Depleted uranium’s toll on soldiers and Iraquis is kept secret

West covering up depleted uranium use in wars: Webre http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/05/338390/west-covering-up-depleted-uranium-use/  6 Dec 13 Press TV has conducted an interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre, an international lawyer in Vancouver, concerning the rising number of suicide rates among Canadian war veterans.

The following is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Webre, first of all, who would you blame for this rising trend that we are seeing among these war veterans? Is it because the situation is not being treated when they come back home? Can this issue even be pursued through legal channels?

Webre: Yes, the cause of this was very squarely pointed out in the final opinion of the Tokyo International Tribunal for war crimes in Afghanistan. In their final opinion, they stated that the US forces used depleted uranium weapons in Afghanistan in the manner that Zyklon B gas was used across Europe as a weapon of mass murder in Afghanistan calculated to destroy all the living species exposed.

And so what has been found is that exposure to the ionizing radiation in depleted uranium weapons has been felt both by the targeted victims of Afghanistan but also by the Canadian, by the US and by the UK troops who have had to handle the depleted uranium weapons and who have been in the proximity of the ionizing radiation there.

And it is now known that the [Persian] Gulf War syndrome was caused by large-scale use of depleted uranium weapons against Iraq in 1991 so that 70 percent of [Persian] Gulf War veterans have now had children born after the [Persian] Gulf War with mutations, deformities, genetic [dis]orders and suffer from the same syndromes that go on to produce suicides.

And so there are more that one million US veterans that are on total disability now because of exposure to depleted uranium so that all of the suicides in the Canadian armed forces from Afghanistan are from exposure to ionizing radiation of depleted uranium weapons to which they were not trained and the controllers of the allied armed forces used these depleted uranium weapons knowingly in the words of the International Tokyo Tribunal to cause crimes against humanity, genocide and omnicide. 

And omnicide is a word, the killing of all living things, the genome of all living things including humans, animals and plants and now this is coming home with the suicides of the Canadian forces and the suicides in the American and the British forces and all of the deformed babies and offspring in these soldiers but the greatest tragedy is in Iraq and Afghanistan itself.

Press TV: With what you are saying and the evidence to support it, do you think this issue can be raised in international courts? Or do you think the US could be standing accountable for the use of depleted uranium and the effects that it is having or is going to have?

Webre: Both Iraq and Afghanistan, in my judgment, should immediately go at the international level and break open the courts of justice at the International Criminal Court and other venues and we know those successful legal venues in international organizations to secure damages for what has been called a silent genocide.

This is a complete cover-up by the US, the UK and Canadian forces and also because Canadian uranium has been exported illegally against the Canadian nuclear commission regulations in which no Canadian uranium may be used in weapons and all depleted uranium in US and UK depleted uranium weapons is Canadian uranium and Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, has knowingly allowed this to go forward.

Censored – the health effects of depleted uranium

A factor rarely mentioned is the potential effects of DU on children yet to be born to U.S. Iraq war veterans, who served in places like Fallujah, Basra and Najaf.

HORRIFIC EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM STILL CENSORED BY U.S. MILITARY, MEDIA HTTPS://AMERICANFREEPRESS.NET/?P=13599 NOVEMBER 03, 2013 BY RICHARD WALKER In a move seen by medical experts worldwide as an effort to suppress the truth about the horrors of depleted uranium (DU) munitions, the United Nations (UN) health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO), along with the Ministry of Health of Iraq (MoH) on September 13, 2013, produced a report that was not even authored, meaning no experts attached their names to it, on birth defects among Iraqi babies in which DU was not even considered a factor.

The report was published on the WHO website at a time when birth defects among Iraqi babies have been rising steadily, especially in areas like Najaf and Fallujah, where DU shells were used indiscriminately, killing and injuring large numbers of civilians. Some estimates for the 2003 death toll in Iraq put the civilian casualties in Fallujah as high as 75% to 80%.

