[COS_VFP] FW: [vfp-all] The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance
Lane Anderson
andersonlane at hotmail.com
Fri Apr 9 05:44:24 PDT 2004
>From: "VFP National" <veteransfp at sbcglobal.net>
>Reply-To: vfp-all-owner at yahoogroups.com
>To: "vfp-all" <vfp-all at yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [vfp-all] The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance
>Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2004 15:00:48 -0500
>
>The Uranium Munitions Pledge of Resistance An Action Proposal With
>Footnoted Analysis
>
>--by John Lewallen (lewallen at mcn.org)
>
>Please accept this humble offering from my winter's work. I look forward
>to being in groups with you to lovingly work for an end to war on Earth.
>I'm proposing a worldwide campaign of nonviolent resistance to the use of
>uranium munitions. Please sign and circulate the URANIUM MUNITIONS PLEDGE
>OF RESISTANCE: "I WILL NOT USE, NOR ORDER THE USE OF, URANIUM MUNITIONS." I
>believe the strategy of person-by-person nonviolent resistance is the best
>way to speed the end of uranium munition use on Earth. It's something each
>of us can do now to start out. Organized, it could be a powerful way of
>encouraging nonviolent noncooperation with war itself. Many other
>strategies--legal, political, ecucational--are urgently needed to counter
>the Big Institutional Lie that uranium munitions are no big problem. With
>Major Doug Rokke, I IMPLORE YOU TO ACT1 Below I have tried to summarize the
>amazing set of factors that today have made uranium the state-of-the-art
>deep-penetration munition metal for U.S. armed forces worldwide, dooming
>U.S. troops using it to a highly toxic and mutagenic battlefield
>environment filled with uranium vapor, which has been known as a chemical
>and radiological warfare agent since 1943. This means that, based on what
>happened to Gulf War 1991 vets, at least one out of three soldiers sent to
>Iraq today will be disabled by the toxins encountered there within ten
>years. The strategy of nonviolent resistance is required because the
>fastest conceivable effective ban on uranium munitions is several years
>away at best. The absolute Pentagon commitment to a weapon that is
>creating millions of human casualties worldwide by poisoning the
>environment with uranium oxide particles has created a Big Institutional
>Lie with tentacles everywhere, all focused on one thing: keep using uranium
>munitions!
>
>Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now!
>
>
>I begin my report on the health effects of uranium munitions with a
>heartfelt personal appeal: stop using uranium munitions now! If you are the
>President of the United States, or under the President's command, you are
>commiting a war crime by using, or ordering the use, of uranium munitions.
>If you are a soldier about to use a uranium bullet, missile or bomb, don't
>do it. The uranium oxide vapors unleashed when you pull the trigger put
>both you and your target in a battlefield gas environment of tiny, deadly,
>mutagenic uranium oxide particles. These tiny uranium oxide particles made
>when up to seventy per cent of the uranium projectile you shoot burns on
>friction and impact will stay in the environment as long as the Earth
>exists, bringing death, a host of diseases, and mutation to many living
>creatures.
>
>Summary:
>
>Uranium is the leading deep-penetration metal used today in United States
>military munitions worldwide. Uranium combines superior density with the
>tendency to sharpen and burn on impact. The first wartime use of uranium
>munitions was in 1991, when United Nations forces used an estimated 320
>tons of uranium munitions in Iraq, primarily in anti-tank munitions in
>desert warfare. 2. These munitions contributed to the complete
>neutralization of the Iraqi tank forces, so much so that during the 2003
>U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, many Iraqi tanks were abandoned
>unused. All commentary on uranium munitions is colored by the fact that
>U.S. armed forces worldwide are fully committed to the use of uranium
>munitions. The official U.S. military position is that uranium munitions
>pose no toxic or radioactive health danger to anyone. 3. In fact, as has
>been known by the U.S. military since 1943, when the inventors of the
>atomic bomb described uranium vapor as an agent of chemical and
>radiological warfare, breathable uranium is a horrific weapon with both
>chemical and radiological toxicity. 4. Extensive testing of uranium
>munitions show that from ten to seventy per cent of the uranium vaporizes
>on impact, in particle sizes ranging down to the microscopic. 5. Today in
>2004, thirteen years after the first massive use of uranium munitions,
>countless thousands or millions of its victims cry in vain for relief as
>the United States and other military forces continue to use uranium
>munitions. Anyone seeking to end this suicidal chemical and radiological
>gas warfare is confronting one of the biggest institutional lies in
>history, the lie that uranium munitions pose no long-term or widespread
>health hazard. This lie is so huge, and has so many tentacles and
