Stop Uranium Wars

Depleted Uranium - A Way Out?

2007-06-04T19:50:00.000Z

Compensation to those affected by this poisoned legacy
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research, June 3, 2007
UN Observer
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The term “Gulf War Syndrome” is now known world-wide – but - after the 1991 Iraq war, as formerly A1 fit soldiers fell ill with debilitating symptoms, in their thousands, the cause was, for two years, a "mystery". It was in 1993, when a group of twenty-four affected soldiers approached Professor Asav Durakovic, one of the world's leading experts in the effects of radiation, that a cause came to light. They had many times the “safe” level of chemically toxic and radioactive depleted uranium (DU) in their bodies. Duracovic, although a senior officer in the US army during the first Gulf war, had been unaware that the weapons used had contained depleted uranium. “I was horrified”, he said: “I was a soldier, but above all I am a doctor.” By 1997, it was estimated that ninety thousand US veterans were suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.

Durakovic, who is also medical consultant for the Children of Chernobyl project at Hadassah University, Jerusalem, lost his job as Chief of Nuclear Medicine at the Veteran's Administration Medical Facility at Wilmington, Delaware, as a direct result of his work with Gulf war veterans contaminated with radiation, he states. Two other physicians, Dr Burroughs and Dr Slingerland of Boston VA also lost their jobs when they asked for more sensitive equipment to better diagnose the soldiers referred to them by Professor Durakovic. Oddly, all the records pertaining to the sick soldiers at the Delaware VA went missing, a syndrome of another kind which has become familiar, both sides of the Atlantic.

Two years before Durakovic's discovery, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) “self initiated” a Report warning the government that if fifty tones of the residual dust, from the explosions of the weapons on impact, was left “in the region”, they estimated it would generate “half a million” extra cancer deaths by the end of the century (2000.) Iraq's cancers and birth deformities have become an anomaly, compared to those in the Pacific Islands and amongst British troops after the nuclear testing in the 1950's.

Further, “depleted” is a misnomer. These weapons are made from waste from the nuclear fuel cycle and thus contain the whole lethal nuclear cocktail. DU weapons (sold to seventeen countries that are known and possibly others - why let poisoning the planet and its population get in the way of numerous millions of quick bucks) are equivalent to spreading the contents of a nuclear reactor around the globe. And far from fifty tones and that chilling warning, in Iraq several thousand tones now cover this ancient, Biblical land and with the bombs raining daily, the audit rises nearly hour by hour. The US is currently by far the largest user of DU weapons. Over the past decade, they have brought more than sixteen million DU shells and bullets from Alliant Tech Systems alone. (Source: Janes.)

Strangely, this time, there have been few reports of soldiers with the terrible effects of 1991, where they were only in the region for a few weeks. Although troops now remain for months or a year, Gulf War Syndrome mark 2 seems not an issue. Perhaps it is because, reportedly, doctors treating returning troops have been threatened with jail and or hefty fines if they say anything regarding DU-related symptoms.
The implication regarding compensation to countries affected by this poisoned legacy (DU's lethality lasts for four and a half billion years) and troops is financially stratospheric. Since the 2003 invasion, US troops are denied entry to the International Atomic Energy Authority or any radiation experts to test ground and air levels.
In Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia where DU weapons were used (with missiles also dropped accidentally in neighboring countries, by the US, to whom all the world's lives are seemingly cheap) the “Iraq Syndrome” became quickly apparent. Even European peacekeepers on relatively short tours of duty became ill, developed leukemia's and other cancers and a number died. A five man film crew from BBC Scotland all tested DU positive after filming for less than a week there.

Afghanistan too was “liberated” in 2001, by uranium weapons, which continue to be routinely used, condemning generations yet to be born to deformities and the living - the new born and under fives the most susceptible - to cancers and other horrific DU-related conditions. Durakovic also found high levels of uranium in hospital patients there, as there will undoubtedly be in the occupying forces. He also found identical conditions to Iraq amongst the young: “Children born with no limbs, no eyes, or with tumors protruding from their mouths and eyes.”
The latest country to fall victim to uranium weapons is Lebanon - but with a Difference; it transpires. Dr Chris Busby*, founder of the Low Level Radiation Campaign and Green Audit, is Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk and also sits on the (UK) Ministry of Defense Uranium Oversight Board. Israel is one of the countries with uranium weapons and: “The first evidence that the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) were using them” (in the July-August 2006 Israeli bombardment) “was a Getty Picture Library image of an Israeli soldier carrying a DU anti-tank shell”, says Busby. He then noted a report in Lebanon's Daily Star, that Dr Khobeisi, a scientist, had measured gamma radiation in a bomb crater at Khiam in the south of the country, at ten to twenty times higher (samples taken from different locations in crater) than naturally occurring background radiation.

The following month, Dai Williams,** an independent researcher went to Lebanon on behalf of Green Audit, to investigate and bring back samples to the UK for testing. He also brought back an air filter from an ambulance. Tested at the Harwell UKAEA laboratory: “The results were astonishing.” Both soil and filter contained enriched uranium with the soil sample containing uranium about nine times higher than the natural background. (Remember how threatening the West has become towards Iran's efforts to enrich uranium?) The soil sample was also sent to the School of Ocean Sciences, in North Wales for a second test by a different method for certainty. The results were the same.

Busby asks: “Why use enriched uranium? It is a bit like shooting your enemy with diamonds.” He contends it is possible that it is a “smokestream” for the wider use of depleted uranium, as the final contamination “when all gets mixed up after the war has a natural isotopic signature”. (ie: can be read as uranium which occurs naturally in nature.) There are two other chilling possibilities says Busby: a fusion bomb or a thermobaric bomb, both of which would need enriched uranium. Certainly, doctors were reporting bodies in conditions they could find in no medical manuals, as in the attack on Falluja, Iraq.

Lebanese authorities denied the presence of enriched uranium; Israel denied using it. The bombardment had ended on the agreement that UN peacekeepers went in. Given their debilitation and mortality rate in the Balkans, this lethal presence might well have deterred them. To be certain the incident was not in isolation. Williams returned to Lebanon and brought back soil and water samples from Khiam and other sites. Enriched uranium was found in water samples from two separate craters in Khiam and in one of the soil samples. Then the money ran out. The samples tested had already cost £2,000. Donations from an Arab friend and Swiss supporters totaled £850 - and Dai Williams had paid the rest out of his own money. More work is needed, but it is now known that the IDF used enriched uranium in Lebanon. And: “Since it is in the ambulance air filter, it is also in the lungs of the inhabitants ... the Lebanese people have been sacrificed to cancers, leukemia's, birth defects, like the people of the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq”, says Busby, adding “and it may be worse: since we still do not know what the weapon was.”

And have these weapons been used on the people of Gaza and the West Bank? Further, Israel is not alone decimating those she perceives as her enemies, but her own people, neighboring countries and even those further a field. In context, Green Audit studied airborne uranium at sites in the UK, between 1998 and 2004. There was only one period in which uranium in the air “significantly” exceeded the naturally occurring background presence: during the bombing of Iraq, in March and April, 2003. As with the radio nuclides from Chernobyl which affected Europe and the globe, and still contaminates agricultural land, the potentially deadly wave of invisible particles traveled on the wind from Iraq. “We are all Gulf war victims now”, commented Busby's colleague, Richard Bramhill.