DU is a byproduct of the nuclear industry. It is added to munitions to increase penetration, as DU is significantly denser than steel. The side effect, though, is that, where DU is used, it pollutes everything in the area. While no exact figures exist for the amount of exploded DU in Iraq, it is believed to have been in the metric tons. It would not be the first time WHO has suppressed he truth about the use of DU weapons in Iraq. In 2004, a study co-authored by Dr. Keith Baverstock, a radiation expert hired by the WHO, was not published. According to Baverstock, it was censored because WHO was pressured by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which was trying to promote nuclear power. Baverstock warned there was a danger in the dry atmosphere of Iraq that particles from exploding DU shells and missiles could be carried on the air and inhaled by people for years to come.

Baverstock pointed to the fact the United States and UK governments had consistently refused to provide data on the location where DU weapons were used during the Iraq war.

The Lancet, the renowned British medical journal, was confounded by the WHO failure to consider a linkage between toxic munitions and rising birth defects. Instead, the WHO report concluded the percentage of birth defects was either in keeping with, or even lower than international figures. That statement contradicted all previous evidence, including evidence the WHO had previously accepted from medical experts, who had studied the effects of DU in Iraq.

The Lancet pointed to Iraqi experts like Samira Alaani, a Fallujah pediatrician, whose 2011 report  found 15% of all babies born in the city since 2003 had “congenital malformations.” A similar study in Basra by another expert put the figure there at 17%.

A factor rarely mentioned is the potential effects of DU on children yet to be born to U.S. Iraq war veterans, who served in places like Fallujah, Basra and Najaf.

There is nothing new about the suppression of information on this topic. Serbians still press the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to disclose how many DU weapons were used in the 1999 79-day air campaign against the former Yugoslavia. According to Serbians, the weapons used have since resulted in birth defects.

Palestinians also have cause to ask the world why no one has condemned Israel for using DU weapons in the heavily populated Gaza strip. There is also the question of why Israel ignores evidence its Dimona nuclear weapons plant threatens the health of the surrounding population. Israel has so far been able to convince the locals that unusual medical issues are the result of Bedouin livestock.

Scotland protest against firing depleted uranium weapons

Dundrennan depleted uranium protest staged http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-24835544 6 Nov 13 The last DU tests were carried out at Dundrennan five years ago  Campaigners have held a “mass walk-on” at the Dundrennan range in protest at the test firing of depleted uranium (DU) weapons into the Solway Firth.

It was part of an international day of action and followed concerns about serious health issues resulting from the use of such weapons in war zones.

The last DU tests at the south of Scotland range were in 2008. Earlier this year the Ministry of Defence said it had no plans to restart firing in the area.

One of the campaigners, Rachel Thompson, said the protest had been well supported from across Scotland and beyond. ”We have found that depleted uranium is one of those issues people really do care about,” she said.

“They knew when they started that Scottish people did not want this to happen.” She said the protest wanted to make the link between that objection and the consequences of the use of such weapons in Iraq.

Depleted uranium and nuclear wastes – easy path to “dirty bombs”

Nuclear Power Dirty Bomb   The Market Oracle, Oct 28, 2013  By: Andrew_McKillop ”……RECYCLE, REUSE AND DEFEND THE ECONOMY Nuclear waste business, as we know, is not business friendly and leads to the very basic reflex of simply dumping a considerable and growing part of the world’s unmanageable nuclear wastes from the current world fleet of around 436 operating civil reactors (depending on how many Japanese reactors are broughtback into service). Proliferation risks are deliberately restricted to only conventional explosive nuclear weapons and their radioactive materials – totally ignoring both Depleted Uranium weapons using “recycled” nuclear wastes, and the potential future Dirty Bomb targets of active and “partly decommissioned” reactors lurking on the horizon. These with almost no possible doubt will be prime targets in coming civil wars and international wars. These nuclear war options are above all cheap, and of course very dirty.

