Depleted Uranium Weapon Gulf war syndrome to GAZA war syndrome the worst atrocities o

[usman_1112]

Depleted Uranium Weapon Gulf war syndrome to GAZA war syndrome the worst atrocities of all time by USA and EU.

What right do USA and EU have to throw thousands of tons of nuclear waste all over any country? Leaving behind DU ammo is just like leaving behind landmines. DU litters the land and has the potential to kill innocent people of future generations

Since 1991, the United States, Britain have fired hundreds of tons of DU munitions during four wars - in the Balkans, Afghanistan, twice in Iraq , now used in war in Lebanon and recently war in Gaza (Palestine) by Israel. The Gulf War is an older case but was the first time that the US military employed DU weaponry on a large military scale against an enemy. DU ammunition has been accredited during and after the Gulf War as one of the main reasons why the Allied military had such a swift victory over Iraqi military forces

The denial and cruel cover up has gone on too long,” "These soldiers and civilians who suffered [adverse health from exposure to DU] deserve the truth and respectful assistance. The first step is to admit the problem. The second step is to measure the size of the problem and then clean up the environmental toxins. The next step is to stop using depleted uranium munitions. U.S.and EU military use of dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets threatens humanity and all living things ... and is turning Planet Earth into a death star."

As former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger said, "Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." American political and military leaders never asked the "pawns" or troops if that was OK. U.S. military has 3.0 million depleted uranium bombs [pre-positioned] in South Korea.That’s was reason North Korea got N- bomb

In 1999, the UN called for the use of depleted uranium to be banned worldwide but efforts to downplay its effects led by the Pentagon have blocked such a ban. The fact that depleted uranium burns at high temperatures and forms large numbers of extremely fine particles makes it even more deadly and effective than nearly any other material as a radiological weapon. The half-life of depleted uranium is so great, 4.5 billion years that environments where it is used as a weapon will remain radioactive forever.

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. Depleted uranium weapons use is adding to the radiation burden which is the cause of the global cancer epidemic If you think Cancer is a problem now, wait until more depleted uranium is released into the world.
http://www.torontoforpeace.org/uranium-risks.html

At least 18 countries are thought to have weapon systems with DU in their arsenals. These include: UK, US, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, China, India and Taiwan. Many of them were sold DU ammunition by the US while others, Including France, China,Russia, Pakistan ,UKand India are thought to have developed it independently.

All the soldiers there were wearing NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical warfare) protective clothing. We said: ‘What’s going on here?’ And their answer was: ‘Didn’t you know? This ammunition is a bit dodgy.’” – Tim Pubrick, Gulf War veteran, British Royal Army tank commander. BBC News | SCI/TECH | A soldier's experience

The final stakeholders are companies that produce DU ammo (e.g. US ammo companies are given DU for free by the US government and given lucrative contracts to produce DU ammo to arm common military land, sea and air base weapon systems. M829A1 120mm, APFSDS-T)

In a paper to be published in the 2007 issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments and household dust in the vicinity of the site of a DU weapons factory in Colonie New York, 23 years after the plant closed, despite massive clean up efforts by the US Army corps of engineers. The team also found that traces of DU contamination still remain in the urine of former workers and neighbors of the plant 'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated | World news | The Observer

Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because in addition to being weakly radioactive, uranium is a toxic metal. In a three week period of conflict in Iraq during 2003 it was estimated over 1000 tons of depleted uranium munitions were used mostly in cities.

the UK Pensions Appeal Tribunal Service in early 2004 attributed birth defect claims from a February 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to depleted uranium poisoning.

DU stockpiles estimated to be more than 500,000 tons, it was more economical to use depleted uranium than store it. The US military used DU shells in the 1991 Gulf War, the Bosnia war, bombing of Serbia, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq

LEGALITY TEST FOR WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Weapons must pass four tests in order to determine that they are legal under international law. The tests are:
(1)TEMPORAL TEST. Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is over.
(2)ENVIRONMENTAL TEST. Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the environment.
(3)TERRITORIAL TEST. Weapons must not act off of the battlefield.
(4)HUMANENESS TEST. Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanely. Depleted uranium weaponry fails all four tests. For that reason it is illegal under all
Treaties, all agreements and all war conventions:

The military use of DU violates current international humanitarian law,including the principle that there is no unlimited right to choose the means and methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV); Art. 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva (GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and suoperfluous injury (Art. 23 le HCIV; Art. 35 2 GP1), indiscriminate warfare (Art. 51 4c and 5b GP1) as well as the use of poison or poisoned weapons).