>subtleties, that it has become institutional orthodoxy in the United
>States. The truth, as it is being pieced together by dedicated,
>disciplined, peer-reviewed scientists worldwide, is too horrifying for most
>people to contemplate. The vaporized, ceramic uranium oxides which billow
>as smoke from an impacting uranium munition have poisoned the human
>environment with minute, undetectable uranium oxide particles which will
>remain radioactive and toxic for the lifetime of Earth. Unlike natural
>uranium, which is soluble, breathed uranium oxide particles are insoluble,
>and become lodged in the human body if breathed, remaining there for many
>years, causing a host of diseases. Uranium oxides are mutagenic, attacking
>the genetic code which allows the human race to reproduce without crippling
>mutation. 6. Today the United States military forces are fully committed to
>a munition metal which, based on U.S. Veterans Affairs disability
>statistics on veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, will, along with the effects
>of other toxins in Iraq, disable one out of three battlefield troops who
>use uranium munitions within a decade of their exposure. To repeat:
>ONE-THIRD OF THE VETERANS OF THE 1991 GULF WAR ARE DISABLED TEN YEARS AFTER
>THE WAR. 7.
>
>
>THE AGES-OLD CLASH OF SPEAR AND SHIELD
>
>"Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel
>Command, March 14, 2003:
>(Image of burned, blackened, and shattered Iraqi tank on screen) "Why do we
>use it (depleted uranium)? This is the result. What we want to be able to
>do is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we
>want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see
>rounds bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position
>that you see, if you watch 'Kelly's Heroes,' where they load tank rounds
>with paint in order to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has
>probably seen 'Kelly's Heroes' once, because in World War II we faced a
>problem of not having the overreach we have today. "We don't ever want to
>go back to that. And we don't want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war
>and wants to be even with the enemy. We want to be ahead, and depleted
>uranium gives us that advantage. We can hit, and they can't hit us." 8.
>
>The story of how uranium munitions, and uranium armoring, became today's
>state-of-the-art metal of war worldwide begins with the ages-old desire of
>military forces to have superior spears and shields: spears that will fly
>farther than the enemy's and penetrate the opponent's best armor, and armor
>that will stop any spear the enemy can throw. In the 1960s tungsten carbide
>was the primary metal used by the U.S. armed forces for armor-piercing
>projectiles. Tungsten carbide could not reliably penetrate the double-and
>triple-plated armor developed in the
>1960s, touching off a scramble to invent a better armor penetrator. That
>decade the military began experimenting with uranium as an armor-piercing
>metal. Tungsten carbide continued to be favored over uranium, for two
>reasons: problems in developing a consistent alloy, and penetration tests
>that failed to show clear superiority of uranium over tungsten carbide
>against older-model Soviet tanks. In the early seventies, it became clear
>that the latest-generation armors would be impenetrable by tungsten
>carbide. Also, tests by the Air Force and Navy using small-caliber uranium
>rounds (20-,25-, and
>30mm) clearly showed the penetration superiority of uranium rounds.
>Extensive Army testing for a better tank round metal for the 105mm M68 tank
>gun led to the XM774 Cartride Program in 1973, which used an alloy of
>uranium and titanium in an improved design that allowed the uranium core to
>withstand high acceleration without breaking up. In the words of John Pike
>of <www.GlobalSecurity.org>: "Since the selection of depleted uranium for
>the XM774 cartridge, all major developments in tank ammunition have
>selected depleted uranium, including the 105mm M833 series and the 120mm
>M829 series (the latter being the primary anti-armor round used in the Gulf
>War). This pattern continues today, with the latest generation of the
>105mm M900 series and the 25mm M919 for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle." 9.
>When a uranium round is fired, friction and impact vaporize from ten to
>seventy per cent of the uranium, depending on what the round hits. Uranium
>is pyrophoric, meaning it burns on friction and impact. Also, unlike
>tungsten which dulls when it penetrates, uranium rounds shatter and burn as
>they penetrate armor, sharpening the round as it goes. In
>1991, uranium munitions turned Iraqi tanks into hellish crematoria thick
>with breathable, burning particles of uranium. Today very few people know
>the full extent of the use of uranium, depleted or fully radioactive
>uranium, as a metal of penetration by the world's armed forces. A cloak of
>secrecy and web of deception make it impossible for an ordinary soul to
>know when, where, and how much uranium has been used on bullets, artillery
>rounds, bombs and missiles worldwide.