Can anything be done to halt the use of these genocidal weapons? Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois and author of The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, thinks so. He has launched a campaign for a global pact against uranium weapons. Boyle points out that the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits: “the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices”. Clearly he says, DU is “analogous” to poison gas.

The Government of France is the official depository for the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Boyle contends that rather than aiming for an international treaty prohibiting the use of DU, which would probably take years, pressure should be put on every state to submit a letter to the French government to enforce a ban. “All that needs to be done is for anti-DU citizens, activists and NGO's in every country to pressure their Foreign Minister to write to their French counterpart, drawing attention to the “Protocol for the Prohibition of the use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare”, of 17th June 1925, prohibiting uses as above. The letter should add that this Protocol is believed to: “already prohibit the use in war of depleted uranium ammunition, uranium Armour plate and all other uranium weapons”.

A request should be made that the letter is circulated to all other High Contracting Parties to the 1925 Protocol and addressed to:
His Excellency, The Foreign Minister, Republic of France, 37, Quai d'Orsay, 75351 Paris, France.
Or Fax: 33-1-43-17-4275
Professor Boyle points out that: “As the Land Mines Treaty demonstrates, it is possible for a coalition of determined activists and NGO's, acting in concert with at least one sympathetic state, to bring into being an international treaty to address humanitarian concerns.” Such a sympathetic state exists: Belgium, last month, outlawed uranium weapons. If the rest of the world does not follow, what will happen is what Richard Bramhill calls “a DU-locaust” - of the children of the countries where these weapons have been used, of soldiers, of the uranium miners and of the munitions workers, as the living, dead and deformed prove.
Notes

* Author of Wings of Death and of Wolves of Water (2007) essential reading on radiation's horrors, published by Green Audit, available direct from admin@greenaudit.org Busby is also involved in Radioactive Times, the journal of the Low Level Radiation Campaign, a detailed quarterly update on nuclear industry shenanigans ( http://www.llrc.org )
** http://www.eoslifework.co.uk for a wealth of DU related material.
Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and Muslim world on numerous occasions. She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also senior researcher for John Pilger's award-winning documentary: "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq". and author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of “Baghdad” in the “Great Cities” series, for World Almanac Books (2006.)
Please also see:
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/more/geneva_protocol.html
AMERICA'S GREATEST CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY / MILITARY USE OF DU http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2006/10/31.html
The Queen's Death Star, by Leuren Moret http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2006/DU-Europe-Moret26feb06.htm
"Perpetual Death From America" By Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD Afghan-American Freelance Academic http://www.rense.com/general35/perp.htm
Depleted Uranium - Poisoning U.S. Troops And The Planethttp://uruknet.info/?p=m32443&hd=&size=1&l=e
New study detects traces of uranium in South http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=78163
Dust Up, John Upton/Tracy Press http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=3422&blz=1
Depleted Uranium Situation Requires Action By President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, states Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=2158&blz=1
WHAT THE PENTAGON REALLY KNOWS ABOUT THE CRIMINAL USE OF POISONOUS URANIUM WEAPONS, by Christopher Bollyn http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1902&blz=1
Iraqi Doctor Learns from Hiroshima's Past, note Shinya Ajima and Shinsuke Takahashi http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=1851&blz=1
DEPLETED URANIUM: THE WAR CRIME THAT HAS NO END, by Paul Rockwell http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=1462&blz=1
TV Not Concerned by Cluster Bombs, DU: 'That's just the way life is in Iraq', from FAIR http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=882&blz=1
Hazards of Uranium Weapons in the Proposed War on Iraq, by Dai Williams http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout4.php&id=575&blz=1
Pandora DU Research Project http://stopuraniumwars.blogspot.com
Felicity Arbuthnot is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Felicity Arbuthnot

Cancer emerges as major cause of death in south

2007-06-04T19:47:00.000Z

IRAQ: Cancer emerges as major cause of death in south 31 May 2007 IRINhttp://www.alertnet .org/thenews/ newsdesk/ IRIN/95c94996aae 662245c6cc0696f6 2e3cb.htm

BASRA, 31 May 2007 (IRIN) - Recent studies by medical colleges, and statistics from local morgues and hospitals, have shown a higher than expected number of cancer-related deaths in Iraq's southern provinces. According to specialists, the main causes are the increased use of unsafe products in agriculture and the long-term effects of war on health.Psychological stresses and strains engendered by years of conflict, violence, displacement and uncertainty have weakened people's natural resistance to disease. This has been compounded by the lack of skilled medical staff and poor facilities and equipment."Lack of treatment for cancer patients and outdated radiotherapy and chemotherapy techniques have led to lower survival rates of patients.

The shortage of oncologists, who have fled to neighbouring countries, has worsened the situation," said Hussein Abdel-Kareem, an oncologist and senior official in the Basra Health Secretariat."Exposure to radiation from old cluster bombs, the high use of chemicals in agriculture as well as water contamination is having a serious impact on the health of local people, since these factors are important promoters of cancer related diseases. Many of the patients could have been treated but they died because of lack of facilities," Abdel-Kareem added.

According to a study entitled The Increase in Cancer Cases as Result of War Debris - published in early May by Basra University Medical College with input from researchers at the Ministry of Health - cancer-related diseases are now one of the main causes of a large percentage of deaths in the southern provinces."At least 45 percent of deaths in the southern provinces are caused by cancer. Some patients develop related diseases which worsen their condition, leading to a faster death. The statistics are having a serious impact on the health system and urgent funds are needed," said Imad Hassan, a health specialist and member of the commission which produced the study."Southern governorates have been seriously affected by wars, especially in the past 20 years and it is a region in which chemicals and pesticides are used in fishing and agriculture, " Hassan said.He added that in Basra, Muthana, Dhi Qar and Missan governorates, the drinking water has been found to be unsafe and in some places, especially in and near rural areas, the water was highly contaminated, including with pesticide residues.

Leukaemia, breast cancerMore cancer-related deaths among women and children have been found in Basra and Missan governorates, where leukaemia among children has increased substantially by 22 percent compared to 2005, and where a lot of women have developed breast cancer, with the figures showing an increase of 19 percent compared to 2005, the study said."Over the years the local population [in the south] has been exposed to the most serious radiation and chemical factors resulting from war, including the use of unsafe and cheap pesticides, and now we see the results," Abdel-Kareem said.A number of children - some say at least three per day - are born in hospitals in the southern provinces without limbs or without organs. The phenomenon, specialists say, is a result of years of war. "We have had cases of children who showed cancer-related diseases after only four weeks of life," he added.Specialists and the provincial heath secretary have called on the central government to provide funds to improve health services in the southern provinces."We need funds, new equipment and availability of medicines to try to save the lives of hundreds of innocent indirect victims of the war," Abdel-Kareem said.

