Can I buy my son a gas mask?
by Bob Nichols

An employee of the Department of Energy inventories and repackages depleted uranium cores for shipment.

A soldier’s mom asks: “Can a gas mask shield against this (uranium) dust in Iraq, and can I provide my son with one is the question. ... I have been hearing a lot about this and it is terrifying.”

I get asked this question a lot. Parents of sons and daughters stationed in Iraq - or their wives, sisters, brothers, uncles and aunts and friends – want to help out Uncle Sam and their loved ones. They want to contribute to help buy the right gas mask to keep the soldier from breathing poisonous and radioactive uranium gas.

The truthful answer is “No, there is nothing you can buy. Your sons and daughters will have to take their chances in Iraq, just like everybody else. No amount of money will change the answer. What you want does not exist.”

The dark, star-like image in this photograph - magnified 500 times - shows tracks radiating from a “hot,” or radioactive, particle lodged in the lung tissue of an ape. The alpha tracks shown above were captured over a two-day period.

This is the worst part of my work of writing about uranium munitions. Anybody who’s in Iraq and breathing is just as likely as the next person to get a whiff of poisonous uranium gas. Any dose at all is bad.

The higher the dose, the worse it is. Detached, dry, clinical, declassified Army memos written in 1943 talk about death occurring in three days from a heavy dose. It is like going into battle with your own side using an invisible, odorless, tasteless poison gas against both the enemy and you.

That, in fact, is exactly what the U.S. military is doing. It’s called uranium oxide gas, vapor and aerosols. That’s right. That date, 1943, is no typo. The U.S. military has known how poisonous this gas is for 61 years.

Welcome to the big city where all the Pentagon suits lie about uranium oxide! I don’t expect them to stop now. This practice of using uranium oxide is flat out wrong and they all, from President Bush on down, richly deserve a long term in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

Did you know the uranium penetrator bombs are patented? Private contractors make a buck every time the 2,000-pound penetrator bombs, containing 1,100 pounds of radioactive uranium, explode. The explosion forms poisonous uranium oxide gas. A few larger particles become radioactive shrapnel, cutting everybody and everything to pieces. This goes for anti-tank rounds, too.

This metal, which is straight out of Hell, then burns somewhere north of 3,000 degrees. Experts talk about 6,000 degrees, even 10,000 degrees. Temperatures that hot don’t last long and are hard to measure.

When asked this question about gas masks, famed former Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab scientist Leuren Moret stated, “The answer is that there is no protection possible to prevent exposure to DU* from the battlefield - and that means the global pollution also is now spread around the world.”

Scientist Moret added, “Go to my ‘Letter to Congressman McDermott’ at  http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm. It has the diagram for the penetration of HEPA filters by particles in the range of 0.1 micron. DU* goes through everything - filters, skin, protective clothing. There is no possible way to protect people from exposure.

“However,” Moret concluded, “High Efficiency Particulate Airfilters (HEPA) do protect more than other types of filters because they are used in nuclear facilities and designed for that. They are still ‘transparent’ to nanoparticles (0.1 microns and smaller), which means some get through.”

The highly respected Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., a major in the Medical Service Corps and former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project, says, “Another deliberately ignored problem is that the gas mask filters will not remove the very small and very dangerous particles that are released during chemical, biological and radiological incidents. This is a hazard ... when our troops breathe in the dust of depleted uranium, a toxic and radioactive component of our own weapons.”

Dr. Rokke continued, “Citizens who see through the smokescreens of political rhetoric and a sanitized image of war must speak up and demand action. That is our obligation based on a heritage of freedom. A freedom won by the legendary Minutemen, citizen-soldiers of Concord and Lexington.” Dr. Rokke first voiced this call to action on Oct. 2, 2003. His words are even more true now.

So what is a mother or dad, loved one or friend to do? Try like crazy to talk them out of enlisting before they sign up. If that is just not going to happen, pray that God protects them while they are alive and breathing in Iraq. Nothing else works.

Of course, you could make sure they read this article and know what their total option package is. Whatever they decide, there are no good choices in this no-good war.

As Major Doug Rokke urges, “Speak up and demand action. That is our obligation based on a heritage of freedom.”

*What is Depleted Uranium (DU)?

DU is the result of a step in the process of creating enriched uranium for nuclear power plant reactor cores and thermonuclear bombs, commonly called hydrogen bombs and neutron bombs. The uranium impurity used in bombs and reactor cores is about .711 of one percent of natural uranium - a tiny amount, like iodine in salt, except it kills everything. Processing natural uranium removes about half of the bomb making material.

It is then called Depleted Uranium by the powers that be, because it can no longer be used to make H-bombs. But it is used to make uranium bullets, shells and bombs instead. The Depleted Uranium is fully 88 percent as radioactive in total radiation as the original uranium.

There are an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of Depleted Uranium at U.S. nuclear weapons labs and related facilities – bomb factories - in the U.S. The word “depleted” does not mean the uranium is safe or OK to use. It means it has been processed; that’s all. Perhaps a less deceptive name would be “12 percent depleted uranium.” The familiar 60 percent depleted uranium figure refers to what is called “alpha” radiation only.

References

1. “There Are No Words” by Bob Nichols,  http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Nichols0327.htm

2. “My God! My Country Is Using Poison Gas in Iraq” by Bob Nichols,  http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug04/Nichols0807.htm

3. “Poison Fire, USA” by Russell Hoffman,  http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf

4. “Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets” by Leuren Moret,  http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml

5. World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference,  http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de

6. International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan, written opinion of Judge N. Bhagwat,  http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm and  http://www.traprockpeace.org/tokyo_trial_13march04.doc

7. “Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons: The Physical Principles of Thermonuclear Explosives, Inertial Confinement Fusion, and the Quest for Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons” by André Gsponer, Jean-Pierre Hurni,  http://www.inesap.org/publ_tech01.htm

8. “Depleted Uranium: U.S. Commits War Crime Against Iraq, Humanity” by Christopher Bollyn, American Free Press,  http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium.html

9. “Letter from Leuren Moret to Congressman McDermott,”  http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm
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