The deployment and use of DU violate the principles of international environmental and human rights protection. They contradict the right to life established by the Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on Human Rights.Yeung Sik Yuen writes in Paragraph 133 under the title "Legal compliance of weapons containing DU as a new weapon":

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

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is a “high risk of developing cancer from exposure to radiation emitted by ... depleted uranium weapons. This risk is assumed to be proportional to the dose received.”

The Geneva Convention has classified depleted uranium ammunitions as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' due to their high radioactivity and toxicity

The DOE has a million tons of depleted uranium to dispose of. DOE made the decision to pass the radioactive trash on to the military-industrial complex for the manufacture of weapons. By passing the cost of disposal on to other countries, it is a savings for the U.S.

Government. In fact, by selling depleted uranium weapons to more than 20 other countries, the DOE has made disposal a highly profitable business.
Despite assurances from the U.S. military that depleted uranium from exploded munitions does not pose a significant health threat, Iraq's provisional government is asking the United Nations for help cleaning up the low-level radioactive, metal dust spread across local battlefields by U.S. and British forces during the Persian Gulf wars.

The request comes as the United States continues to defend depleted uranium weaponry - prized for its tank-piercing and bunker- or cave-smashing ability - against strong opposition by other countries, scientists and veterans organizations.

Great Britain, a major partner in the coalition now fighting in Iraq, has provided the U.N. with the coordinates where its forces used depleted uranium, also known as DU, in southern Iraq, but the United States has not. Britain and Germany are supplying money to train Iraqis in environmental science. The United Nations plans to survey for DU hot spots from both wars in Iraq and says it needs the coordinates for an effective survey.

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 time'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. Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World

Since 1991, the cancer rates in Iraq have risen sharply in areas where depleted uranium was used, according to Iraqi medical studies reviewed by scientists from other countries. In addition, more than 230,000 of the 697,000 U.S. soldiers who served in that war have filed disability claims for various maladies, the majority of which fall under the broad category of gulf war syndrome. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_iitab11.
htm#tab L_research report summaries

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 Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World.

Dr. Hari Sharma, an independent researcher, has measured the depleted uranium levels in 71 residents of Basra who died after the war was over. He found levels of 150 micrograms of depleted uranium per kilogram of tissue throughout their bodies. That Would amount to a very high exposure rate, roughly estimated at 10 alpa particles per Second throughout the body. Alpha particles are the most biologically damaging form of radiation. severe birth defects and diseases in 67% of the children6 born after the war. They were born without eyes, brains, organs, legs, arms, hands, feet, or had blood and other radiation related diseases..(sourcesThe Tiny Victims of Desert Storm).
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html

Gulf War was using DU as tank armor. 645 out of 2058 US tanks used in the Gulf were fitted with DU armor In a recent United Nations Environmental Protection report, depleted uranium shells and bullets left in or on the ground have lost 25% of their mass by dissolving and are now contaminating the groundwater. Illnesses in civilians living near contaminated areas are rising.

During bombing in Kosovo and Bosnia, depleted uranium was monitored in Hungary and Greece, carried by the winds and eventually incorporating with atmospheric dusts. It is impossible to escape exposure even for populations hundreds and thousands of miles from battlegrounds. 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 and afghanistan.

A new study in Germany of Gulf War and Balkans War veterans, found significant Amounts of damage to chromosomes in these veterans. The damage was characteristic of Exposure to ionizing radiation and high linear energy transfer particles (alpha particles). Chromosome Aberration Analysis in Peripheral Lymphocytes of Gulf War and Balkans War Veterans.H. Schroder et al., Radiation Protection Dosimetry V.103:3, pp.211-219 (2003).

The bombing of Afghanistan by U.S. military forces demonstrated the deliberate use of illegal weapons such as bunker busters, cluster bombs and other depleted uranium weapons systems to target civilian populations, water supplies, and infrastructure. Afghanistan is a poverty stricken underdeveloped country which poses no threat to the United States or any other country.

