Silent Genocide Being Waged by U.S. Troops

By Craig Etchison

In a world where Mr. Bush mongers fear on an almost daily basis for political gain, a horrific insanity has slipped under the radar and become reality. The U.S. military has made warfare with deadly radioactive weapons a reality through its overwhelming use of depleted uranium munitions (DU) in its three most recent wars in the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The use of these radioactive weapons has set in motion a silent genocide that will endure for generations to come.

The use of radioactive weapons goes back to the Balkans in the 1980s when DU munitions were first used by British and U.S. troops. The military ratcheted up use of DU munitions in Gulf War I, scattering 380 tons of radioactive U-238 across the desert. In the Afghanistan invasion, the military utilized an estimated 500 to 600 tons of DU munitions. In the current Iraq war, we’ve used between 1000 and 2000 tons of DU, a number that increased almost every time the Abrams Tank fires a round. Altogether we’ve released an enormous amount of radioactive material into the environment.

Scientists have worked out some equivalencies to help us grasp what these figures mean. Dr. Vishnu Bhaqwat, former Chief of Naval Staff, India, in a presentation to the 2004 Conference of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said that the amount of radiation released by DU munitions in Iraq alone is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. The Nagasaki bomb killed approximately 74,000 people instantly and injured another 75,000. Over the years, 121,000 deaths have been directly attributed to that bomb. Radiation from weapons has a nasty habit of continuing to kill long after the weapon is used.

Use of DU munitions breaks a taboo on the use of nuclear weapons in place since World War II, raising a number of fundamental questions. Why was there no debate in Congress about the political and moral implications of using weapons that release massive amounts of radiation into the environment? Why has the public been kept virtually in the dark about this enormous change in military policy? When I asked two of my highly educated friends what they thought about the use of DU weapons, neither knew what I was talking about. How will we ever justify the use of DU weapons? To think we will not have to answer to the world for using these weapons as their deadly radiation continues to kill innocent victims across the generations is equivalent to believing in the tooth fairy.

Since 1943, the military has known that DU munitions pose serious health risks. This knowledge was solidified by extensive research at Los Alamos between 1974 and 1999, which conclusively proved that DU munitions are highly toxic for people and the environment. Hardly unexpected findings, since we’ve known since the days of Madame Curie that radioactive materials do bad things to people.

A DU round fired from an M1 tank is ten pounds of solid U-238, contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, and americium. (The military calls the uranium “depleted” because a fraction of a percent has been removed for use in nuclear bombs and in reactor cores, though the remaining uranium retains 88% of its radioactivity and has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.) The round flies at a speed of 3000 feet per second, creating temperatures of 170 degrees Centigrade on the surface of the round. At that temperature, uranium burns off in a mist of superfine uranium oxide, particles that, because they are so light, suspend in the air. The lethal mist is odorless, invisible, and tasteless and respects neither age, nationality, or sex.

When the round strikes a target, the soft but incredibly dense uranium bursts through the metal barrier, and up to 80% of the projectile forms into tiny uranium fragments so light they can float in the air, contaminating all they contact. Thus we have a weapon that destroys and contaminates everything it touches, including the ground and the air.

A correspondent with the Christian Science Monitor recently took Geiger counter readings in residential areas of Baghdad and found the readings 1000 to 1900 times higher than normal. The Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom reported that radiation readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra were 2,500 times above normal, with the reading in the area around the tanks 20 times higher than normal. These tanks are playgrounds for local children. Pekka Haavisto, chair of the U.N. Environmental Post-Conflict Assessment Unit points out that DU contaminated metal is now being recycled as scrap in Iraq, scrap that “… could end up in a knife or fork.”

Using nuclear weapons on the battlefield has multiple consequences. According to Dr. Bhaqwat, one virus-sized particle of DU inhaled into the lung will emit the equivalent radiation of one x-ray per hour for life. When a particle is inhaled, there is no known procedure to remove it, and scientists estimate that one millionth of a gram of DU will kill a person.

Leuren Moret, a former scientist at the Livermore nuclear weapons labs, points out that Iraq’s cities and water supplies are contaminated, in all likelihood destroying the genetic future of Iraq. She notes that everything downwind and downriver from areas where DU munitions were used will be exposed to continuing radiation. Dr. Bhaqwat points out that countries within a thousand miles of Kabul and Baghdad are now being affected by the radiation released in the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.

DU is lethal in any climate, but its potency is increased by the hot, dry Iraqi climate. Billions of tiny DU particles will be blown around and inhaled for years. And the effects of DU radiation on the human body are catastrophic—resulting in destruction of the immune system, altering of the genetic code, and creating a stew of lethal cancers and tumors.

