Political foes unite on depleted uranium munitions : Melbourne Indymedia

Political foes unite on depleted uranium munitions

By Bob Nichols
Online Journal Contributing Writer

May 18, 2003—An amazing thing happened in Tulsa during the shooting part of the invasion of Iraq. Bitter political enemies representing the right and left wings of American politics agreed about the American forces' use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in Iraq and subsequent wars.

On the flickering monitors of the online readers of Tulsa's leading conservative newszine, TulsaToday, agreed that DU-based shells and bombs are too dangerous to our own troops for general use. A letter was sent to General Tommy Franks requesting that the use of DU shells and bombs be stopped immediately and DU munitions use documented and tracked for later decontamination.

DU munitions include bullets, tank shells, bombs, and cruise missiles made with major proportions of uranium in the body of the shell or bomb. The well-known Abrams Tank's 130 mm main gun round contains just under 10 pounds of DU; a 2,000 lb bomb contains about 800 pounds of DU.

The DU from American nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons factories is given "free" to arms manufacturers and then sold back to the federal purchasing agents at the War Department as bullets, shells, bombs and cruise missiles.

Fully deployable Cruise Missiles cost the War Department about $1.3 million each. The U.S. used about 12,000 of the flying bombs and 2,000 lb "smart bombs" during the siege of Baghdad. That's up to 9,600,000 pounds of DU smoke and dust hanging in the radioactive dust cloud over Baghdad. That's a lot of lethal radioactive smoke.

The DU in the bullets, shells, bombs, and cruise missiles does not go away into nothingness upon impact or upon explosion. The DU merely changes into a breathable form from the force of the impact or explosion. The War Department thinks this is a "good thing."

DU is a heavy, pale yellow metal that is radioactive. The radioactivity level is so dangerous that federal government workers handling it to make shells and bombs have to wear protective clothing and equipment.

If you are looking at a definition of uranium on your monitor and right click on it to get the "properties," you'll notice that uranium is pyrophoric—it burns by itself—when it is hot enough and in the presence of oxygen. DU munitions ignite at about 600 degrees and burn at a rather towering 10,000 degrees Centigrade.

This is important to the War Department. The guaranteed metal high-temp fire assures that enemy tank crews are incinerated—fast. Then the super heated air shoots skyward where it scoots along on the desert winds for 25 miles or more with its payload of lethal radioactive microscopic particles.

The conservatives at TulsaToday.com are ably led by Stephen Nuchia. Your fearless writer, Bob Nichols, spoke up for the lefty progressives and centrists. Nuchia is unequivocally a hawk.

As Nuchia said in the letter to General Tommy Franks: "General, the principal author of this letter [Nuchia] is a patriot, an engineer, a former naval person, a student of history and a hawk. He would consider it treason to attempt to divert your attention from the conduct of combat operations unless he had reason to believe the matter both gravely important and urgently relevant."

Nuchia goes on to urge the Franks to immediately issue these four orders:

DU munitions represent a potential near term and long term hazard to personnel and the environment. While the magnitude of this hazard is unknown and disputed, it is the policy of this command to minimize the use of DU whenever it does not interfere with mission performance to do so.

Therefore, DU will be used only in direct support of troops actually engaged and against hard targets of very high value.

Whenever possible, "walking" DU weapons onto a target is to be avoided in favor of measured, aimed fire.

All DU rounds expended are to be accounted for using procedures comparable to those for land mines. Because it is conceivable that target areas will need to be decontaminated in the future, we will keep the most detailed and accurate records possible . . .
Nuchia added "This war is being fought, in part, to eliminate the threat of chemical and radiological weapons. It would be tragic if history comes to regard the weapons we use in this war as chemical and radiological time bombs . . . If we fail to use these weapons with restraint and accountability I fear history, as well as generations of Iraqis unborn, will curse our names."

When all is told, the American forces have used weapons containing uranium and plutonium five times since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in 1945, on August 6 and 9 respectively. There was to be a period of 46 years before the United States again used weapons containing uranium. It was in the first Gulf War.

The U.S. continued to use DU weapons in Bosnia 1995, Yugoslavia/Serbia in 1999, and in Afghanistan from October 2001. The U.S. is alone in the world in justifying the continued use of DU bullets, shells, bombs, and missiles. The most recent and visible defection from the radioactive forces is the United Kingdom. The British Ministry of Defence has already conceded that it has a moral obligation to assist in the cleanup in Iraq after its attack by nuclear forces.