Paradise lost - DU hits Hawaii

2007-06-04T19:45:00.000Z

KITV Hawaii Video - Hawaii Depleted Uranium - Leuren Moret/ Bob Nichols Commentary - No Place is Safe. The US Army has contaminated Hawaii!
This is a devastating video on the use of forever lethal uranium weapons by the US Army in the former Paradise of Hawaii. The Army has contaminated Hawaii forever with a form of highly radioactive and deadly uranium weapons.
KITV Hawaii - Depleted Uranium Hawaii (2 Mins 33 Seconds)
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=L94IUSw54pQThe Psychopaths in the American Pentagon are methodically radiologically contaminating not only Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia; but hundreds of sites in America like the fabled San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC.
According to super secretive memos declassified from the Manhattan Project there are only two reason to use Uranium weapons. One is to kill people and the other is to contaminate the land - forever.
Who are they trying to kill in Hawaii?
Bob NicholsProject Censored Award WinnerSan Francisco Bay View NewspaperRadio Talk Show Guest and Weapons Expert

Soldiers Speak Out

2007-06-04T19:43:00.000Z

Soldiers Speak Out, featuring Dennis Kyne, Jimmey Massey, Pat Resta and many other veterans of Iraq.

http://www.denniskyne.com/soldiersto purchase your copy today.

is now ready for you to see and share with your friends. Get as many as you want for one shipping fee.

Soldiers Speak Out is a powerful, first-hand testament to the reality of the military experience, told entirely in the words of American veterans who have been to war and are now opposing it. This half-hour documentary serves as a counter-recruitment and organizing tool for activists, schools, and organizations. It provides a sober view of the war in Iraq and an important counterpoint to the "stay-the-course" rhetoric of the Bush administration.
The DVD is packed with loads of bonus footage, in addition to the documentary: 92 minutes of extended interviews with the veterans, 31 minutes of award-winning shorts: Beyond Babylon, Camp Casey, Leave My Child Alone, Looking Down, plus 27 minutes of trailers from, music section, and resource section with direct weblinks to important groups and information

Depleted Uranium munitions cause concern near Oahu military base

2007-04-27T15:42:00.000Z

Depleted uranium munitions cause concern near Oahu military base
by Bobby CommandWest Hawaii Todaybcommand@westhawaiitoday.com Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:37 AM HST

A number of Hawaii residents are calling for the governor to sign a bill that would test the soil within 500 meters of Schofield Barracks for depleted uranium.The legislation, introduced by Kailua-Kona Rep. Josh Green, calls for soil around the Army post to be tested quarterly and the results forwarded to the Legislature each year."There's been evidence already that the Army has been using depleted uranium in Hawaii," said Cory Harden, a Mountain View resident who is backing Green's bill. "There is also evidence that the depleted uranium causes birth defects and can get into the soil, water and air."West Hawaii Today also has received a number of e-mails asking for recipients to contact Gov. Linda Lingle and urge her to sign the bill.In 2006, a company conducting clean up operations at Schofield Barracks on Oahu discovered depleted uranium in the tail assemblies of obsolete ordnance that was used in the early 1960s.Prior to that, the Army had denied any use in Hawaii of depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing projectiles because of its density and ability to burn spontaneously.

Following the discovery, the Army said it did not intentionally mislead the public when it said the substance was not used in Hawaii.Harden said she is worried that the substance may be used at Pohakuloa. "I wouldn't be surprised, since many of the troops stationed at Schofield also train at Pohakuloa."

Green said his bill originally called for testing all military installations for such radioactive substances. "But these things take a life of their own once they leave my computer," he said."That being said, it will be a lot easier for us to expand the testing if this initial bill is passed," Green said. "And the bottom line is we just want to be sure that this is not getting into the environment, not just because it's radioactive, but also because it is a dangerous heavy metal."Kendrick Washington II, media relations officer for the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, said there are strict regulations regarding the use of the substance."Army policy prohibits the use of depleted uranium ammunition in training," Washington said. He did not provide any other comment.But Harden, who claims the United States is illegally occupying Hawaii, said she has opposed other military proposals and doubts the veracity of its statements."They haven't told us the truth in the past, so why should we believe them now?" said Harden, who added that the Army denied any usage of depleted uranium before it was discovered at Schofield Barracks.

Despite her statements, Harden said she is not necessarily against the military. "There are two sides to the issue. Some say they protect us and others say they make us a target," she said. "If they are here with the permission of the Hawaiian nation, then I think it is OK."

Dust Up

2007-04-22T16:13:00.000Z

Dust up

http://tracypress. com/content/ view/8873/ 2/
John Upton/Tracy Press Saturday, 21 April 2007

Tons of mildly radioactive material could be blown up if an explosives testing permit is approved for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By John Upton

Glenn Moore/Tracy Press - BLAST OFF:The 851 firing table at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Site 300 plays host to outdoor test explosions. A permit application filed with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, if approved, would allow the Lab to increase the amount of depleted uranium and other materials exploded in outdoor tests.

Analysis of an air pollution permit application filed two weeks ago shows that tons of radioactive depleted uranium and other toxic heavy metals could be blown up in outdoor military test blasts near Tracy.

Yearly, 20 explosions could each vaporize 220 pounds of depleted uranium at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Site 300 testing ground, off Corral Hollow Road in the San Joaquin Valley air basin.

Lawrence Livermore has applied to detonate more than 4 tons a year of depleted uranium on outdoor gravel-lined Site 300 blast tables. The lab already conducts 60 to 100 smaller test blasts annually in which an unstated amount of depleted uranium is used “routinely,” according to a February letter sent to Tracy homes by Site 300’s manager.

Lab officials this week said they have no immediate plans to detonate much of the material listed in the permit application, including 20 grams annually of radioactive tritium, 1,450 pounds of lead and 1.3 tons of corrosive lithium hydroxide, a common ingredient in batteries.

Quantities of materials listed in the permit application were based on “back-calculations” of doses allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency outside Site 300’s border, according to Mike Dunning from the lab’s nuclear weapons program.

The lab applied for the highest limits possible to save time and money on later permit amendments and additions, Dunning said.

The executive director of lab watchdog Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, Marylia Kelley, described as “unrealistic” the lab’s assumption that just 9 percent — or up to 720 pounds per year — of the uranium that could be blown up outdoors at Site 300 would be light enough for the wind to carry it away from the 7,000-acre weapons testing site.

Lab spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said the rest — as much as 7,300 pounds annually — would settle on the ground at the 50-year-old site, which is already listed by the EPA as one of the nation’s most-polluted pieces of land.

Depleted uranium has advantages in military use, but its health effects are disputed. Some blame it for causing debilitating wartime illnesses, while others argue its radioactivity is so weak that it’s harmless.

Depleted uranium is used in munitions because it’s twice as heavy as lead and because it has characteristics that allow it to penetrate tank and other armor and then explode, according to Richard Muller, a Berkeley-based physicist. Muller, after a 34-year career, resigned last year from the 47-year-old JASON science and technology advisory group, which is sponsored by federal intelligence, energy and defense agencies.