Professor Marc Herold, from the University of New Hampshire, has conservatively estimated that the U.S. military used more than 1000 tons of depleted uranium weapons

in the recent conflict in Aghanistan. This is nearly three times as much as Gulf War I.Afghan doctors, citing rapid deaths from internal ailments, were accusing the coalition of using chemical and radioactive weapons. The symptoms they reported (haemorrhaging, pulmonary constriction and vomiting) could have resulted from radiation contamination

The United States has spent billions of dollars cleaning up depleted uranium - at former munitions factories, military firing ranges and nuclear fuel production sites.

A General Accounting Office report in 2000 put the cost of cleanup at the uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., where DU is processed for use in weapons and nuclear reactors, at $1.3 billion. By December 2003, the cost of cleaning up and closing the plant, estimated to take until 2070, was up to $13 billion.

A private contractor working for the Department of Defense was paid $3.5 million to cleanup DU-contaminated military equipment and a practice firing range in Kuwait. MKM Engineers Inc. based in Stafford, Texas, performed a limited cleanup in Kuwait from February 2003 to June 2004. The company recovered 22 tons of DU fragments and 75 pieces of non-DU ordnance scrap. The unexploded DU ordnance was destroyed with Kuwaiti assistance. MKM also cleaned military hardware, including tanks, and wrapped them to contain surface contamination before sending them back to the United States.

The U.S. Army Material Command, responsible for the Kuwaiti project, described the work as retrieval of equipment and munitions, not a clean up.

Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy," 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. Depleted Uranium - Far Worse Than 9/11

In Jefferson County, Indiana, the Pentagon has closed the 200-acre (80-hectare) proving ground where it used to test-fire DU rounds. The lowest estimate for cleaning up the site comes to $7.8bn, not including permanent storage of the earth to a depth of six metres and of all the vegetation. Considering the cost too high, the military finally decided to give the tract to the National Park Service for a nature preserve — an offer that was promptly refused. Now there is talk of turning it into a National Sacrifice Zone and closing it forever.

Dr Jenan Ali, a senior Iraqi doctor at Basra hospital's College of Medicine, says her studies show a 100% rise in child leukaemia in the region in the decade after the first Gulf war, with a 242% increase in all types of malignancies.
The director of the Afghan DU and Recovery Fund, Dr Daud Miraki, says his field researchers found evidence of DU's effect on civilians in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan in 2003

Many children are born with no eyes, no limbs, or tumours protruding from their mouths and eyes," Miraki told Aljazeera.net. Some newborns are barely recognisable as human, he says. Many do not survive.

Afghan and Iraqi children continue to play amid radioactive debris. But the US army will not even label contaminated equipment or sites because doing so would be an admission that DU is hazardous. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of "bunker buster" bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys

The urine of eight civilians, along with 8 drinking water and 18 soil samples was tested for the contents and isotopic composition of uranium. The uranium concentrations in urine were in the range of 89 - 478 ng/L, with an average of 275 ng/L. The concentrations in drinking water were in the range of 2.2 - 56.4 µg/L, with an average of 23.8 µg/L. The isotopic composition of all samples was that of natural uranium.

The average uranium concentration of 23.8 µg/L found in the drinking water samples is higher than the current WHO guideline value of 15 µg/L, but still below the U.S. EPA drinking water standard of 30 µg/L. According to the ICRP biokinetic model for uranium, continuous consumption of this drinking water would result in uranium concentrations in urine in the range of 47 - 470 ng/L, for an GI absorption factor f1 in the range of 0.002 - 0.02.Sources ( Durakovic, Asaf: The quantitative analysis of uranium isotopes in the urine of the civilian population of eastern Afghanistan after operation Enduring Freedom, in: Military Medicine Vol. 170 (2005), No. 4 (April), p. 277-284 )

Radiological measurements of the uranium concentrations in Afghan civilians’ urine samples indicate abnormally high levels of non-depleted uranium. Radiological measurements of Afghan civilians’ have high concentrations of uranium in a range beginning at 4 X’s and reaching to over 20 X’s normal populations. This is 400% to 2000% higher than the study controls and normal population baselines of the concentrations of nanograms of uranium per liter of urine in a 24-hour sample. UMRC has completed initial but still preliminary studies that corroborate these finding in biological controls and geological samples taken in Operation Enduring Freedom bombsites. http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Uranium-Levels-Afghanistan5jun03.htm

Israel has used DU during their recent attack on Lebanon and Gaza. Researchers are currently examining bomb craters and other Impact sites for evidence of uranium dust.“Norwegian medics have found traces of depleted uranium in victims of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

The European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) concludes: The ECRR is based upon studies of chronic, internal exposure to low-level nuclear isotopes in diverse populations: leukemia in children on the Irish Sea Cost (Sellafield); Chernobyl children; and civilians and military exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) armaments resulting in systemic harm and genetic damage.

