DEPLETED URANIUM: The defence establishment acknowledges the problem
Epimenedes /UMRC | 02.04.2004 22:18
Long before the illegal war on Iraq, physicians and NGOs had implicated Depleted Uranium in the epidemic of birth defects and cancers in Iraq since 1991, Yugoslavia since 1999, and Afghanistan after 2001, and of serious health problems among American and British personnel who had served in these regions. The Pentagon there, and the Ministry of Defence here, made repeated denials, asserting the safety of DU, which is used as a penetrating material in munitions (including cruise missiles) and as a protective material on tanks. Now - Jane's Defence Weekly, on April 2, a key Defence establishment journal, notes that there is serious "political fall-out for Washington and its allies"
The Jane's article -- may be found at
http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jid/jid040402_1_n.shtml
What it is based on is the report of the Uranium Medical Research Center, a non-profit NGO which links physicians and scientists in North America and Europe under the direction of Dr. Asaf Durakovic, MD, Ph.D. Professor of Nuclear Medicine and Radiology.
UMRC notes that some 1700 tons of DU was left in Iraq by the 2003 conflict. The initial mode of uranium contamination include aerosol inhalation at the moment of detonation of DU munitions. But the long term threat is posed by fine particle residues "resuspended ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium and airborne uranium oxides and metallic particulate"
UMRC notes:
"In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The urinary excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years following exposure. In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it had detected DU in the urine of US forces who are not retaining DU shrapnel, in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In 2001 and again in 2002, UMRC measured high concentrations of artificial uranium containing the synthetic isotope, 236U, in Afghan civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of bombs deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom.
In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released a formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC’s Operation Telic findings of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields. The MOD stated unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain stable inside defeated Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically available to humans. Since then, the MOD has found unusually high concentrations of uranium excreted in the urine of its 1st Armoured Division troops who served in Basra (September 2003, UK DU Oversight Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit, UK Ministry of Defence). The MOD’s recent findings in its troops now deployed back to Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC’s staff demonstrate the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians and foreign personnel in Iraq."
These hypocrites Bush and Blair talk about terrorism, and the threat of dirty bombs, but what they have done in Iraq is to conduct the first large scale radiological war. The defence establishment cannot say they did not know about this: the DU problem was identified and raised that the authorities repeatedly before the war. They denied, they lied, they went ahead. The half life of Uranium is 4.5 billion years, DU is up to 60% as radioactive as purified uranium. For the rest of time, what was the cradle of civilization will be poisoned by this toxin. And it will seep gradually to the rest of the world. Within the crime which was this war, this counts as one of the largest subsidiary crimes.
http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jid/jid040402_1_n.shtml What it is based on is the report of the Uranium Medical Research Center, a non-profit NGO which links physicians and scientists in North America and Europe under the direction of Dr. Asaf Durakovic, MD, Ph.D. Professor of Nuclear Medicine and Radiology.
UMRC notes that some 1700 tons of DU was left in Iraq by the 2003 conflict. The initial mode of uranium contamination include aerosol inhalation at the moment of detonation of DU munitions. But the long term threat is posed by fine particle residues "resuspended ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium and airborne uranium oxides and metallic particulate"
UMRC notes:
"In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the urine of Canadian, British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The urinary excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years following exposure. In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it had detected DU in the urine of US forces who are not retaining DU shrapnel, in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In 2001 and again in 2002, UMRC measured high concentrations of artificial uranium containing the synthetic isotope, 236U, in Afghan civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of bombs deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom.
In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released a formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC’s Operation Telic findings of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields. The MOD stated unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain stable inside defeated Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically available to humans. Since then, the MOD has found unusually high concentrations of uranium excreted in the urine of its 1st Armoured Division troops who served in Basra (September 2003, UK DU Oversight Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit, UK Ministry of Defence). The MOD’s recent findings in its troops now deployed back to Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC’s staff demonstrate the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians and foreign personnel in Iraq."
These hypocrites Bush and Blair talk about terrorism, and the threat of dirty bombs, but what they have done in Iraq is to conduct the first large scale radiological war. The defence establishment cannot say they did not know about this: the DU problem was identified and raised that the authorities repeatedly before the war. They denied, they lied, they went ahead. The half life of Uranium is 4.5 billion years, DU is up to 60% as radioactive as purified uranium. For the rest of time, what was the cradle of civilization will be poisoned by this toxin. And it will seep gradually to the rest of the world. Within the crime which was this war, this counts as one of the largest subsidiary crimes.
Epimenedes /UMRC
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