Nuclear cleanup is a bit of a problem though. First, the clean-up teams are looking for thousands of tons of dust and rock-like chunks in a sandy desert country. Second, the only clean-up team sent in after the First Gulf War suffers now from radiation poisoning and a 30 percent death rate (2002 statistics), and, it is climbing.

The gaseous particles are so small that the funny looking [standard] gas masks are useless. But the U.S. has an Achilles Heel. The treasured DU bullets, shells, bombs, and cruise missiles must be used by those willing to die a long and painful death from radiation poisoning. It is like the gladiator's salute in the Roman empire.

More than 50 percent or 300,000 of the brave American troopers in the First Gulf War are now disabled by the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome.1 The symptoms are the same as radiation poisoning.

There are no chances of hoping it will go away or you can outlive it. The DU dust stays radioactive a majestic 45 billion years. Many think the 640,000 lbs of DU dust from DU bullets, shells, bombs, and cruise missiles used in GWI are the cause.

Talk to any of your acquaintances, right, left, or center, about the DU shells and bombs. Our troops are breathing the DU dust from them right now in Iraq. Then tell them in a quiet steady voice "There is no treatment. This a death sentence for our troops serving our country. This ain't right. Help me change it."2 Sign them up, make a list, send the list to me.

If you think the U.S. must delete these DU bullets, shells, bombs, and cruise missiles from its munitions inventory, contact this writer, Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net . I'll pass all conservative writers on to my good friend and bitter political enemy, that famous patriot and conservative, Steve Nuchia. Just say "for the Conservative one" or "the Lefty" at the top.

NOTES:

1. "Gulf War Illnesses Affect 300,000 Vets," Ellen Tomson, Pioneer Press. See also American Gulf War Veterans Association. (Fifty percent, this is the highest number yet, as of May 1, 2003. The number affected keeps growing. A year ago, it was 30 percent. Watch this space for periodic reports.

2. Nichols Note: Steady now. This discussion can get real serious, real quick when someone in the group has a family member, acquaintance, or friend in the on the ground in the Iraq war zone. Remember, there is no treatment. Do not hold out false hope. Enlist them to help us rid the War Department inventories of this deadly radioactive metal.

Bob Nichols is a writer living and working in Oklahoma. He is a member of CASE (Citizens' Action for Safe Energy) and president of the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. CASE has sucessfully killed two serious, well-funded attempts to build Nuclear Power Plants in Oklahoma and several attempts to site what is now known as the "Yucca Mountain Reactor Dump" in Oklahoma.

http://onlinejournal.com/Commentary/051803Nichols/051803nichols.html

The 29th May is the Second International Day of Action Against Depleted Uranium.

Image from
http://www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

"Unborn children of the region [are] being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA."

- Ross B. Mirkarimi, The Arms Control Research Centre, from his report: ‘The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf Region with Special Reference to Iraq.’ May 1992

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I have recently received large numbers of photographs of horrendous birth deformities that are being experienced in Iraq. I have not, quite frankly, ever seen anything like them. I urge you to copy this page / these pictures and circulate them as widely as possible.

In an act of stark cruelty, the US dominated Sanctions Committee refuses to permit Iraq to import the clean-up equipment that they desperately need to decontaminate their country of the Depleted Uranium ammunition that the US fired at them. Approximately 315 tons of DU dust was left by the use of this ammunition.The Sanctions Committee also refuses to allow the mass importation of anti-cancer treatments, which contain trace amounts of radio-isotopes, on the grounds that these constitute '...nuclear materials..'

The majority of the pictures were supplied to me by a source who prefers to remain anonymous at the current time. I was unable to acquire either original negatives, or prints from negatives. They arrived in the form of colour A4 copies. I scanned them into Photoshop and attempted to clean and sharpen them as best I could. There has not, and I repeat not, been any digital alteration other than the cleaning and sharpening process. No text documentation arrived with the pictures, so I have described them as accurately as I can. It is my understanding that the photographs were taken from 1998 onwards. I would be grateful to anyone who could potentially supply me with further information about these types of deformities; medical terms for them, etc.