>
>The Groves Memo: Gas Warfare With Uranium Vapor
>
>In 1943, the Manhattan Project scientists, racing to beat Hitler in
>inventing the atomic bomb, realized the Germans might use vaporized uranium
>as a gas warfare agent, or that U.S. forces might want to use it. Here is
>a quote from the "Groves Memo" written by Drs. James B. Conant, A.H.
>Compton, and H.C. Urey to General L.R. Groves on October
>30, 1943 (the "material" referred to is uranium):
>
>"As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of
>microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired
>projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be
>inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person
>inhaling the material is extremely small. It is estimated that one
>millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There
>are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty. "Two factors appear
>to increase the effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon.
>These are: 1) It cannot be detected by the senses; 2) It can be distributed
>in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it will permeate a standard
>gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging. An
>off-setting factor in its effectiveness as a weapon is that in a dust or
>smoke form the material is so finely pulverized that it takes on the
>characteristic of a quickly dissipating gas and is therefore subject to all
>the factors (such as wind) working against maintenance of high
>concentrations for more than a few minutes over a given area.... "Areas so
>contaminated by radioactive dusts and smokes, would be dangerous as long as
>a high enough concentration of material could be maintained...they can be
>stirred up as a fine dust from the terrain by winds, movement of vehicles
>or troops, etc., and would remain a potential hazard for a long time....
>"Particles larger than 1 micron in size are likely to be deposited in nose,
>trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the
>rate of 1/2-1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1 micron are more likely to
>be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or
>be absorbed into the lympatics or blood." 10.
>
>The Clouds of Hell: Baghdad, October 1, 2003
>
>The Uranium Medical Research Centre, a nonprofit research group, sent a
>bold team of sample-collectors into Baghdad in the fall of 2003 to collect
>soil, water and urine samples for uranium contamination testing. Here is
>part of their report on the U.S. battlefield cleanup effort in Baghdad,
>October, 2003:
>
>"The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in
>south-western Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the
>International Airport and hosts one of the largest Coalition bases around
>Baghdad....The area was subject to considerable aerial bombing and rocket
>fire prior to the Coalition ground forces' arrival followed by several
>ground skirmishes along the main routes to the International Airport and
>western entrances to the city. "Leaving the downtown core for Auweirj
>requires crossing one of the elevated bridges over the Tigris Rover. The
>raised bridge provides a long view towards the south/southwest. On October
>1, the team's third day in Baghdad, this view was interrupted by an
>enormous dust cloud hovering over a several hectare area, rising upwards of
>300 meters (1000 ft.). The cloud slowly traversed Auweirj...Auweirj
>contains a wealthy residential neighbourhood...Some of the highest overall
>ambient air and ground surface radioactivity readings were measured in
>Auweirj... "As the team's vehicle approached Auweirj, the cloud was
>blanketing the Coalition-occupied base, depositing a layer of fresh dust on
>people, houses, automobiles, and the highway. We had to turn on the
>windshield wipers. Departing the Coalition-occupied base was a long,
>steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand,
>heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second
>stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base....The soil
>removal was lofting tonnes of fine, light dust into the local environment,
>which was then falling back to inundate square kilometores of residential
>neighbourhoods and Coalition occupied facilities." 11.
>
>A Deadly Pack of Pentagon Lies: Michael Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. (Econ.)
>
>Representing the U.S. Department of Defense Iraq Deployment Health Support
>Directorate, Dr. Michael Kirkpatrick made the following statements on March
>14, 2003:
>
>"Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium
>around us. And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's
>only when it's internalized--either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as
>Colonel Naughton said when there is penetration of armor, it does
>self-sharpen and it does create an oxide dust. And there are people who
>were in or on the vehicles that were struck in friendly fire, who did
>inhale that oxide, and we have not seen any medical consequence from
>that.... "When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to
>the ground very quickly--usually within about a 50-meter range. As Colonel
>Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even if
>it's a small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the
>ground.... "Our studies in the United States over 15 years have not shown
>depleted uranium going from the soil into the groundwater. It just does
>not move from the round that is in the soil. And the bottom line is there
>is going to be no impact on the health of the people in the environment, or
>people who were there at the time it was shot."12.
