THE HANDSTAND
MAY 2005
Horror Of Depleted Uranium Not Limited
To IraqBy James Denver
Coastal Post Online
MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS MONTHLY - FREE PRESS
(415)868-1600 - (415)868-0502(fax) - P.O. Box 31,
Bolinas, CA, 94924
"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis,
the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill
health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can
travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the
lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We
all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from
Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get
red dust from the Sahara on your car."
The speaker is not some alarmist
doom-sayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation
expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the
Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European
Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept
secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using
hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq,
Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the
Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons have
released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive
particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms
and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the
globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the
wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the
radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and
can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure,
and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age
for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which
may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst
atrocities of all time.
These weapons have released deadly,
carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such
abundance that there is no corner of the globe they
cannot penetrate - including Britain.
Yet, officially, no crime has been
committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the
facts have been concealed from those who needed them
most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of
Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need,
and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer
as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which
depleted uranium was used.
A Dirty Tyson
'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a
misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing
about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap,
toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb
production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest
elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through
tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease,
spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning
people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen
call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John
Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance
he wrote: "The children's skin had folded back, like
parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped
blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I
vomited." (Daily Mirror)
The millions of radioactive uranium oxide
particles released when it burns can kill just as surely,
but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass
through a gas mask, making protection against them
impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these
invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women,
children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest
harm of all to children and unborn babies.
A Terrible Legacy
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth
defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as
many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since
1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998
said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from
these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death
rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased
from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993.
Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than
quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an
alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin,
and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In
women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder
cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1
On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf
in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry
of Defense a special report on the potential damage to
health and the environment. It said that it could cause
half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10
years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using
320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates
the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that
may have been spread across Iraq by this year's war. The
devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and
fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations
to come, is beyond imagining.
The radioactivity persists for over
4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for
centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which
may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
We must also count the numberless thousands
of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have
died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But
it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU
for the brief period of the war were still excreting
uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100
times the so-called 'safe limit' of uranium in their
urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of
veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of
academic research on the impact of DU but informal
research has found a high incidence of birth defects in
their children and that the wives of men who served in
Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of
servicemen who did not go there.
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen
birth defects which would break a heart of stone: 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 report that many women no longer say
'Is it a girl or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal,
doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The
genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever,
and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.
Blue on Blue
What the governments of America and Britain
have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to
their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it
knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU
and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated
by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been
assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which
violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve
agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their
tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British
and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor
were they given thorough medical checks on their
return-even though identifying it quickly might have made
it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then,
when a growing number became seriously ill, and should
have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and
neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the
1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially
attributed to service in Iraq-that's 1 in 3. In contrast,
the British government's failure to fully assess the
health of returning troops, or to monitor their health,
means no one even knows how many have died or become
gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans'
associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men
and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died
prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An
alarming number are thought to have taken their own
lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable
ailments which have combined to take away their career,
their sexuality, their ability to have normal children,
and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As
one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU death row, waiting
to die'.
Whatever other factors there may be, some of
their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis
exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also
fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight
servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have
been directly exposed to DU dust.
They too have fathered children with stunted
arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with
radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and
leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as
peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used.
Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several
EU governments have protested at the use of DU.
The Vital Evidence
Despite all that evidence of the harm done
by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have
repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level'
radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr.
Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has
studied 'low-level' radiation for 30 years. 2 She
has found that uranium oxide particles have more than
enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of
radiation as hitting surrounding cells 'like flashes of
lightning' again and again in a single second.2 Like many
scientists worldwide who have studied this type of
radiation, she has found that such 'lightning strikes'
can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to
cancer.
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by
body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more
than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has
found that this particular type of radiation can cause
the body's communication systems to break down, leading
to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to
many medical problems. A striking fact, since many
veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable,
seemingly unrelated, ailments.
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright,
Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee
University, and others, have shown two ways in which such
radiation can do far more damage than has been thought.
The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by
radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations
several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the
root of cancer and birth defects.) This
'radiation-induced genomic instability' is compounded by
'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison
with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather
as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these
two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a
single source of radiation, such as a DU particle.
Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic
differences in the way individuals respond to
radiation-with some being far more likely to develop
cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the
first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure
to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others.
The Price of Truth
That the evidence from Iraq and from our
troops, and the research findings of such experts, have
been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in
late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health
effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be
viewed in perspective... the financial implications of
long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would
be excessive.'3
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely
ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US
troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be
made not only against the governments of Britain and
America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There
might also be huge claims against companies making DU
weapons and some of their directors are said to be
extremely close to the White House. How close they are to
Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms
sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade.
So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years,
and the way that governments have failed to test
returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed
their hands of them, may be purely to save money.
The possibility that financial
considerations have led the governments of Britain and
America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the
harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to
their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons
weren't used by the other side and no other explanation
fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and
America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.4
One American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to cancer
when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical
toxicity-causing kidney damage'. While another openly
warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield
conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone,
kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease,
neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth
defects.5
A Culture of Denial
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals
condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva
Convention and classed them as 'weapons of mass
destruction' 'incompatible with international
humanitarian and human rights law'. Since then, following
leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans
and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has
twice called for DU weapons to be banned.
Yet, far from banning DU, America and
Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this
radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first
Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans
and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no
coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by
others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled
uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic,
then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at
Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,
'The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me
to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium
in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does cause
cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does
kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination
of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life
is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are
doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth,
disservice to God and to all generations who follow.' Not
what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was
suddenly blocked.
During 12 years of ever-growing British
whitewash the authorities have abolished military
hospitals, where there could have been specialized
research on the effects of DU and where expertise in
treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content
with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling
symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused
full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to
the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper
on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation
effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to
be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being
experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note how over a
quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are
called 'some'.
The Way Ahead
Britain and America not only used DU in this
year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from
a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum
of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU
wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely
been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the
guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound
bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's
cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of
which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition,
the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly
particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means
that billions of deadly particles have been carried high
into the air-again and again and again as the bombs
rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.
The Royal Society has suggested the solution
is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only
scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely
expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of
the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is
too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up
every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How
can they decontaminate a whole country in which
microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a
normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border?
And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of
Iraq-and, indeed, the world?
So there are only two things we can do to
mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to
provide the best possible medical care for the people of
Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served
in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their
suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the
production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of
history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only
then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and
the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to
the people of Iraq, and of the world.
References
1. The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February
1998.
2. Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest
Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page 28.
3. www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1. htm#TAB
L_Research Report Summaries
4.
www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm The
secret official memorandum to Brigadier General
L.R.Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey of War
Department Manhattan district dated October 1943 is
available at the website
www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm
5. www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.htm#tab
L_research report summaries
..........................................................................................
Further information
The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able
to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for
those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be
contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod
Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: www.llrc.org
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James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally
on science and technology.