Additional pictures were taken by Dr. Siegwart Horst-Gunther, President of the International Yellow Cross. Most appeared in his 1996 book "URANIUM PROJECTILES - SEVERELY MAIMED SOLDIERS, DEFORMED BABIES, DYING CHILDREN" (Published by AHRIMAN - Verlag, ISBN: 3-89484-805-7). The book is a documentary record of DU ammunition after-effects, and they were taken between 1993 and 1995. Dr. Gunther also supplied me with additional photographs from his unpublished collection, some of which feature the birth deformities being experienced by Western Gulf war veterans' children. I have asked Dr. Gunther's permission for his pictures to be treated as 'Public Domain' and copyright free. He has agreed and you may reproduce them as you see fit.

Both the Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defence officially deny that there is any significant danger from exposure to DU ammunition. And whilst it is conceivable that the US led attacks on Iraq's nuclear power stations could be a contributory factor, most reseachers point to DU as the most likely source of both deformities and cancers. The rising number of cases in Iraq, particularly in the South where the greatest concentration of DU was fired, is simply staggering. Iraqi physicians have never encountered anything like it, and have made the perfectly reasonable point that similar increases in cancer and deformities were experienced in Japan after the two US atomic bomb attacks. Cancer has increased between 7 and 10 fold; deformities between 4 and 6 fold.

Yet the US was well aware of the potential effects on civilians and military personnel of the chemical toxicity and radiological properties of DU ammunition long before the Gulf war began, as the following excerpts of a US Army document categorically state:

"Aerosol DU (Depleted Uranium) exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects. [...] Under combat conditions, the most exposed individuals are probably ground troops that re-enter a battlefield following the exchange of armour-piercing munitions. [...] We are simply highlighting the potential for levels of DU exposure to military personnel during combat that would be unacceptable during peacetime operations. [...DU is..]... a low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage. [...] Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been linked to cancer. [...] Our conclusion regarding the health and environmental acceptability of DU penetrators assume both controlled use and the presence of excellent health physics management practices. Combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of DU. [...] The conditions of the battlefield, and the long term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic penetrators for military applications."

- Excerpts from the July 1990 Science and Applications International Corporation report: ' Kinetic Energy Penetrator Environment and Health Considerations', as included in Appenix D - US Army Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command report: 'Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, July 1990'

The US was also well aware of the long-term dangers of DU contamination, and played it down, as the following memo and document make clear:

"There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no-one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus be deleted from the arsenal. I believe we should keep this sensitive issue in mind when action reports are written."

- Lt. Col. M.V. Ziehmn, Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum, March 1st 1991

"Soldiers may be incidentally exposed to DU from dust and smoke on the battlefield. The Army Surgeon General has determined that it is unlikely that these soldiers will receive a significant internal DU exposure. Medical follow-up is not warranted for soldiers who experience incidental exposure from dust or smoke. [...] Since DU weapons are openly available on the world arms market, DU weapons will be used in future conflicts. The number of DU patients on future battlefields probably will be significantly higher because other countries will use systems containing DU. [...] DU is a low-level radioactive waste, and, therefore, must be disposed of in a licensed repository. [...] No international law, treaty, regulation, or custom requires the United States to remediate the Persian Gulf war battlefields."

- Report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute: 'Health and Consequences of Depleted Uranium use in the US army', June 1995

DU ammunition is now possessed by more than 12 countries, and was used during the NATO led bombing of the former Yugoslavia. Western forces stationed in the region have recently been advised not to drink the local water or eat locally produced food. Yet the British MoD continues to deny any potential risks, stating: "We have not seen any peer-reviewed epidemiological research data to support these claims [that DU is dangerous.] [...] There are no plans to remove DU-based ammunition from service." (Source: Two letters to me from Simon Wren, Overseas Secretariat, Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, London - 20th May 1999, and 22nd March 2000)

On a more personal level, I have heard stories of visitors to Iraq who spoke with mid-wives there. These mid-wives are purported to have said they no longer look forward to births as.... "We don't know what's going to come out."

The pictures below, which are extremely disturbing, show exactly what does.

I would strongly sugest that you get your facts correct before publishing them, particualy on something you obviously dont know too much on. Try getting the facts on kinetic energy and the effects of du shells being fired.
du shells as you say are infact a rod that is used to fire upon the enemy, and when they come into contact with your tank the last thig you need to worry about is radiation poisoning Idiots!!!