“They make a hollow region in the explosive and they coat that with depleted uranium,” Muller said. “When they set off the explosive, the depleted uranium is pushed into the empty space at high speed, where it … goes forward with enormous velocity.

“They don’t use it for the radioactivity — the radioactivity is just a little bit of a pain in the neck. Depleted uranium is not terribly radioactive.”

Depleted uranium is used in American armor as well as grenades, bombs and armor-piercing bullets. U.S. forces have used it in both Iraq wars.

Army munitions director Col. Jim Naughton in a 2003 press briefing on depleted uranium said the powerful bomb material gives the U.S. military a big advantage on the battlefield.

“The Iraqis tell us, ‘Terrible things happened to our people because you used it last time,’” Naughton said. “Why do they want it to go away They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them.”

A 2002 report commissioned by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which summarized other studies, blamed the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium used in Iraq for the debilitating and widespread Gulf War syndrome, for a four- to six-fold increase in Iraqi birth defects after the first Gulf War and for a seven- to 10-fold increase in Iraqi cancer rates.

Specific individual deaths and serious illnesses were linked in the report to inhaled depleted uranium, which is toxic and emits low-level radioactivity for the average three to four years that it takes to leave the lungs, according to the report.

“The users of depleted uranium have tried to keep the effects of depleted uranium secret,” wrote report author Y.K.J. Yeung Sik Yuen.

According to a December letter to the Tracy Press editor signed by Lawrence Livermore health physicist Gary Mansfield, the health effects of depleted uranium are negligible.

“A key issue is that the health effects, if any, of a substance depend not on whether any of the substance is inhaled or ingested, but on how much of the substance is taken into the body,” Mansfield wrote. “Because it is so weakly radioactive, it is very difficult to take enough depleted uranium into your body to cause any harm.”

The Bush administration last month invited the $1.7 billion-a-year Department of Energy weapons lab, which will be partly managed by military contractors starting later this year, to design a new generation of atomic warheads. Lab officials have denied that their San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District permit application is linked to that mission.

To reach reporter e-mail jupton@tracypress.com.

Wolves of Water - by Dr Chris Busby

2007-04-18T18:10:00.000Z

Wolves of Water

The sequel to Wings of Death

Click here for a 4-page flyer (a PDF file)
Index

This is a book about corporate responsibility as it is applied to national governments. Part biography, part textbook, part warning, part entertainment and part celebration of life, it is an account of what happens when we take on the might of the nuclear / military lobby using the methods of science and epidemiology.
Most of all it is a message to the planet and its inhabitants to take control of the policy/science interface before the products of science and scientific ways of thinking destroy us all.

The author is an international expert on radiation and health, a Fellow of the University of Liverpool, member of two UK government committees, expert witness in radiation court cases, Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, science policy leader of the EU Policy Information Network for Child Health and Environment (PINCHE).

This book provides evidence that radioactive pollution has killed and is killing hundreds of thousands of people through cancer and other diseases. It dissects the working of the official radiation risk committees and establishment using analysis, photocopied documents, letters, leaked minutes and personal statements. It reveals that at the highest levels there is a long-running and continuing cover-up of the cause of the present cancer epidemic.

Published by Green Audit, Aberystwyth, UK ISBN 1 897761 26 0
Price £12 / Euro20
Order direct from the publishers: Email christo@greenaudit.org.
Review copies may be requested from Dr. Busby at Green Audit.

Soldier Health Scare Back in News

2007-04-18T17:52:00.000Z

(full report at: http://www.news- journalonline. com/special/ uranium/DUFOLO04 1507.htm

By AUDREY PARENTE
STAFF WRITER

Lori Brim cradled her son in her arms for three months before he died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

N-J | Ji-Eun Lee

Lori Brim poses for a portrait holding up a button to promote a campaign to raise awareness of the depleted uranium at her office at Riverside Bank in Holly Hill. The Ormond Beach resident believes her son Dustin died from exposure to depleted uranium when he was serving in Iraq.

Dustin Brim, a 22-year-old Army specialist had collapsed three years ago in Iraq from a very aggressive cancer that attacked his kidney, caused a mass to grow over his esophagus and collapsed a lung.

The problems she saw during her time at Walter Reed, including her son screaming in pain while doctors argued over medications, had nothing to do with mold and shabby conditions documented in recent news reports. What this mother saw was an unexplainable illness consuming her son.

And what she has learned since her son’s death is that his was not an isolated case.

Lori Brim has joined other parents, hundreds of other sick soldiers, legislators, research scientists and environmental activists who say the cause of their problems results from exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive metal used in the manufacture of U.S. tank armor and weapon casings.

Health and environmental effects of depleted uranium are at the heart of scientific studies, a lawsuit in the New York courts and legislative bills in more than a dozen states (although not in Florida).

News stories claiming negative signs of depleted uranium’s impact, including death and birth defects, are surfacing from Australia to England to the Far East. The controversy rages within government bodies and underlies the theme of TV shows like a recent episode of the medical series "House."

While the military continues to deny the connection of depleted uranium to sicknesses plaguing returning servicemen and women, a newly mandated study stemming from legislation signed by President Bush in October is just getting under way.

OPPOSITION

The new study, which began in March, follows several that have been completed by the military into depleted uranium, a byproduct left when enriched uranium is separated out for use in nuclear power and atomic weapons. The Department of Energy gives it to arms makers, where its extreme density is valuable in the manufacture of armor and casings.

Despite a 1996 U.N. resolution opposing its use because of discovery of health problems after the first Gulf War, the military studies have concluded there was no evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses.

To the military, the effectiveness of weapons and armor made with depleted uranium outweighs any residual effects. Their bottom line: Depleted uranium saves soldiers’ lives in combat.

Robert Holloway, president of Nevada Technical Associates Inc., a firm that specializes in radiation safety training, disputes any concern over depleted uranium.

"I have no financial interest in promoting depleted uranium," Holloway wrote in an e-mail to The News-Journal. "There really is no substitute for depending on the judgment of professionals in this field."

Holloway and others who believe depleted uranium is safe to use say the best authority in the scientific community would be individuals connected to the Health Physics Society.

Doug Craig of Ponce Inlet, a retired radiation biophysics scientist, is such a person. He doesn’t believe low doses of radiation from depleted uranium are a problem.

"Uranium occurs in a lot of places," Craig said, "and man has been exposed to low concentrations of uranium for a long time."