Charles Sheehan-Miles, former executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, says, “The Pentagon’s own published studies have shown adverse heath effects [of DU].” Steven Rosenfeld confirms this in a 2003 article pointing out that Department of Defense studies confirm that DU may cause cancer, tumors, and neurological and reproductive problems. In a 2001 report sponsored by the World Health Organization, Dr. Keith Baverstock, top radiation expert for eleven years with WHO, warned of long-term health problems for civilians and soldiers exposed to DU munitions.

Unfortunately, WHO suppressed this report. A 1995 U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute report to the Senate stated, “No available technology can significantly change the inherent chemical and radiological toxicity of DU.” But when questions were raised about the use of DU in Iraq, the U.S. military said warnings about the health and environmental risks were nothing more than Iraqi propaganda to prevent use of these weapons.
Dr. Doug Rokke, a thirty-six-year army veteran who did extensive research into the effects of DU munitions, was ordered not to report health or environmental consequences of these munitions because such a report would be politically unacceptable.

Why, then, do we use DU munitions when we know they aren’t safe for soldiers of either side, civilians, or the environment of the world? One reason—they are terribly effective. Because of its density, U-238 easily penetrates just about every metal, making it ideal for destroying military targets. The U.S. also has 700,000 tons of depleted uranium stockpiled, the annoying residue from nuclear power plants. Munitions manufacturers get DU free because it relieves the Department of Energy of the nasty headache of safely storing it. A win-win situation—at least for a few people.

The use of DU in the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion has resulted in a growing litany of medical horrors, a litany that will only increase as the radiation works its inevitable long-term devastation. Two Iraqi doctors report that since 1988, the Basra region has seen a ten-fold increase in diagnosed cancers. Many more undoubtedly go undiagnosed in a country where the health system is in a shambles. In 1990, the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Basra had 37 cases of severe birth defects. In 2001, there were 611 cases of children born with no limbs, no eyes, and a host of other terrible abnormalities. The Netherland Visie Foundation reports that child leukemia is up 600% in areas of Iraq.

Perhaps the sadness and bitterness of what the U.S. military has wrought by its use of DU munitions is caught most eloquently and poignantly in the words of Jooma Khan of Afghanistan. “When I saw my deformed grandson, I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good. (This is) different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape.”

Radiation respects no nationality, as soldiers from Gulf War I are finding out by the hundreds of thousands. Kenny Duncan, a Scottish soldier, was diagnosed with DU poisoning. The three children he fathered since his return from the war have symptoms similar to those found in many Iraqi children, including deformed toes and poor immune systems. Studies of British soldiers from the Balkan conflict and the Gulf War show them with 14 times the normal level of chromosome abnormalities in their genes, explaining why their children have cancers and genetic illnesses.

The highest rate of leukemia in children in the United Kingdom is found in an area around a military firing range at Dundrennan, Scotland, where DU munitions are used.

And what about U.S. soldiers? According to the Gulf War Veterans Association, half of the 697,000 soldiers involved in the 1991 war have reported serious illness. 30% are sick enough to receive VA benefits, meaning quite serious since the VA is stingy with benefits.
A revealing study by the VA looked at 251 Gulf War soldiers. All these soldiers fathered normal children before going to war. After the war, 67% of the children fathered by these men had severe illnesses or major deformities—including no brains, no organs, no hands, no legs. In a bitter irony, these men are now chained to the military for life because they could never get insurance for their children with these pre-existing conditions.

In an appalling case that sums up the military’s disregard for its soldiers, Dr. Rokke reports that the Department of Defense ordered VA doctors not to remove radioactive shrapnel in soldiers from the Gulf War in order to research the effects of such shrapnel on the body.

According to Dr. Rokke, soldiers who have been redeployed to Iraq after their first tour didn’t receive congressionally mandated physicals. That should be of great concern to all those who have loved ones serving in Iraq. In essence, our army is a ticking radiation time bomb. A bomb that will inevitably go off, as half of our Gulf War veterans can affirm. And Gulf War vets were exposed to far less radiation and for a shorter period of time than our present military forces.
What happens to the men and women in our military when thousands upon thousands begin feeling the effects of radiation poisoning? What happens to the children born sick or deformed to veterans who didn’t realize their genetic codes had been devastated by DU radiation? Who will pay? Who will apologize? In a very real sense, the only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are those used by the U.S. military.

