallurgical
properties: it is extremely dense yet ductile metal (not brittle); it
is pyrophoric (uranium dust burns spontaneously at room temperature);
and, solid metal uranium is autoigniting at 170° F. Uranium metal
has
a very unusual property not available in any other metal; it is
"self-sharpening", meaning that when it hits a target at high
velocities (1 km/sec) it erodes and breaks in such a way as to
continuously re-sharpen its point the leading points of all other
warhead metals flatten or mushroom under these conditions. These
properties give uranium a superior performance as a penetrating
warhead alloy capable of breaching the hardest and thickest armor
plating, retaining penetration capabilities at 15 % greater distances
and lower speeds than the most common alternative metal, tungsten.
Burning uranium is hard to extinguish, and if doused with water, it
will explode. Uranium used in specially designed high velocity liquid
metal penetrators can bore through 20 feet of super-reinforced
concrete bunkers in classified weapons called "shaped charges" and
"explosively formed penetrators". The hard (dense), resilient
(ductile) and heavy (sustaining momentum) characteristics of uranium
also make its optimal in the warhead of robust earth-penetrating bombs
to carry them into buried targets and caves.
The mainstream press in the US and Canada does not show any general
interest in the story, let alone an investigative interest. European
mainstream press is more interested and follows key developments. The
NY Daily News April 5, 2004 has covered Gulf War II results by UMRC's
studies of US veterans. DoD has lied and misled the public and the
veterans in an attempt to undermine the significance of the story.
There is significant alternative press and internet press coverage.
The technique for coverage is to approach the story as a debate
between government and independent experts in which public interest is
stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific
and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and
misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA,
CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers
and manufacturers).
UPDATE BY STEPHANIE HILLER: This is a shocking story
since it suggests that experimental nuclear bombs were dropped around
Kabul at the end of the war Operation Enduring Freedom. (Did they mean
enduring radiation?) And what have they dropped on Iraq?
Continued research shows that we have all been irradiated here in the
United States, at an enormous cost to the public health. Cancer rates
alone show that genetic mutation has been rapidly increasing since the
first bomb was tested in Almorgordo, NM in 1945. But the effects of
low-level radiation have been systematically hidden from public view!
In April after sick vets from the current war got no help from the
Pentagon, the mother of one of the soldiers went to the papers. Juan
Gonzalez of the New York Daily News launched an investigation. The
News paid for nine men to be tested by Asaf Durakovic. He found that
four of them were contaminated with uranium. The News got the
attention of New York Senator Hilary Clinton. She held a
teleconference but Durakovic was not allowed to participate!
Amy Goodman interviewed Durakovic later the same month on Democracy
Now! don't know if it was thanks to my story. AlterNet rejected
the
story because their source on depleted uranium, John Fahey, did not
agree with it.
I don't know of any mainstream media that has picked up the story, and
I don't find any references to the Gonzalez piece either. The BBC and
the Seattle Post Intelligencer covered it before me.
To learn more about uranium weapons search the web! It's a huge topic.
Start with the world Uranium Weapons Conference held last October in
Hamburg:
<http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de>
The Power Point by Dr. Ali shows the most excruciating consequences of
Persian Gulf One -- deformed babies. Also, Join WBW! Women for a
Better World has begun an information campaign to educate the public
about depleted uranium, especially young people who might be called to
join the military and their families, regarding the contamination of
Central Eurasia. Come to our web site for more information, flyers,
and to sign a petition opposing the draft for the same reason.
<http://www.awakenedwoman.com/wbw.htm>
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/4.html