Canada Lets Iraqi doctor speak

2007-04-18T08:45:00.000Z

by Jonathan Woodward - the Globe 14th April

VANCOUVER — A highly regarded Iraqi epidemiologist who wants to tell
>Americans about an alarming rise in cancer levels among Iraqi children
>will come to Canada instead because he couldn't get a visa to the
>United States.
>
>Unable to travel to the University of Washington, Riyadh Lafta -- best
>known for a controversial study that estimated Iraq's body count in
>the U.S.-led war in Iraq at more than half a million -- will arrive at
>Simon Fraser University in B.C. this month to give a lecture and meet
>with research associates.
>
>"The University of Washington wanted him, but the U.S. denied his
>entry," said his colleague at SFU, Tim Takaro. "They need to be able
>to collaborate, even if his results are unpopular with the Americans.
>Now he's at SFU, and the best they're going to get is a video feed."
>
>Once in Canada, Dr. Lafta will present estimates that paint a damning
>portrait of the war's ravages on children: that birth defects are on
>the rise since the war began, and that the number of children dying
>from cancers such as leukemia has risen tenfold.
>
>Dr. Lafta had tried for six months to get a visa into Seattle to speak
>in Washington, and was ignored a half-dozen times, Dr. Takaro said.
>
>The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services couldn't be reached for
>comment. But a spokesman for Seattle Democratic Congressman Jim
>McDermott said he couldn't understand the decision. "Jim's certainly
>more than a little unhappy about it. We don't know whether this was a
>snafu or more than that," Mike DeCesare said. "Certainly with the
>doctor not able to be on the campus, and engage directly with people,
>you've got to believe that's a net loss for everybody."
>
>Dr. Lafta was born in Baghdad in 1960, was trained as a physician at
>Baghdad University College and then worked for 14 years for the
>Ministry of Health under Saddam Hussein. He became the head of the
>communicable disease department and then the primary-care department
>of Diyala province in northern Iraq.
>
>Dr. Lafta, who is still in Iraq, couldn't be reached by e-mail
>yesterday. But Dr. Takaro shared a message from his personal
>communication. "The main point is that people outside Iraq do not
>realize the real disaster we are suffering," Dr. Lafta writes. "Only
>the Iraqi people know that, simply because the foreigners are
>listening to the news while we are living the events on the ground."
>

FROM RADIOACTIVE MINES TO RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS

2007-04-18T08:43:00.001Z

FROM RADIOACTIVE MINES TO RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS (30 MINS APPROX) NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD.

This film (1999) chronicles how three large communities of people have been affected by uranium - the Navajo uranium miners, 1991 Gulf War veterans, and the Iraqi people. The film begins on the Navajo Reservation in the southwestern United States, where for years Navajo uranium miners and their families have been adversely affected by uranium mining and its continuing impact on the people and environment. The documentary then shifts to the 1991 Gulf War and the use of depleted uranium weapons. Gulf War veterans from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain along with Iraqi soldiers and civilians have been exposed to fallout from the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. and European forces during ground warfare. The film also interviews uranium activists and Navajo Nation attorneys, a human rights attorney raising the depleted uranium issues in the United Nations, and a university physicist with evidence of Gulf War soldier's exposure to depleted uranium and its results.
To order this video: please contact
danrobicheau@ hotmail.com
This CD is available for $20.00.

for more information, contact the American Depleted Uranium Study Team
http://health. groups.yahoo. com/groups/ AmericanDUST

New film on gulf veterans against the war

2007-04-18T08:38:00.000Z

Reveille! Reveille!, featuring Dennis Kyne, Jimmey Massey, Pat Resta and many other veterans of Iraq.

to purchase your copy today - http://www.dennisky ne.com/reveiller eveille.html

In March 2005, the Iraq Veterans Against the War held their first national meeting in a hotel just outside Fort Bragg, NC. The small gathering proved too controversial to receive any notice from the mainstream media. Yet in less than a year, the organization grew from a handful of members to several hundred GIs and combat veterans of the “Global War on Terror.” As images of war crimes in Iraq began trickling back to the U.S. public these veterans emerged from the shadows to confirm atrocities committed in the name of freedom.
Reveille! Reveille! chronicles the Iraq Veterans Against the War in their earliest attempts to prevent further atrocities and regain their humanity. These films follow this generation of veterans from their initial gathering to their stand at the gates of the White House, which resulted in the largest mass arrest by U.S. Park Police since the Vietnam War. Reveille! Reveille! is an eye-opening experience for anyone who has questions about the war.

[input]
http://www.dennisky ne.com/reveiller eveille.html

Australian Gulf War Veterans contaminated with Uranium

2007-04-18T08:33:00.000Z

Australian service personnel who served in the Gulf during 1991
have tested positive for uranium contamination. The Uranium Medical
Research Centre (UMRC) in Canada, working in conjunction with DUSK
Australia (Depleted Uranium Silent Killer) has tested a
representative from the Australian Navy and a representative from
the Australian Army. The uranium isotope analysis on their urine
was carried out at the J.W. Goethe University in Germany and
confirms depleted uranium
contamination.

To date, the Australian Government has not acknowledged the
possibility that Australian service personnel could be contaminated
with uranium. However, scientific research reveals that Iraq is
highly contaminated with the radioactive fallout from depleted
uranium weapons. The positive tests of these Australian veterans,
reveals that they are still excreting uranium through their
kidneys, fifteen years after their return from Gulf War 1.

The Australian veterans in this test case are ill. They exhibit
multiple health problems from their exposure to radiological
warfare. Their intimate partners suffer health problems and so do
their children. The contamination of Iraq has resulted in an
explosion of cancer, leukaemia and birth defects among the local
civilian population.

Depleted uranium is highly toxic and radioactive waste. It is a by-
product of the enrichment process that prepares uranium for use in
nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. This radioactive waste is
denser and heavier than lead. It is manufactured into bunker
busters that can penetrate deep into the earth and into the most
powerful anti tank weapons available in the arms market today.

The Australian debate about embracing nuclear power technology, has
omitted the inextricable link between uranium mining and uranium
weapons. The proliferation of nuclear weapons causes concern, but
depleted uranium weapons, are used daily in conflicts across the
world.

The nuclear industry exists on the understanding that radioactive
contamination is safely contained within nuclear facilities. The
ethics of recycling radioactive waste into weapons and shooting it
into another countries' backyard is missing from this debate. When
depleted uranium weapons are fired, they immediately flare off
uranium particles that can be ingested and inhaled. They lodge in
the lung and other organs, irradiating the victim from the inside.

There are repercussions for all Australians now that Australian
service personnel have tested positive for uranium contamination.
The Uranium Medical Research Centre is concerned about blood
products and organ donations from persons known or suspected to be
exposed to depleted uranium.

Uranium weapons are illegal. They fail the four rules derived from
the whole of humanitarian law regarding weapons.

1. Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle.
2. Weapons can only be used for the duration of the armed conflict.
3. Weapons must not be unduly inhumane
4. Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural
environment.

Depleted uranium is radioactive for 4.5 billion years.

Therefore, uranium weapons cannot be contained on the legal
battlefield, nor within the timeframe of the battle. The birth
defects exhibited by babies born after the conflict and the
explosion of cancers afflicting civilians is evidence of the
inhumanity of these weapons. The radioactive particles will drift
across countries and around the world, contaminating air, water,
soil and all life forms.

Australians are at risk at home. The Senate Hansard reveals that we
have imported from the United States 34,000 depleted uranium
weapons. The Australian Navy has used these weapons in training off
the Australian coast. There are no records available to the public
to identify `when or where' these weapons were expended. Wind
patterns at the time of the training exercises would reveal
communities at risk of contamination.