>
>The Vanishing Urine Samples In 1991 the victorious Gulf War veterans
>returned outwardly unscathed from the Iraqi battlefields, having taken only
>small numbers of visible casualties. However, they had been exposed to a
>staggering array of toxins, including rushed vaccinations and breathable
>vapors from uranium munitions. That same year Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who at
>the time was also a Colonel in the U.S. Army, became aware that Major Doug
>Rokke, who had been doing cleanup work to remove U.S. military vehicles
>destroyed by "friendly fire" in Kuwait and Iraq, was seeking medical
>treatment for several U.S. and British soldiers who were showing a wide
>array of symptoms which suggested the possibility of poisoning by inhaled
>uranium vapors. Both Maj. (also Dr.) Rokke and Col. Durakovic were under
>specific orders to protect U.S. troops from the health hazards of uranium
>munitions. Dr. Durakovic, Director of Nuclear Medicine at a VA hospital,
>immediately agreed to treat the sick troops. An expert in the toxicology
>of uranium and other radioactive materials, Dr. Durakovic took urine
>samples from the sick soldiers, and sent them by registered mail to a lab
>in Aberdeen, Maryland for analysis of uranium content, broken down into the
>different uranium isopopes, which could indicate the source of the
>contamination. "The urine samples never arrived in Aberdeen," Dr.Durkovic
>recalled in a 2003 interview. "All my inquiries were futile. Patients
>had renal surgeries, they were very sick, and some died." Dr. Durkovic then
>had to endure constant verbal attack from many quarters to continue his
>work of protecting U.S. troops from battlefield uranium vapor
>contamination. The same thing happened to Major Rokke. Then began an
>internal struggle of the soul within the United States military
>establishment, as the impulse to find out the truth and protect human
>health gave way first to the deeper military instinct to cling to the
>superior metal of penetration at all costs, and now also to the chilling
>knowledge that everyone in a responsible position who has claimed that
>uranium munitions pose no significant chemical or radiologcal hazard to
>human or environmental health is potentially liable for damages and guilty
>of crimes under U.S. and international law. Today, Dr. Asaf Durakovic and
>Major Doug Rokke, are two leaders of an international movement to stop the
>use of uranium munitions. As Director of the Uranium Medical Research
>Center, Dr. Durakovic brings his lifelong expertise in the medical effects
>of radiation to the field study of the leavings of uranium munitions in
>Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Every serious student of the health and
>environmental effects of uranium munitions is well-advised to read Dr.
>Durakovic's two key articles, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination
>With Radiation," and "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare." 14.
>These two scientific, peer-reviewed articles thick with references to
>actual research studies offer an ordinary person the best basis for sorting
>out the truth about the health effects of uranium munitions from the
>multitude of misunderstandings, lies and distortions. Doug Rokke has become
>"The Flying Squirrel," his nickname as a B52 pilot in Vietnam, a short and
>very energetic speaker hopping, shouting and gesticulating in an Oct.
>2,2003 speech before the Humboldt County, California, Veterans for Peace.
>Major Rokke believes a lot of his superior officers are lying war criminals
>who should be brought to prosecution, and he read written, signed orders
>and statements to lie and cover-up the horrible toxicity of uranium
>munitions. 15.
>
>The Disappearing Medical Records In 1995, Congressman Christopher Shays
>(R-CT), contacted his friend Robert Newman, a retired journalist, to help
>him investigate a strange new disease, or diseases, sweeing through Gulf
>War veterans. "The Congressman was receiving a disturbing number of letters
>and e-mails from sick veterans in his district complaining that, when
>trying to get treatment at veterans hospitals, they were told, 'It's all in
>your head.' They weren't getting any help," Mr. Newman recalled in a
>2001 interview. 16. Congressman Shays held fifteen hearings on what came to
>be called "Gulf War Syndrome" for the committe he chaired, the Subcommittee
>on Security, Veterans Issues, and International Relations, beginning March,
>1996. After interviewing veterans and experts in various fields, the
>subcommittee concluded that Gulf War Syndrome was caused by radiation
>and/or chemical substances they encountered during their military service
>in Iraq, such as PB and untested vaccines they were forced to take. "We
>learned that the medical records of nearly all the veterans had
>disappeared," Newman said. "For the five years or so it took Congress to
>launch this investigation, the Defense Department and Veterans
>Administration took their time responding to veterans who sought treatment
>or compensation. In the end, the requests were refused. At best, they
>took folks in but insisted the symptoms were just due to stress.." 17.