"Using both the ECRR’s new model and that of the International Committee for Radiation Protection (ICRP), the committee calculates the total number of deaths resulting from the nuclear project since 1945. The ICRP calculation, based on figures for doses to populations up to 1989 given by the United Nations, results in 1,174,600 deaths from cancer. The ECRR model predicts 61,600,000 deaths from cancer, 1,600,000 infant deaths and 1,900,000 fetal deaths. In addition the ECRR predicts a 10% loss of life quality integrated over all diseases and conditions in those who were exposed over the period of global weapons fallout."

A final benefit of DU ammunition is that by using DU rounds in huge military campaigns, one can get rid of tons of nuclear waste. A lot of waste dumped all over Kosovo and Iraq. This is basically dumping nuclear waste through the use of deadly weapons. BBC NEWS | Talking Point | Should Nato's uranium weapons be banned?

New Tomahawk cruise missiles armed with a 3kg DU warhead core were first used in Bosnia and later in KosovoOver 31,000 A-10 30mm rounds were fired and over 1,500 cruise missiles (armed with DU) were used. Some regions in Bosnia and especially Kosovo (a region that NATO HEAVILY bombed for 3 months) Cruise missile used in the Kosovo Conflict contained 3 kg of DU in their warhead .Around 1500 cruise missiles were used during the Kosovo Conflict. Depleted Uranium Review,

An important thing to consider was how much DU was actually dumped on to Iraqi territory. Around 9,640 tanks shells and 850,000 aircraft 30mm rounds were used. This translates to nearly 650,000 pounds of actual DU deposited on Iraqi soil That’s a lot of nuclear waste!Combat and Accidents

Reports from the Center for Defence information suggest that at least 500 tons of smart bombs and cruise missiles have been used in the first three weeks of the Afghan war.

If terrorists are succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S.and EU 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 ,Madrid bombing and bus blast in UK. Although not deliberate, with military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, USA and EU have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breathe, eat and drink, At least under Saddam and Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, the Iraqi and afghan people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam and Taliban, we left something much worse in his place.

The use of depleted uranium weapons is a crime against humanity, a crime against all species, and a war against the earth. It is imperative that we demand a permanent international moratorium on the sale and the use of depleted uranium weaponry. The war crimes of President Bush in Afghanistan Iraq and in Palestine, but against all humanity. Why EU and USA is ashamed to plead guilty of these atrocities aginst innocent people.Obama and Mr Golden browns must came up and announce a commission against DU Weapon utilization and killing of thousand innocent human being around the globe.

Part 2nd will be publish about DU weaponry manufacturing companies and their arsenals
Usman Karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com

 

[gambit]

In 2001, the United Nations Environmental Programme published a report titled: Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The Foreword by Klaus Topfer states:

Our new study provides additional information and reveals important discoveries on the environmental behaviours of DU. We learn that still, more than two years after the end of the conflict, particles of DU dust can be detected from soil samples and from sensitive bio-indicators like lichen. However, as the levels were extremely low, it was only through the use of state-of-the-art laboratory analyses that detection could be achieved. Based on our findings, UNEP can confirm that contamination at the targeted sites is widespread, though no significant level of radioactivity can be measured.

It is standard practice at the UN that whenever possible, if any investigative committee is created, the head of that committee will NOT be from the country that is under investigation. Klaus Topfer...

Klaus Töpfer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klaus Töpfer (born 29 July 1938 in Waldenburg, Germany; now Wałbrzych, Poland) is a German politician (CDU) and environmental politics expert. From 1998 to 2006 he was executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP).

 

[MadDog]

does PA use DU in ammo..other than in TANK ROUNDS...