In 2003 the Australian Government opened up all of our defence
training areas to the United States. There is ship to shore and air
to ground bombing near Perth in Western Australia at the Lancelin
Defence Training Area. In January 2006 the United States began
flying in from Guam for regular bombing of the Northern Territory.
This occurs just west of Katherine at the Delemere bombing range.
The Shoalwater Bay defence training area in Queensland includes a
section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It will host the
largest joint Australian US military training exercise in June,
Talisman Sabre 2007.

The Australian Government is adamant that no uranium weapons are
being used, however no testing of water and soil is being done to
reassure the public that uranium weapons have not and will not be
used. The Australian Defence Force has purchased the M1A1 tank that
is shielded in depleted uranium. The patent of the Hellfire 11
missile reveals a "dense metal" warhead of tungsten or uranium
alloy. It is being imported from the United States for use with the
Australian Tiger Helicopter, currently being manufactured in
Brisbane.

As a result of the uranium contamination of Australian Army and
Navy personnel, it is time for Australia to rethink the export of
uranium. Government safeguards assuring us that Australian uranium
is only used for `peaceful' purposes are simply an illusion of
protection. Once our uranium is exported, it can be mixed with
uranium from other countries. In the gaseous diffusion that
separates enriched and depleted uranium, it is not possible to
isolate Australia's uranium. We export uranium to
the United States, the world's largest manufacturer and exporter of
arms.

Estimates reveal that up to 800 tons of radioactive waste (depleted
uranium) was dumped on Iraq during Gulf War 1. There is an estimate
of about 1,100 tons used in Gulf War 2 and the bombing continues.

How many Australian service personnel are contaminated?
How will this affect the Australian civilian population?
It is time to take seriously the undiagnosed illnesses of
Australian Gulf War veterans who have been deployed to a
radioactive theatre of war.It is time to address the sickness of
their partners and their children.It is time to look carefully at
what is happening on Australia's defence training areas. From
uranium mines to uranium weapons: Has Australia's uranium
unleashed a public health catastrophe?

Pauline Rigby

Coordinator:
DUSK/ UMRC project to test Australian veterans for uranium
contamination
DUSK (Depleted Uranium Silent Killer) Australia www.dusk-qld. info

Uranium and the War

2007-04-18T08:29:00.000Z

March 21, 2007 (for full article go to

http://uruknet.info/?p=m31556&s1=h1

In five billion years our sun will explode into a white dwarf and envelope the earth, according to NASA projections.

The half-life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years.

This means that by the time the Earth ceases to be a planet, only a little more than half of the depleted uranium (DU) that the United States Army is firing into Iraq and other countries around the world will be gone. The rest of the radioactive material will still be poisoning the Iraqi people.

The U.S. Army revealed in March 2003 that it dropped between 320 and 390 tons of DU during the Gulf War—the first time the material was ever used in combat—and it is estimated that more still has been dropped during the current invasion, though there have been no official counts as yet.

Depleted uranium munitions are extremely dense, toxic, and mildly radioactive. And despite mounting evidence of DU’s negative health affects for combatants and civilians alike, their use is increasing.

Naturally occurring uranium has three forms: uranium 235, 234, and 238. More than 99 percent of earth’s uranium is 238. Uranium 238 is much less radioactive than uranium 235, which is why it takes so long to deteriorate.

Nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants require highly radioactive uranium, so the uranium 238 is removed from the naturally occurring uranium by a process known as enrichment. Depleted uranium is the by-product of the uranium enrichment process.

Since so much of the natural uranium is 238—which is nearly useless for nuclear weapons manufacturing and use in power plants—uranium enrichment factories are left with large amounts of uranium 238, or DU. According to an estimate by the Kansas-based group Nukewatch, the United States has over a billion pounds of DU in its stockpile. This product is twice as dense as lead, and more toxic than it. DU is used to make numerous weapons systems, from shells to bullets to armor for tanks. DU munitions are commonly called Penetrators, a testament to the material’s density.

Belgian Parliament votes on DU Ban

2007-04-18T08:05:00.000Z

117 Belgian votes for a ban on depleted uranium (DU) munitions
and armour

On Thursday 22th March the Belgian Chamber plenary sitting voted
the law proposal regarding depleted uranium munitions that was
unanimously approved by the Chamber Commission on National
Defence two weeks ago.
Again, the plenary sitting of the Parliament voted unanimously in
favor of this law proposal that will " prohibit the manufacture, use,
storage, sale, acquisition, supply and transit of inert munitions and
armour that contain depleted uranium or any other industrially
manufactured uranium ." Deputies Brigitte Wiaux (CdH), ZoëGenot
(Ecolo), Stef Goris (VLD) and Dirk Van der Maelen (political group
leader of SP.A and SPIRIT) appealed for a wide parliamentary
support of the law proposal.

All 117 parliamentarians, including extreme right, voted to ban
depleted uranium munitions and armor. Probably before the federal
elections, the law will be publicized in the Belgian Statute Book.

Willem Van den Panhuysen and Ria Verjauw, campaign leaders of
the Belgian Coalition 'Stop Uranium Weapons!' were surprised of
this tremendous political consensus to ban this type of weaponry.
Belgium is now the first country in the world to counter this
indiscriminate DU weapons relying on the precautionary principle.

Uranium Stilll Killling Italian Troops

2007-01-11T08:47:00.000Z

http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/europe/ 6247401.stm

By Christian Fraser
BBC News, Rome

Italian soldiers are still dying following exposure to depleted
uranium in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, their relatives say.

Troops who served during the wars in the 1990s believe they have
contracted cancer and other serious illnesses from extended exposure
to the munitions.

The US says it fired around 40,000 depleted uranium rounds during the
Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts.
A pressure group says 50 veterans have died and another 200 are
seriously ill.

Depleted uranium is used on the tips of bullets and shells. Because
of its density it can pierce the armour plating on tanks.

But when it explodes it often leaves a footprint of chemically
poisonous and radioactive dust.

The Italians who served in Bosnia and Kosovo were involved in the
clear-up of battlefields and came into close contact with exploded
ammunition.
Children with disabilities

The association representing the soldiers, known as Anavafaf, says
many of those who have died or are ill have contracted cancer.

In 2002 the Italian defence ministry published a report compiled by
independent scientists which found a higher than average number of
servicemen were suffering from cancer.

It said there was an excessive number of Hodgkin's disease victims
among Italian Balkan peacekeepers.

A number of children fathered by the soldiers have been born with
disabilities.

There are similar reports from soldiers' associations in Belgium,
Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Both the US and Britain acknowledge the dust from depleted uranium
can be dangerous if inhaled but they insist the danger is short-lived
and localised.

FURTHER EVIDENCE OF ENRICHED URANIUM IN THE AIR IN LEBANON FOLLOWING THE RECENT CONFLICT

2006-11-22T20:50:00.000Z

See http://www.llrc.org for outline, full report and pictures.

Part of the message of this report is that citizen groups can use simple, affordable and reliable techniques to monitor for the presence of hot radioactive particles in the environment.