>
>Disability Compensation Without Investigating Cause In October, 1998,
>Congress passed two laws based on the findings of the
>14 bipartisan members of Congressman Shay's subcommittee. "The gist of
>those laws," Robert Newman explained, "is this. One stipulates that even
>without medical records, the illneses of Gulf War veterans must be
>recognized as due to their service in the Middle East, and the Defense
>Department and the Veterans Administration are required to offer prompt and
>appropriate treatment and compensation. The other one...prohibits the
>administration of any experimental drugs to soldiers without their
>consent." This law opened the way for the Veterans Administration to award
>full disability to 221,000 Gulf War veterans with a host of symptoms by
>September, 2002, with thousands of cases still pending. It also diverted
>attention away from any scientific inquiry into the causes of Gulf War
>Syndrome. When Hiroshima newsman Akira Tashiro interviewed Robert Newman in
>2001, he was still devoted to monitoring the Veterans Administration for
>just treatment and compensation for Gulf War Syndrome victims. "The laws
>are absolutely inadequate," Robert Newman said, because full treatment and
>compensation would cost an impossibly large sum of money. Based on what he
>had learned about the probable long-term medical effects of breathing
>battlefield uranium vapors, Newman expressed worries that, for the next ten
>years, cancer and neurological disorder will increase among Gulf War
>veterans. 18.
>
>
>Mutant Science: The 1998 Rand Report A prime example of what one might call
>"Mutant Science" --truth chopped up and spliced with lie to make the Big
>Institutional Lie--is the 1999 Rand Report which concluded, and I quote,
>"Although any increase in radiation to the human body can be calculated to
>be harmful from extrapolation from higher levels, there are no peer
>reviewed published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other
>negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or ingested
>natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in the Gulf. This is
>mainly because the body is very effective at eliminating ingested and
>inhaled natural uranium and because the low radioactivity per unit mass of
>natural uranium and DU means that the mass of uranium needed for
>significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to obtain....Large
>variations in exposure to radioactivity from natural uranium in the normal
>environment have not been associated with negative health effects." 19. The
>1999 Rand Report on Depleted Uranium, prepared by a research think-tank on
>contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, provides the "scientific
>basis" for the Pentagon's claim that uranium munitions pose no hazard to
>human health or the environment. It is a review of the literature,
>brushing aside such evidence as Major Rokke has gained by doing actual
>clean-up and testing of uranium munitions as not being "peer-reviewed
>published reports." It says first, "any increase in radiation to the human
>body can be calculated to be harmful from extrapolation from higher
>levels." In reality, since 1991, worldwide evidence of horrific casualties
>with multiple symptoms has been found wherever uranium munitions have been
>used. The lack of "peer-reviewed published reports" linking negative health
>effects to inhaled battlefield uranium vapors is a flat-out lie; see Dr.
>Durkavoic's two key studies referred to above. "...the mass of uranium
>needed for significant internal exposure is virtually impossible to
>obtain." This is blatantly untrue, both because battlefield concentrations
>of uranium vapor are massive, and because even one minute particle of
>uranium oxide lodged inside a person's body can cause the destruction of
>dna in adjoining cells.
>
>Toxic Forever, Radioactive for The Expected Lifetime of Earth As the armies
>of the United States range across the Earth showering bullets, artillery
>rounds, bombs and missiles, it is known only to insiders what type of
>uranium is being used, how much, or where. Quoting the Rand report, "The
>material generally used by the U.S. Department of Defense is 40 percent
>less radioactive than natural uranium." 20. However, Uranium Medical
>Research Center field investigations found that natural uranium bombs and
>munitions had been used by the United States in Afghanistan during 2002,
>heavily contaminating the population and environment. 21. Even the March,
>2003 Pentagon briefing on uranium munitions noted that some
>reactor-generated "transuranics" are used in uranium munitions, indicating
>that nuclear reactor waste is used in uranium munitions. 22. Whether the
>munition is natural or so-called "depleted uranium", the tons of
>breathable, alpha-emitting uranium oxides being generated as I write will
>penetrate throughout the entire environment and remain, virtually
>undetectable, chemically and radioactively toxic for the lifetime of Earth.
>
>The Big Lie is Institutional Truth, The Truth is Heresy: Dan Fahey and Dr.