As Leuren Moret points out, DU munitions break the four basic rules that determine if a weapon can be legally used. One: the weapon must not continue to act after the war is over. DU has a half life of 4.5 billion years. Two: the weapon must be confined to the battlefield. DU is carried by wind and water hundreds of miles beyond the battlefield. Three: the weapon must not kill inhumanely. Death by radiation poisoning is agonizing. Four: the weapon must not unduly damage the environment. All the research shows DU trashes the air, the water, the land—forever! Thus DU munitions are illegal under international law, the Geneva Conventions, The Hague Convention, and domestic U.S. military law.

Too often our government, our military, and our corporations consider themselves above the law—be it international law or moral law—doing what they want without regard to the consequences for others. But the use of DU munitions is a quantum leap into a frightening world of consequences we won’t be able to ignore because these consequences will affect us just as seriously as they affect the people we subjected to our DU munitions.

The facts about DU munitions bring us back to fundamental questions. Do the American people want the military using radioactive munitions the way it has in Iraq and Afghanistan? Shouldn’t we have serious discussions about using such weapons—a decision made by a few without the consent of the many, including the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are suffering and will suffer from the fallout of this decision?

As I look at what we have done to the Afghans and their country and to the Iraqis and their country and to the young men and women in our military, the words of Kurtz from Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” ring out—“The horror! The horror!”
– 30-

SILENT GENOCIDE IN IRAQ

By Craig Etchison

The U.S. military has quietly made warfare with deadly radioactive weapons a primary component of its arsenal by using depleted uranium munitions (DU) in the Middle East, setting in motion a silent genocide that will endure for years. Why was there no debate in this country about the political and moral implications of this radioactive warfare?

The military used 380 tons of DU munitions in Gulf War I, over 500 tons in Afghanistan, and over 1000 tons in Iraq. DU munitions are made of radioactive U-238, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. According to a presentation at the 2004 Conference of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the amount of radiation released by DU munitions in Iraq alone is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.

Recent Geiger counter readings in residential areas of Baghdad found radiation levels 1000 to 1900 times above normal. Readings from destroyed Iraqi tanks that children play on were 2,500 times above normal.
One virus-sized particle of DU inhaled into the lung will emit the equivalent radiation of one x-ray per hour for life, and once a particle is inhaled, there is no procedure to remove it. Scientists estimate that one millionth of a gram of DU will kill a person.

Leuren Moret, a former scientist at the Livermore nuclear weapons labs, states that DU has destroyed the genetic future of Iraq in great measure. The effects of DU radiation on the human body are catastrophic—resulting in destruction of the immune system, altering of the genetic code, and creating a stew of lethal cancers and tumors.

Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, says, “The Pentagon’s own published studies have shown adverse heath effects [of DU].” When questions were raised about the use of DU in Iraq, the U.S. military said warnings about the health and environmental risks were nothing more than Iraqi propaganda to prevent use of these weapons.

Why do we use DU munitions when we know they aren’t safe for soldiers of either side, civilians of any side, or the environment? The U.S. has 700,000 tons of depleted uranium stockpiled, annoying residue from nuclear power plants. Munitions manufacturers get DU free because it relieves the Department of Energy of the nasty headache of safely storing it.

The use of DU has resulted in a growing litany of medical horrors as the radiation works its inevitable devastation. The Basra region has seen a ten-fold increase in diagnosed cancers. Child leukemia is up 600% in areas of Iraq.

The sadness and bitterness of what the U.S. military has wrought by its use of DU munitions is caught poignantly in the words of Jooma Khan of Afghanistan. “When I saw my deformed grandson, I realized that my hopes of the future have vanished for good. (This is) different from the hopelessness of the Russian barbarism, even though at that time I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This time, however, I know we are part of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from which I know we will not escape.”

What about U.S. soldiers? According to the Gulf War Veterans Association, half of the 697,000 soldiers involved in the 1991 war have reported serious illness. 30% are sick enough to receive VA benefits.

A VA study of 251 Gulf War soldiers is revealing. These soldiers fathered normal children before going to war. After the war, 67% of their children had severe illnesses or major deformities.

What happens to current military personnel when thousands upon thousands begin feeling the effects of radiation poisoning? What happens to the children born sick or deformed to veterans whose genetic codes were devastated by DU radiation? Who will pay? Who will apologize?

In a very real sense, the only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are those used by the U.S. military.
As I look at what we have done to the Afghans and their country and to the Iraqis and their country and to our soldiers, the words of Kurtz from Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” ring out—“The horror! The horror!”
– 30-