Green Audit recently reported the results of measurements carried out on samples from a bomb crater in Khiam Southern Lebanon. Measurements made by the Harwell laboratory in Oxford confirmed the existence of Enriched Uranium of activity 180Bq/kg and U238/U235 ratio of 108 in the sample. The discovery, which was reported in ‘The Independent’ of 28^th October, has caused some concern. The United Nations Environment Programme UNEP responded that its analyses have failed to detect Uranium. The Israel Defence Force has denied using Depleted Uranium weapons. Further evidence of the widespread existence of enriched uranium in Lebanon is now reported in a new paper by Chris Busby and Dai Williams which has been accepted by the European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics and is available on the LLRC website www.llrc.org.

Since the first analysis of the Khiam sample (which used Mass Spectrometry) was reported, Green Audit commissioned a second analysis using different techniques. Alpha spectrometry carried out at the School of Ocean Sciences University of Wales has confirmed the presence of Enriched Uranium but also shown the absence of significant amounts of plutonium. In addition, gamma spectroscopy has shown that there is no Caesium-137 or other gamma emitting isotopes that would be expected if the sample originated in spent nuclear fuel.

There are significant and justified health concerns about exposure to the long lived and widely dispersed oxide particles formed when uranium weapons are used.

In order to examine whether the Khiam bomb was a local contamination affair or whether there is more widespread distribution of uranium, Green Audit has commissioned an analysis for Uranium isotopes of a vehicle air filter taken by Dai Williams from an ambulance in the suburb of Haret Hreyk in South Beirut. The ambulance was hit on day 16 of the war but was active until then. The filter was examined using CR39 alpha tracking plastic and also sent to the Harwell laboratory for an analysis of uranium isotopes and also a routine 45 element analysis. The filter was dissolved in acid and examined using ICP Mass Spectrometry by the Harwell laboratory. Results confirmed the presence of enriched uranium. In three separate measurements the isotopic ratios U238/U235 found were 113, 123, 133 and total concentration in the filter element as supplied was 0.1mg/kg. The lower limit of detection of the Harwell measurement system was 0.0002mg/kg U238 and 0.0001mg/kg U235. This concentration is significant given that the dust in the filter would have had only two weeks to accumulate and add to earlier dust from a year’s usage in the engine. In addition, CR39 tracking techniques suggested the presence of at least two hot particles in the filter, the size and activity characteristics of which are consistent with Uranium. Although care should be taken in over-interpreting data based on only one filter, these results do suggest that there was widespread dispersion of enriched uranium over Southern Lebanon. We suggest that further vehicle filter measurements are made as a matter of urgency and that since there are political aspects, the issue is examined by or overseen by independent experts. We repeat here our earlier warning that the detection of weapons uranium in the environment is not straightforward and that conventional Geiger counters cannot be used. CR39 or sensitive beta scintillation counters followed by sampling and ICPMS is necessary before statements can be made about the presence or absence of uranium particles.

‘Further evidence of enriched uranium in guided weapons employed by the Israeli military in Lebanon in July 2006; Ambulance filter analysis’ Dai Williams and Chris Busby. European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics 2006 Vol 2 Issue 1. Published on the website www.llrc.org with permission of the Journal.

Notes:

The earlier Green Audit report on bomb crater samples is at http://www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/lebanrept.pdf

Independent report at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

ICP-MS is "Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy".

European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics: see http://www.ebab.eu.com

Critics of Green Audit and LLRC have referred to the Human Rights Council report "Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon" (http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/CoI-Lebanon.pdf), claiming that it indicates depleted Uranium was not used in Lebanon. The relevant paragraph appears to be:

ii. Depleted uranium

257. The IDF has within its arsenal of weapons munitions that can be equipped with depleted uranium warheads. It is therefore possible that depleted uranium (DU) munitions were used by the IDF during the conflict. However, the preliminary findings of the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, which carried out a detailed field survey of several bomb sites, concluded that there was no indication of depleted uranium having been used in the conflict, with the caveat that some additional field work was still necessary to draw a final conclusion.

We note that we have already suggested enriched Uranium was deployed in order to disguise the depleted Uranium signature; that since no monitoring methods have been specified either by UNEP or OHCHR no-one can be confident that the forms of Uranium produced by Uranium bombs or armour piercing rounds would be detected; and that the findings are provisional.

We have sent you this email circular because you are on our database of people who are concerned about low level radiation and health. If you do not want to receive information from us please reply, putting “remove from LLRC” in the subject line.

Low Level Radiation Campaign
bramhall@llrc.org

Khiam Southern Lebanon A bombs Anatomy

2006-11-14T10:31:00.000Z

By Flaviano Masella, Angelo Saso, Maurizio Torrealta

taken from: http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchieste/09112006_bomba_ing.asp

The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. The measurements were carried out by two Lebanese professors of physics - Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi. The data - 700 nanosieverts per hour – showed remarkably higher radiocativity then the average in the area (Beirut = 35 nSv/hr ). Successivamente, on September 17th, Ali Kubaissi took British researcher Dai Williams, from the environmentalist organization Green Audit, to the same site, to take samples that were then submitted to Chris Busby, technical adisor of the Supervisory Committee on Depleted Uranium, which reports to the British Ministry of Defense. The samples were tested by Harwell’s nuclear laboratory, one of the most authoritative research centers in the world. On October 17th, Harwell disclosed the testing results - two samples in 10 did contain radioactivity.

On November 2nd, another British lab, The School of Oceanographic Sciences, confirmed Harwell’s results – the Khiam crater contains slightly enriched uranium. Rainews24 also took a sample taken by Dai Williams for testing by the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara. The testing - which is still ongoing - found an anomalous structure: the sample’s surface includes alluminium and iron silicates, normal elements in a soil fragment. Yet, looking inside, estremely small bubbles can be found with high concentration of iron. Further testing will clarify the origin of these structures: what seems to be certain at the moment is that they are not caused by a natural process.

What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences?

Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years.

Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Phisics came to the same conlcusion: “There are two ways to explain the origin of the enriched uranium found in Khiam:

About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities:

1) this material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army.

2) the enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work.

The Israeli army denied the use of uranium-based weapons in Lebanon. So, how can people defend themselves from potential uranium-related harm? What precautions will the Unifil troops in the area take, and what kind of testing has been carried out to prevent the risks? The documentary directly covers those qestions.

Translation by Desiree Berlangieri and Maria Letizia Tesorini

2006-11-13T18:25:00.000Z

Shafting the Vets

2006-11-11T16:43:00.000Z

by Conn Hallinan | November 10, 2006 (full story at: http://fpif. org/fpiftxt/ 3695
“War is hell,” Union General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said 14 years after the end of the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

Clearly the U.S. Civil War is not on the reading list of psychiatrist Sally Satel, a scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Indeed, Satel sees war less as hell than as a golden opportunity for veteran lay-abouts to milk the government by “ overpathologizing the psychic pain of war.”