>Robert Gould
>
>Anyone seeking to rescue the human race from this ongoing suicide mission
>to permeate the biosphere with breathable uranium oxide particles is
>confronting one of the most elaborately constructed institutional lies in
>history. Consider the work of Dan Fahey, "an independent policy analyst on
>the uses and effects of depleted uranium munitions." 23. Dan Fahey's
>credentials are similar to mine: I am also an independent policy analyst
>studying the health and environmental effects of using uranium munitions.
>I have a record of military analysis writing going back to my book "Ecology
>of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), an ecological analysis of
>the U.S. war in Indochina, including early information on the effects of
>the herbicide Agent Orange. Today I finance my research and writing with
>my cottage industry, the Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company. I do not know
>how Dan Fahey finances his work. Today Dan Fahey is the leading critic of
>"depleted" uranium munitions informing the U.S. Congress and mainstream
>press. Dr. Robert Gould, President of Physicians for Social
>Responsibility, recommended Dan Fahey as an authoritative expert on uranium
>munitions to me. In a phone conversation with me, Dr. Gould rejected the
>idea that uranium munitions pose a major danger to the human race. "It's
>not Hiroshima," he said.
>(In fact, the 320 tons or more of uranium munitions used in Iraq during the
>1991 Gulf War constituted the greatest environmental release of vaporized
>radioactivity in human history until the recent hostilities in Afghanistan
>and Iraq, much greater than Hiroshima. 24.) At an October, 2003, meeting of
>activists which I facilitated in Philo, California, Dr. Gould heard
>information brought by Humboldt County Veterans for Peace, who had just
>heard a speech and received information about uranium munitions from Dr.
>Doug Rokke. Dr. Gould sent me this email message on November 19, 2003: "As
>I mentioned at the teach-in, I believe that DU is a toxic material because
>of its heavy-metal and radioactive qualities, and I think it should be
>banned as a weapon, that there should be good studies of civilians and
>soldiers and that clean-up should proceed without waiting for the results
>of these studies. But I don't believe that DU is the most toxic material
>around (compared with highly radioactive waste, for example), and I think
>that much of the material presented at the teach-in is overstated based on
>available evidence and knowledge of the chemistry, and when so presented,
>obscures other significant potential contributors to observed health
>effects (oil fires and leaks, release of CW agents from warfare, the legacy
>of dirty Iraqi industrialization, immunization of troops, nutritional
>effects of sanctions, etc.) Particularly since most of 'us' will agree on
>'what needs to be done,' I remain puzzled by the apparent need for many in
>the progressive movement to put out such limited monocausal 'science' to
>convince people, since there are abundant credible arguments (as in the Dan
>Fahey material I sent you prior to the meeting) that better make the
>points." Dan Fahey is a leading critical authority on uranium munitions in
>the United States today. Reading Dan Fahey's initial assessment on uranium
>munitions used in Iraq during 2003, this researcher has concluded that I am
>witnessing the Big Institutional Lie being used to delude, and to keep the
>uranium munitions reform movement from making any serious efforts to stop
>the use of uranium munitions. Dan Fahey's assessment begins by noting that
>although "there is little known about the actual quantities of DU released
>or the locations of contamination, it appears approximately 100 to 200
>netric tons was shot at tanks, trucks, buildings and people in largely
>densely populated areas." As Tedd Weyman noted in the "Iraq Gulf War II
>Field Investigation Report," "there is a significant discrepancy between
>the independent reports that rely on official government and defence
>department numbers (i.e. 100-200 metric tonnes) and the 1000 to 2000 metric
>tonnes of DU attributed to estimates by unnamed United Nations Environment
>Program and Pentagon sources." 26. Mr. Fahey denounced the "pre-war
>propaganda" of lies used by the White House and Pentagon early in 2003 "to
>justify the use of DU munitions as a military necessity, and to dismiss
>concerns about the health and environmental effects of the use of DU
>munitions." Quoting a January
>2003 White House report which stated that "scientists working for the World
>Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union
>could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium," Dan
>Fahey noted that "scientists from these organizations never looked for
>health effects linked to exposure in DU in any post-combat environment."
>Fahey went on to document several of the lies used by Dr. Michael
>Kilpatrick at the March 14, 2003 press conference on uranium munitions,
>which, he wrote, "perhaps reflected an urgency to deflect criticism and
>concern about DU on the eve of war."27.
