DEPLETED URANIUM (DU) DUST – MEDICAL DISASTER FOR U.S VETS & THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
By Douglas Westerman
March 12, 2006
On March 18, 2003 The White House issued "Apparatus of Lies," a report which, among other things, attacked claims that DU fallout from Operation Desert Storm has caused higher disease rates among Iraqi citizens. Those claims were part of "Saddam's disinformation and propaganda" campaign, the White House said. In other words, anyone claiming that DU causes cancer and other illness is a liar and supporter of Saddam. (Please go to: http://www.idust.net/Tutorial/DBish001.htm for an explanation by Ph.D Chemist Dan Bishop, explaining why DU is so much more dangerous than natural uranium) Many medical doctors and scientists disagree, saying the U.S Dept. of Defense is the one who is lying.
John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He states that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY.
Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization’s chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report — on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust — was deliberately suppressed. The study by three leading radiation scientists warned that children and adults could contract cancer after inhaling particles of the extremely heavy, armor-piercing projectiles made of uranium-238. Inside the body the radioactive and chemically toxic metal, known commonly as “ depleted uranium” (DU), could trigger the growth of malignant tumors, the report warned.
Experts have calculated that between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of DU were used by the U.S. and UK in the bombardment of Iraq . Dr. Baverstock suspects that the WHO was strong-armed by the powerful pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “I believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn’t like its conclusions. Previous experience suggests that WHO officials were bowing to pressure from the IAEA, whose [purpose] is to promote nuclear power,” Baverstock said.
In 1997 Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University said, "The [U.S.] Veteran’s Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body ...uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, the denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly uranium isotope, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all the generations who follow." His research was blocked and his position at Georgetown was eliminated.
“In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what Depleted Uranium (DU) does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying.” --- Dr. Ahmad Hardan – W.H.O.
Dr. Jawad Al-Ali (55), director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent ( 2003) conference in Japan:
“Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers - one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney--he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer”. “Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. 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 lymph system, which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.”
Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium. Nine members of the same family with cancer?
Dr. Ali, educated in England, has suffered from political persecution as a result of his efforts.
“We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I feel afraid to even talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait - we were accused of being Saddam supporters.”
Statistics were also recorded in hospitals & medical centers in Mosul city from August 1989 to March 1990, and repeated in the same places during August 1997 to March 1998. The frequency of incidence of cancer diseases ... [such as] lung, leukemia, breast, skin, lymphoma and liver cancers elevated 5-fold after the war.
Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the “Baghdad Diaries” wrote:
“Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia.” ”The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas.”
A retired Air Force Major, Denise Nichols states:
“And cancer is topping the deaths that we continue to have. We can’t get them to do a Social Security match for the deaths of the Gulf War veterans for Gulf War I. But, you know, having been a service person, you hesitate to come forward. If they have compensation, they are fearful they’ll lose it, no matter what little bit they’ve gotten. They’re scared to speak up. And then when we talk about the new soldiers, it’s the same way. They saw their buddies killed. I found a few of them when I went to the NGWRC meeting. We had a handful of them come in. And there’s the obviously undiagnosed illnesses that are going on and the strange illnesses. One guy had already had his parathyroid gland removed. I mean, that’s not normal, not at an early age. But his driver was killed. It’s hard to get them to stand up and start talking about these things………….I also lost a brother-in-law, and now my brother. I will be headed back to Dallas shortly. I lost my brother-in-law in June and in November my brother got diagnosed and is dying of cancer. He’s back in the hospital and things aren’t looking good, so I’m trying to get my act together, my mind and emotional being together enough to face that.
Although publicly, there is denial, some of the troops at least are being warned. A Bradley fighting vehicle driver, a sergeant who asked to remain unidentified, said:
“After we shoot something with depleted uranium ordinance, we're not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer,". “We don't know the effects of what it could do. If one of our vehicles burnt with a DU round inside, or an ammo truck, we wouldn't go near it, even if it had important documents inside. We play it safe."
PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 Army Division, 34th Platoon got too close. (Names and numbers have been changed) After returning from Iraq he, was diagnosed with cancer a few months later. He got in touch with the other 12 members of the Platoon, and found that seven others also have cancer. That’s 40% of the men in just one unit.
Dustin Brim, aged 22, was really healthy prior his deployment in Iraq. Mechanically inclined, Dustin became an Army mechanic, an E-4 specialist serving in the 1st Maintenance Company under the 541st Maintenance Battalion from Fort Riley, Kan., and was deployed to Iraq in August 2003. Dustin’s duties in Iraq involved working on disabled Army vehicles, including tanks, which his unit repaired and retrieved, or if damaged beyond repair, destroyed with explosives on the spot. Most of these vehicles, having been in the battlefield, would have been heavily laden with DU and other toxins.
By March of 2004, he was terminally ill. Doctors in Iraq discovered that Dustin had a huge cancerous tumor on his esophagus, which severely restricted his breathing. He also had a collapsed lung, had lost function in one kidney, had numerous blood clots, and a progressive tumor in his liver. He died at Walter Reed Hospital on Sept. 22, 2004.
There are two reasons why the U. S. Dept. of Defense is unwillinging to admit that DU is harmful:
· They don’t want to assume responsibility for the astronomical healthcare costs of so many poisoned veterans.
· They don’t want the rest of the world to know that they have essentially poisoned two entire nations.
The the Canadian-based Uranium Medical Research Center’s (UMRC) field investigation team has done extensive field work in both Afghanistan and Iraq. They report that even members of their team are contaminated with uranium. The researchers toured Iraq for 13 days in October 2003, five months after the end of aerial bombing. UMRC’s partner laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team members’ urine samples. The contamination of UMRC’s team members occurring over a two-week period, many months after the bombardment, represents a risk to civilians, non-governmental organizations’ staff, occupying armed forces and foreign contractors and diplomatic staff, the UMRC said.
The UMRC surveyed U.S.- and British-controlled combat areas and bombsites in southern Iraq. Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times above normal. Tedd Weymann, of UMRC said,
“At one point the readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of radiation children play on the tanks or close by.”
If researchers who were in Iraq only 13 days got contaminated, what of all the children in Iraq who are playing amidst DU dust everyday?
In 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting had collected radioactive dust from a National Lead Industries Plant that was producing depleted uranium ordinance 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the factory. "The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 52 properties around the plant," Dietz said. The cleanup cost $100 million.
Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire vastly larger quantities of the material. Pockets of it are quietly scattered all over the country. Hospitals in many States begin to report large numbers of horrendous birth defects. Babies without eyes, without limbs, and some even with out heads are born. Cancer clusters are reported in some places, with as many as nine members of one family having malignancies. Sounds worse than 9/11? This is exactly what the U.S Armed Forces have done to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Depleted Uranium (DU) is the waste residue made from the uranium enrichment process. This radioactive and toxic substance, 1.7 times as dense as lead, is used by the U.S. Dept. of Defense to make shells that penetrate steel armor. Their first widespread use occurred in Iraq and Kuwait during Gulf War I, and they proved phenomenally successful in penetrating enemy tanks. In one instance, a single DU projectile sliced through the armor of one Iraqi tank and penetrated another. In another engagement, a DU missile penetrated a shelter housing approximately 60 women and children, killing them instantly.
The U.S. military was elated with the success of these weapons, and continued using them during the 2003 war. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. aircraft launched 940,000 depleted uranium munitions, and in the land offensive, its tanks fired a further 4,000 larger caliber DU shells. The Bush Administration and the Pentagon have claimed that there is minimal danger to American troops or Iraqi civilians from breathing the uranium oxide dust produced in depleted uranium weapons explosions.
