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DUSTING
DOWNER "This
war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction - yet
we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves. Such
double-standards are repellent." - Professor and former US colonel
Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project. This
week a former soldier won a landmark ruling, becoming the first veteran
to win a war pension appeal after suffering Depleted Uranium (DU)
poisoning. Kenny Duncan took the Ministry of Defence to the Pension
Appeal Tribunal Service over his claim that he had suffered poisoning
during active service in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Part of his job
was to move Iraqi tanks destroyed by DU shells and the tribunal accepted
that he was poisoned from inhaling DU dust from the burnt-out tanks. All
3 of Kenny's children also have health problems since being born
post-Gulf War. It's
13 years since the first Gulf War and no health tests for depleted
uranium have been made available to former servicemen. A representative
fighting for the veterans said, "Mr Blair talks about social
justice but he still refuses to give servicemen a public inquiry and
depleted uranium tests." Rae Street from Campaign Against Depleted
Uranium told SchNEWS, "This is a landmark case, it justifies our
and many other groups' and individuals' struggle for a ban on 'Depleted'
Uranium munitions." Veterans
of the first Gulf War believe that DU exposure has played a role in
leaving more than 5,000 of them chronically ill and almost 600 dead. But
it's not just soldiers who face a health time bomb. Professor Rokke said
the Americans have unleashed a toxic disaster in the Middle East that
will eclipse the Agent Orange tragedy of the Vietnam War. "Uranium
dust is so fine that it acts like a gas, seeping through the tiny pores
of protective masks. It contaminates air, water and soil for all
eternity." Lab-Rat
Nation DU
is a highly toxic heavy metal derived from nuclear bomb and fuel waste
and is classified as a "weapon of mass and indiscriminate
destruction" by the United Nations. DU emerged in the seventies as
America's Cold War weapon of choice - cheap, abundant and devastatingly
effective for armor-piercing bullets, cluster bomb fragments that
penetrate armor and anti-personnel mines, casing for bombs, shielding on
tanks, counter weights and ground penetrator missiles. On contact, DU
pulverizes into aerosol-like dust that can travel 26 miles and remains
radioactive for 4.5 billion years. If
DU is inhaled, it can attack the body causing cancers, chronic illness,
long-term disabilities and genetic birth defects - none of which will be
apparent for at least five years. In last year's conflict, between 1,100
and 2,200 tonnes of the stuff were fired at Iraq - a figure that
eclipses the 375 tonnes used in the 1991 Gulf War. But unlike that
largely desert-based conflict, most of the rounds fired last spring were
in heavily residential areas. Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks
in Basra are so high in DU that a British army survey team had to wear
white, full-body radiation suits, face masks, and gloves. Meanwhile,
with nothing to warn them against it, Iraqi children use the tanks to
play on. A study undertaken in November by the Uranium Medical Research
Committee showed that readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra
had radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. After the bombing
of Baghdad, witnesses living next to the airport reported that 3,000
civilians were incinerated by one morning's attack from aerial bursts of
thermobaric and fuel air bombs. The area has now been landscaped by the
US forces and Iraqi contractors, preventing a thorough examination. Jo
Wilding, a British human rights observer in Baghdad, has also visited
the area and documented a catalogue of miscarriages, hair loss, and
horrific eye, skin and respiratory problems. In the row of houses
closest to the airport fence, every single household reported some kind
of skin or breathing problem. Yet just as the British government refuse
to believe any soldiers are suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, they,
along with America, are also refusing to allow the International Atomic
Energy Agency to carry out systematic monitoring tests for uranium
contamination in Iraq. Dr
Jawad Al Ali, a renowned Iraqi cancer specialist says that, "The
rate of cancer here has multiplied 15 times since the last Gulf war. DU
is the cause of these cancers but it's difficult to prove. There are
three times more DU in the air than is present naturally. Water and food
are the key contaminated sources, and also the 're-suspension of
particles' - i.e the re-release of DU into the air through strong winds
or the digging up of DU. Children in particular are susceptible. They
have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build
and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer
and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however,
cancer of the lymphoma, which can develop anywhere on the body and has
rarely been seen before the age of 12, is now also common." While
Professor Doug Rokke says that use of DU is a "war crime",
another professor, Malcolm Hooper, who advises the British Government on
Gulf health issues, said he is not surprised by the radiation levels.
"Really these things are dirty bombs. Exactly the sort of device
that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair keep talking about being in
the hands of terrorists." The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium 0161 273 8293 www.cadu.org.uk *
This week, three Vietnamese who say they and their families became ill
from the Agent Orange defoliant used by the United States in the war
nearly 30 years ago filed the first lawsuit against makers of the
product. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were among more than 20 firms named
in the lawsuit. American Vietnam veterans have already sued the makers
and in 1984, Dow and Monsanto agreed to pay $180 million to them.
Vietnam estimates that about three million of its people suffer from
diseases linked to the chemical |