>
>Mr. Fahey's vigorous critique of the Big Pentagon Lie that uranium
>munitions pose no major hazard to human or environmental health is followed
>by an equally vigorous assertion of that lie. Mr. Fahey does not want to
>see uranium munitions banned, or use of uranium munitions stopped. Dan
>Fahey's policy recommendations are limited to better informing U.S. troops
>about uranium munitions, bioassays of U.S. troops with extreme battlefield
>exposure, revelation of when and where uranium munitions have been used,
>cleanup of "DU sites," and more studies of the problem. Mr.Fahey urges a
>health assessment of all the troops who, in his estimate, were extremely
>exposed to uranium munitions in 1991, who, he wrote, are just 900 in
>number. 28. Then Dan Fahey's report attacks "anti-DU activists and people
>using the DU issue to further other political agendas or raise money."
>First, Mr. Fahey quotes an unnamed source from the "UK Green Party" making
>various unfounded claims about uranium munitions. Then he tars Drs. Doug
>Rokke and Asaf Durakovic with the same brush, to discredit and dismiss
>their devoted life's work to discover and reveal the true health effects of
>uranium munitions. Dan Fahey accuses Doug Rokke of making "exaggerated and
>unsubstantiated claims." 29. Then comes this blood-chilling paragraph by
>Dan Fahey, independent researcher on depleted uranium munitions: "The old
>myth that large quantities of DU are used in missiles and bombs has taken a
>new twist with the claim that 'non-depleted uranium' is being secretly used
>in hard target, deep penetration, and DBHT
>(deeply buried hard target) weapons that combine uranium with high
>explosives. Citing unspecified 'government reports and independent
>research,' the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) claims these new
>warheads contain '100s to1000s of kilograms' of uranium that is 'extracted
>from the nuclear fuels and nuclear weapons production cycles prior to the
>uranium enrichment phase.' UMRC claims that secret use of uranium is
>responsible for illnesses in Afghanistan, but this assertion is undermined
>by the lack of any evidence that any missiles or bombs used in Afghanistan
>contain any natural or depleted uranium." 30.
>
>Is The United States Military Using Uranium in Bombs and Missiles?
>
>The full scope of U.S. military use of uranium munitions is secret. So how
>the hell does Dan Fahey, an independent researcher like me, know that it is
>an unsubstantiated "myth" that uranium is used by the U.S. in bombs and
>missiles? The Uranium Medical Research Centre discovery that non-depleted
>uranium was used in bullets and bombs in Afghanistan is based on field work
>and sophisticated urine analysis for the different isotopes of uranium.
>First the UMRC found that the isotope content indicated natural uranium
>contamination in Afghanistan, not depleted uranium. Testing further, the
>UMRC found ceramic uranium in the urine of Afghans, indicating that the
>extreme heat of burning munitions had produced the uranium. This,
>according to Dr. Durakovic, has made some Afghan valleys permanently
>uninhabitable. 31. Dr. Doug Rokke also is sure there is uranium in many of
>the bombs and missiles used by US armed forces today. The basic evidence
>he cites is the burning, glowing metal clearly visible on CNN views of the
>2003 "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad: uranium, according to Dr. Rokke, is
>the only penetration metal which burns on impact. 32.
>
>A Call to Action: Stop Using Uranium Munitions Now!
>
>In today's competition for attention to issues, the issue of uranium
>munitions is easily buried and forgotten. Dr. Robert Gould, President of
>the Physicians for Social Responsibility, advised me to worry about
>something more dangerous like "high-level radioactive waste" in the email
>quoted above. In order to cause effective change, groups such as Veterans
>for Peace and Physicians for Social Responsibility will need to focus on
>uranium munitions, and organize long-term, relentless campaigns to end the
>use of uranium munitions. Is this going to happen? The only Congressional
>bill dealing with the hazards of uranium munitions--the "Depleted Uranium
>Munitions Study Act of 2003" (HR 1483, sponsored by Rep. McDermott)--is, in
>my view, not worthy of support. In calling only for studies of the problem
>and cleaup of US uranium munitions test sites, it deludes and defuses the
>worldwide effort to halt the ongoing catastrophe of uranium munition use.