Many experts disagree. Prof. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Guenther, an expert on radiological diseases from Germany stated:
“My efforts to have one of these hitherto unknown projectiles examined brought me into serious trouble in Germany: the material was highly toxic and radioactive. The projectile was confiscated by a large police detachment, carried away under enormous safety precautions and stored in a specially shielded deposit. During the last five years I have been able to carry out extensive studies in Iraq. Their results produced ample evidence to show that contact with DU ammunition has the following consequences, especially for children:
• A considerable increase in infectious diseases caused by most severe immunodeficiencies in a great part of the population;
• Frequent occurrence of massive herpes and zoster afflictions, also in children;
• AIDS-like syndromes; • A hitherto unknown syndrome caused by renal and hepatic dysfunctions;
• Leukemia, aplastic anemia and malignant neoplasms;
• Congenital deformities caused by genetic defects, which are also to be found in animals.
The German authorities consider even one projectile radioactive and hazardous enough to warrant such treatment. Thanks to the U.S. Military, tens of thousands of children in Iraq and Afghanistan have been playing with them for several years now.
In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases. In some veterans' families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war. In another group of eight U.S. led Coalition soldiers whose babies were born without eyes, seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. (The incidence of this particular condition in the general population is limited to around 1 for each 50,000,000 births)
After National Guardsman Gerard Matthew returned home from his Iraq tour a year and a half ago, he learned that members of another unit, who accepted an offer by the New York Daily News, had tested positive for depleted uranium (DU) contamination. Since he had spent much of his time lugging around DU-damaged equipment, Matthew also decided to get tested, and it turned out he was the most contaminated of them all. Matthew next urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered that the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits. Now Matthew is angry at a government that never warned him about DU’s dangers.
By far the most far reaching and devastating effect is on the unborn children of Iraq and Afghanistan. One would expect a much greater incidence among the local populations, as compared to veterans, who are in the Mid-East only temporarily, and who live in more protected locations. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses – scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. Doctors in Iraq report that women no longer ask, “Doctor, is it a boy or a girl?”, but “Doctor, is it normal?” In one hospital in Basra, there were reports of two such births per day.
How many severe birth defects, miscarriages, stillborns, etc. are taking place nationwide? We’ll probably never know. Some experts acting as spokesmen for the the D.O.D. claim that the defects are due to malnutrition from the U. N. Sanctions (specifically folate deficiency), but such a dramatic and widespread incidence of birth defects has not occurred elsewhere in the world, even in areas where malnutrition is more pronounced. Also, this would not explain the huge increase among U.S. servicemen and their families. They also attempt to put the blame on Saddam’s use of chemical weapons, although no widespread exposure among the Iraqi population has been documented.
Among the children of Tora Bora and Shah-e-Kot in Afghanistan, many are reported to be suffering from leukemia and esophageal cancer. A large number of spontaneous abortions are occurring among women and animals in those areas.
As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002. He also states;
“American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Bagdad alone during the recent invasion. I don’t know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years To document that.”
The right to conceive normal and healthy children is far more fundamental than the external trappings of democracy touted by the Bush Administration. This will be in jeopardy for many years to come.
“Depleted Uranium has a half life of 4.7 million years – that Means thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer For tens of thousands of years to come. This is what I call Terrorism.” Says Dr Hardan.
He also states:
“I arranged for a delegation from Japan’s Hiroshima Hospital to Come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we Are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq.”
Not only is the Bush Administration guilty of poisoning thousands, and perhaps millions of people, but they are preventing experts from other countries from helping out. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states:,
"Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity." Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust.
"When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," he said. After performing clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear), 30 members of his staff died, and most others—including Rokke himself—developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems. "We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension. Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is “not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most cases.” Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases?
Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb. “That's exactly what they are,” Falk said. “They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way.” According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. “The larger the bang” the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the “micron size” or smaller, he said. When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat — sufficient heat to ignite the DU. From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur).
Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and quite efficiently respirable Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised. In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a fraction of the cases are being reported. Just 467 US personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.
Although not reported in the mainstream American press, a recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes. On March 14, 2004, Nao Shimoyachi, reported in The Japan Times that President Bush was found guilty "for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms,"and the "tribunal also issued recommendations for banning Depleted Uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people." Although this was a "Citizen's Court" having no legal authority, the participants were sincere in their determination that international laws have been violated and a war crimes conviction is warranted.
Troops involved in actual combat are not the only servicemen reporting symptoms. Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. "I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach." A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers. .