Satel, whom the AEI trots out anytime the Bush administration needs cover for cutting veteran services and benefits, says the problem for former soldiers is not Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “The real trouble for vets,” she writes, is that “once a patient receives a monthly check based on his psychiatric diagnosis, his motivation to hold a job wanes.” Her solution? “Don't offer disability benefits too quickly.”

The commentary makes an interesting contrast to a powerful piece in the October 2006 issue of the California Nurses Association's magazine Registered Nurse titled “The Battle at Home” by Caitlin Fischer and Diana Reiss. They found that “in veterans' hospitals across the country—and in a growing number of ill-prepared, under-funded psych and primary care clinics as well—Registered Nurses … are treating soldiers … and picking up the pieces of a tattered army.”

According to the authors, RNs across the country “have witnessed the guilt, rage, emotional numbness, and tormented flashbacks of GIs just back from Iraq and Afghanistan,” as well as older vets from previous wars, “whose half-century-old trauma have been ‘triggered' by the images of Iraq.”

How many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually fall victim to PTSD is not clear, although a U.S. Defense Department study in 2006 found that one in six returnees suffer from depression or stress disorders, and 35% have sought counseling for emotional difficulties. The Veterans Administration (VA) treated 20,638 Iraq vets for PTSD in just the first quarter of 2006 and is currently processing a backlog of 400,000 cases.

Out of 700,000 soldiers who served in the 1991 Gulf War, 118,000 are suffering from chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, joint pains, anxiety, memory loss, and balance problems, and 40% receive disability pay. Gulf vets are also twice as likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and between two and three times more likely to have children with birth defects.

gent Orange exposure tied to ills in Vietnam vets

2006-11-10T09:35:00.001Z

9/11/06

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Vietnam veterans who sprayed the herbicides like Agent Orange decades ago in Vietnam are at an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic breathing problems, a new study shows. Agent Orange, a weed killer containing dioxin, was widely used during the Vietnam War, Dr. Han K. Kang of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC and colleagues note in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Overall, two thirds of the herbicides used during the conflict contained dioxin.

(Full article at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061109/hl_nm/agent_orange_dc)

gent Orange exposure tied to ills in Vietnam vets

2006-11-10T09:35:00.000Z

9/11/06

Vietnam veterans who sprayed the herbicides like Agent Orange decades ago in Vietnam are at an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic breathing problems, a new study shows.Agent Orange, a weed killer containing dioxin, was widely used during the Vietnam War, Dr. Han K. Kang of the Department of Veteran Affairs

in Washington, DC and colleagues note in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Overall, two thirds of the herbicides used during the conflict contained dioxin.

To understand the long-term effects of exposure to the chemicals, Kang and his team compared 1,499 members of the US Army Chemical Corps to 1,428 vets who had worked in chemical operations jobs but did not serve in Vietnam. The Chemical Corps members had been responsible for spraying herbicide around base camp perimeters, as well as aerial spraying of the chemicals from helicopters.

Study participants were surveyed by telephone in 1999 and 2000.

Tests of a subset of the study participants, including 795 Vietnam vets and 102 non-Vietnam vets, showed the Vietnam vets had higher levels of dioxin in their blood. (Full article at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061109/hl_nm/agent_orange_dc)

US and UK Ignored DU Cancer Risk

2006-11-08T08:56:00.000Z

The U.S. and UK continued to use depleted uranium munitions in Iraq despite warnings that they cause cancer, a BBC investigation concluded.

UN scientists have pointed to the health implications of using depleted uranium in Iraq, where the weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars.

Depleted uranium (DU), which is used for armor-piercing bullets or shells, is an extremely dense and hard metal that can cause chemical poisoning to the body, according to the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium Web site.

Fears over the DU's health implications prompted a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001, which said that the weapons pose only a small contamination risk.

But a top UN scientist told the BBC Radio Four's Today program that evidence showing that depleted uranium could cause cancer was withheld.

(Full article at: http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_id=12149

Depleted Uranium For Dummies

2006-11-07T11:13:00.000Z

Depleted Uranium For Dummies

By Irving Wesley Hall
Notinkansas.us
Under the direction of Secretary of Defense Cheney, the 1991 Gulf War began with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign that destroyed large biological laboratories, chemical plants, and nuclear enrichment facilities, most of them around Baghdad. Many sites were illegally supplied by the Reagan-Bush administration, in which both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld served, so the United States government knew their locations.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons damage the bodies of soldiers in distinct ways. The first employs deadly bacteria and viruses to cause known illnesses. The second uses poisonous, or toxic, substances to attack the body's chemistry. Nuclear weapons, such as depleted uranium (D.U.), were unimaginable before World War II. They attack the body with invisible radioactive energy that, as you will soon read, produces a wider variety of symptoms that develop over a longer period of time. Radioactive heavy metal particles embedded in the body are both radioactive and toxic.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons can potentially "blow back." Once they are released, they can kill and maim civilians as well as enemy soldiers. Hence all three have been banned by international treaties which the United States signed.

They also blow back on the army that uses them. The practical danger to America's own troops prevented the widespread use of WMD's until the atomic bombs in World War II and the chemical herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of American troops suffered and died because of the testing and use of these weapons.

For full article go to http://www.countercurrents.org/hall230306.htm or visit www.notinkansas.us for current articles.

Stop Uranum Wars - Mission Statement

2006-11-05T12:36:00.000Z

NO 'BAN' OR TREATY NECESSARY. URANIUM WEAPONRY IS ILLEGAL BY FORCE OF LAW

Deceptively called 'Depleted', fallout from uranium weapons will still be poisoning the earth when the sun goes out.

Uranium coated tanks and bullets have been used by the US in both Gulf Wars. The resultant radioactivity lasts 4.5 billion years.

It is a war crime to attack living beings and the Earth with radioactive material of any kind!

Attempting to create a "treaty" is not useful because:

1. UN will never develop a "treaty" targeting the few countries using UW.

2. the US/UK would never ratify -- so we are left with the "operation of
existing law" argument in any legal action involving US.

3. There is not a State to carry this.

4. Even if there were, States control the text, not nongovernmental organizations, and what might be proposed would be seriously watered down -- endangering possible litigants.

5. Efforts to get treaties are very costly, and take many years and drain activist work. The present and future victims can't wait ten years!

We are NOT working on a ban, as UW is already banned.

Karen Parker, JD, delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights since
1982, states that "A weapon made illegal only because there is a specific treaty
banning it is only illegal for countries that ratify such a treaty." However,
"a weapon that is illegal by operation of existing law is illegal for all
countries.

Parker provides legal advice to the UN on DU weapons and other matters of
humanitarian law.

"DU weaponry cannot possibly be legal in light of existing law," Parker
said."In evaluating whether a particular weapon is legal or illegal when there is
not a specific treaty, the whole of humanitarian law must be consulted,"
Parker states.

Because UW is illegal, we demand:

The Immediate cessation of the manufacture, deployment and use of uranum weapons

Immediate restitution of, and compensation for victims of uranium posioning

We support the petition at the Organization of American States to
discover the possible impacts of DU on the people of Fallujah attacked by the
US (http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker/press.html).