>How likely is it that the U.S. military, fully committed to uranium
>munitions and uranium armor as state-of-the-art, involved in shooting wars
>in several nations worldwide now--how likely is it that they are going to
>drop their radioactive munitions and be like "Kelly's Heroes" again, with
>the second-best metal of war in the world? I actually dropped the topic in
>despair last fall, until I heard that my future son-in-law was about to be
>deployed to Iraq with his private company. Now we're talking about the
>genetic integrity of my bloodline! So I tossed off a brief piece, "Do Not
>Force Our Children to Breathe Uranium!" My daughter's fiance quit that job
>and stayed out of Iraq. It is time for everyone on Earth to stop using
>uranium munitions now! A campaign of nonviolent noncooperation, informed
>by group effort, seems the most effective strategy. The Big Institutional
>Lie is going to keep uranium munitions poisoning people and environments
>for some time, but we can, in small and big ways, refuse to pull the
>trigger on uranium munitions.
>
>Notes
>
>1.John Lewallen is a writer and peace activist focused in 2004 on uranium
>munitions and their health and environmental consequences. His published
>books include "Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972),
>and "High-Altitude Nuclear War" (NuclearPress.com, 2002), an analysis of
>today's great-power nuclear weapons confrontation available from Amazon.com
>Books. He supports himself with income from his cottage industry, the
>Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, and maintains the website
><www.NuclearPress.com>.
>
>2. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," Colonel James Naughton, March 14,
>2003 <www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/t03142003_t314depu.html>. The use
>of 320 tons of uranium munitions in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War is a U.S.
>Department of Defense estimate. An authoritative Iraqi estimate is that
>800 tons of uranium munitions were used by the U.S. and allied forces
>during the 1991 war, with more than 300 tons used in western Basra, Iraq
>(Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center, Basra, Iraq, "Effects
>of wars and the use of depleted uranium on Iraq," Japan Peace Conference,
>Naha, Okinawa, Jan.29-Feb.1, 2004
><www.afsc.org/newengland/pesp/effects-of-wars.ppt>.
>
>3."Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March 2003.
>
>4. "Memorandum to:Brigadier General L.R. Groves, from Drs. Conant, Compton,
>and Urey," Oct. 30, 1943, declassified June 5, 1974, supplied by Major Doug
>Rokke <www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Groves-Memo-Manhattan30oct43.htm>,
>hereinafter referred to as the "Groves Memo."
>
>5."RAND Report on Depleted Uranium," RAND, 1999, p.4, hereinafter referred
>to as the "RAND Report"
><www.gulflink.osd.mil/library/randrep/du/index.html>.
>
>6. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare,"
>Croatian Medical Journal, Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.
>
>7. See the National Gulf War Resource Center website for the latest
>Veterans Affairs disability statistics <www.ngwrc.org>.
>
>8. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."
>
>9. John Pike, <www.GlobalSecurity.org>, page on "Depleted Uranium," is my
>source for this thumbnail history of uranium munitions as a super-metal.
>
>10. Groves Memo.
>
>11. Weyman, Tedd, Iraq Field Team Lead, "Abu Khasib to Ah'qua: Iraq Gulf
>War II Field Investigation Report" <www.umrc.net>, p. 14.
>
>12. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium, 2003."
>
>
>13. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003 <www.traprockpeace.org>.
>
>14. Durakovic, Asaf, "Medical Effects of Internal Contamination With
>Uranium," Croatian Medical Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March, 1999; and
>"Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare," Croatian Medical Journal,
>Vol.44, No.5, 2003, pps. 520-532.
>
>15. Major Doug Rokke, Oct. 2,2003 speech for Veterans for Peace, Humboldt
>County, California, on video.
>
>16. Tashiro, Akira, "Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted
>Uranium," published 2001 in Hiroshima, Japan, by The Chugoku Shimbun, p.
>34.
>
>17. Ibid., p. 35.
>
>18. Ibid.
>
>19. Rand Report, Chapter 3, p. 1.
>
>20. Rand Report, p. 2.
>
>21. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare,"
>section on "Afghanistan Uranium Studies."
>
>22. "Briefing on Depleted Uranium," March, 2003.
>
>23. Fahey, Dan, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An
>Initial Assessment of Information and Policies," June 24, 2003, available
>at <www.GlobalSecurity.org>.
>
>24. Durakovic, Asaf, "Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare."
>
>25. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.1.
>
>26. Weyman, Tedd, op. cit., p.11.
>
>27. Fahey, Dan, op. cit., p.2.
>
>28. Ibid., pp.8-10.
>
>29. Ibid., p.11.
>
>30. Ibid., p.12.
>
>31. Dr.Asaf Durakovic, audio interview, 2003, available at
><www.traprockpeace.org>.
>
>32. Major Doug Rokke, October 2, 2003 speech.
>
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