The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq in Easter of 2003, the unit's members had been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.
"These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing. "Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare. Dr. Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 issue of Military Medicine medical journal. The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU. The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.
That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview. The Japanese began studying DU effects in the southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit, a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer and early and painful death?
The U.S. government has known for at least 20 years that DU weapons produce clouds of poison gas on impact. These clouds of aerosolized DU are laden with billions of toxic sub-micron sized particles. A 1984 Department of Energy conference on nuclear airborne waste reported that tests of DU anti-tank missiles showed that at least 31 percent of the mass of a DU penetrator is converted to nano-particles on impact. In larger bombs the percentage of aerosolized DU increases to nearly 100 percent, Falk told AFP.
"Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1,000 times the damage of an X-ray", said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C.
Dr. Durakovic’s research team conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained "hundreds to thousands of times" the normal levels of radiation.
"This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991," Durakovic told The Japan Times. "They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between depleted uranium and the illness," Durakovic said. "They do not want to admit that they committed war crimes" by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are banned under international law.” (NOTE ABOUT DR. DURAKOVIC; First, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers, even a former Army Colonel who was head of nuclear medicine at Goergetown University!)
It is the difference in particle size as well as the dust’s crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading. Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time.
Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs. Thus the effects are far different from natural uranium dust, whose coarse particles are almost entirely excreted by the body within 24 hours. The military is aware of DU’s harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU’s effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU’s chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone.
Additional studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size. For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.
“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” writes Lauren Moret, another DU researcher. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood. “When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote.
“Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain."
Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is somewhat possible to extrapolate backwards and approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. At .34 milligrams per dose, there are over 10 trillion doses floating around Iraq and Afghanistan.
How many additional deaths are we talking about? In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with estimates for the potential effects of the DU contamination left by the conflict. It calculated that “this could cause “500,000 potential deaths”. This was “a theoretical figure”, it stressed, that indicated “a significant problem”. The AEA’s calculation was made in a confidential memo to the privatized munitions company, Royal Ordnance, dated 30 April 1991. The high number of potential deaths was dismissed as “very far from realistic” by a British defense minister, Lord Gilbert. “Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide,” he said. These remarks were made prior to the more recent invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, where DU munitions were used on a larger scale in and near many of the most populated areas. If the amount of DU ordinance used in the first Gulf War was sufficient to cause 500,000 potential deaths, (had it been used near the populated areas), then what of the nearly six times that amount used in operation Iraqi Freedom, which was used in and near the major towns and cities? Extrapolating the U.K. AEA estimate with this amount gives a figure of potentially 3 million extra deaths from inhaling DU dust in Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan. This is about 11% of Iraq’s total population of 27 million. Dan Bishop, Ph.d chemist for IDUST feels that this estimate may be low, if the long life of DU dust is considered.
In Afghanistan, the concentration in some areas is greater than Iraq.
CASE STUDY – THE LATE CAPTAIN TERRY RIORDAN – CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
What can an otherwise healthy person expect when inhaling the deadly dust? Captain Terry Riordon was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving in Gulf War I. He passed away in April 1999 at age 45. Terry left Canada a very fit man who did cross-country skiing and ran in marathons. On his return only two months later he could barely walk. He returned to Canada in February 1991 with documented loss of motor control, chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep problems, short-term memory loss, testicle pain, body pains, aching bones, diarrhea, and depression. After his death, depleted uranium contamination was discovered in his lungs and bones. For eight years he suffered his innumerable ailments and struggled with the military bureaucracy and the system to get proper diagnosis and treatment. He had arranged, upon his death, to bequeath his body to the UMRC. Through his gift, the UMRC was able to obtain conclusive evidence that inhaling fine particles of depleted uranium dust completely destroyed his heath.
How many Terry Riordans are out there among the troops being exposed, not to mention Iraqi and Afghan civilians? Inhaling the dust will not kill large numbers of Iraqi and Afghan civilians right away, any more than it did Captain Riordan. Rather, what we will see is vast numbers of people who are chronically and severely ill, having their life spans drastically shortened, many with multiple cancers. Because the UMRC is located in Canada, and also because the issue is not suppressed in the main stream media as it is in the U.S., DU poisoning is more widely discussed and understood. This is the main reason that Canada refused to send troops to Iraq the second time around. Too may soldiers came back sick the first time.
The Department of Defense released a study last October that found that "the health risks from inhaling airborne particles of depleted uranium are very low." A five-year study by an independent research institute paid for by the DOD reported that even "in extreme cases, exposure to 'aerosolized' depleted uranium did not pose a health risk." (The studies were done mostly with uranium miners.)
Melissa Sterry, another sick veteran, and numerous others dispute these conclusions, saying the studies do not simulate actual field conditions, and did not involve studying the effect of actual ingestion and inhalation of DU dust. She served for six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of 1991-92. Part of her job with the National Guard's Combat Equipment Company A was to clean out tanks and other armored vehicles that had been used during the war, preparing them for storage. She said she swept out the armored vehicles, cleaning up dust, sand and debris, sometimes being ordered to help bury contaminated parts. In a telephone interview, she stated that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military's test because she could not trust the results. It is alarming that Melissa was stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq. Cleaning out tanks with DU dust was enough to make her ill.
In, 2003, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. If the troops were on a mission of mercy to bring democracy to Iraq, wouldn’t keeping children away from such dangers be the top priority? Would we put our children in a situation where they could play on top of something that seasoned troops are told to stay away from?
The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. It is no surprise that the Japanese Court found President Bush guilty of war crimes. Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion. In Kosovo, similar spikes in cancer and birth defects were noticed by numerous international experts, although the quantity of DU weapons used was only a small fraction of what was used in Iraq.
FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM AFGHANISTAN
Verifiable statistics for Iraq will remain elusive for some time, but widespread field studies in Afghanistan point to the existence of a large scale public health disaster. In May of 2002, the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) sent a field team to interview and examine residents and internally displaced people in Afghanistan. The UMRC field team began by first identifying several hundred people suffering from illnesses and medical conditions displaying clinical symptoms which are considered to be characteristic of radiation exposure. To investigate the possibility that the symptoms were due to radiation sickness, the UMRC team collected urine specimens and soil samples, transporting them to an independent research lab in England. UMRC’s Field Team found Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning, along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns.
Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation.
Two additional scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study's purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined. It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was causing the high levels of illness. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before. Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous.
How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months. In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999. A researcher reported.
“We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination.”
In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill. How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads:
"The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium."
In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of NON-DEPLETED URANIUM, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of “bunker buster” bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys. “A significant portion of the civilian population”?
It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children. The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing.
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According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states :
"The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium".
Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing "in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers". There were only 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq, and they were there for a short time. The number of 109 represents about 3.6% of the total. If the same percentage of Iraqis get a similar exposure, that would amount to 936,000. As Iraqis are permanently living in the same contaminated environment, their percentage will be higher.
The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed “studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless.”
The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers). Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said :
"I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals," Fujita said. "As a result of the Iraq war, the situation will be desperate in some five to 10 years."
The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen’s Tribunal that “convicted” President Bush gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen’s court with no binding legal authority)
1. Their use has indiscriminate effects;
2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;
3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;
4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.
Two years ago, President Bush withdrew the United States as a signatory to the International Criminal Court's statute, which has been ratified by all other Western democracies. The White House actually seeks to immunize U.S. leaders from war crimes prosecutions entirely. It has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals.
CONCLUSIONS: If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something worse in his place. What we fear most is that terrorists will unleash “dirty bombs” against the U.S. It is ironic that in doing so, we have sent many of America’s best and most self-sacrificing young people over to the Middle East to do just that. They too are unwitting victims.
e-mail me at: aspendougy@yahoo.com to receive e-copy of report
Douglas Westerman is a free-lance journalist, living in Los Angeles, CA.
He is the author of: TERMINAL CANCER AND AIDS PATIENTS, HOW THEY ARE GETTING WELL WITH ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES; VITAL CONSUMER INFORMATION HANDBOOK