Since the 1991 Gulf War 1 against Iraq, the war against Afghanistan starting in 2001, and the second war against Iraq of 2003 at least 2500 tons of Depleted Uranium weapons have been used by the US, UK and France in these “delightfully far away” over the horizon wars against lesser races and nations. Depleted Uranium ordnance, to date has caused a conservatively estimated 10 000 cancer deaths, and as many as 50 000 still-living cancer victims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This has easily calculated economic consequences. When this concerns free market white democrat middle class consumers, the same types of cancers are costed at roughly $ 40 000 for a cancer death and $ 25 000-per-year for surviving cancer sufferers.

The “cute idea” of recycling nuclear wastes as DU ordnance has a cosy market-friendly smell, to some, but the economic damage that these filthy weapons generate smells a lot worse. Those who profit from misery and death will finally pay. The same weapons can be turned around and used on them……… http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article42864.html

Depleted uranium spreads its health effects around the world

Dangers and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, Disabled World,  4 Sept 13  Thomas C. Weiss

Summary: Information relating to Depleted Uranium (DU) a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal potentially hazardous to human health.

“Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues.”

Document Detail: Depleted Uranium (DU) is a waste product, one that is left over when uranium is enriched to create fissionable material for nuclear weapons and reactors. DU consists of uranium from which most of the fissionable isotopes, uranium 235 and 234, have been removed. DU contains 99.5% Uranium 238.

The term, ‘depleted,’ carries with it the implication that it is not particularly dangerous; however, DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal and because of this it is potentially hazardous to a person’s health. It is believed by many that exposure to depleted uranium (DU), especially when a person inhales or ingests it as a particulate, causes severe and long-term health effects. The size and effect, as well as the political significance of it, remain in dispute at this time. DU is an extremely dense material, 1.7 times as dense as lead, and is also, ‘pyrophoric,’ and is combustible when it comes in contact with air.

DU is being used by the defense industry in the creation of armor piercing munitions and anti-tank projectiles, as well as in the manufacture of tank armor.

Around 17 nations are thought to have weapon systems containing DU in their arsenals to include:

• The United States of America
• The United Kingdom
• Saudi Arabia
• Thailand
• Pakistan
• Bahrain
• Taiwan
• Greece
• France
• Kuwait
• Turkey
• Oman
• Egypt
• China
• Russia
• Israel
• India

A number of these nations were sold DU ammunition by the United States of America, while others – to include Russia, France, India and Pakistan, are believe to have developed it on their own. DU is increasingly showing up in a number of civilian products as well. It is used as ballast in airplanes and ships, in flywheels and boat keels, and in helicopter rotors and gyroscopes. DU is also used as radiation shielding in radioactive material transport containers.http://www.disabled-world.com/health/uranium.php

USA soldiers made ill by depleted uranium

USA’s cover-up of effects of depleted uranium on US soldiers

The U.S. Army’s own contractor, Doug Rokke, who headed a clean up of depleted uranium (DU) after the first Gulf War stated, “Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity.” Mr. Rokke went on to state that when his crew went to the Gulf they were all very healthy people, yet after performing clean up operations, 30 members of his staff died and the majority of the others, to include Mr. Rokke himself, “developed serious health problems.

The military is aware of depleted uranium’s harmful effects on the human genetic code.

The U.S. Military does not want the rest of the world to find out what we have done

Dangers and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, Disabled World,  Thomas C. Weiss, 4 Sept 13 “…….According to an article by Robert C. Koehler in 2007, the Veterans Administration presented figures of 205,000 soldiers who returned from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these soldiers, one-third have sought medical care for issues such as:

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of all is the sheer number of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts suffering physical ailments. In an April 12, 2007 article, Robert C. Koehler examined the issue:

• Malignant tumors (1,584)
• Mental disorders (73,157)
• Mystery conditions (67,743)
• Nervous system diseases (61,524)
• Musculoskeletal diseases (87,590)
• Digestive system diseases (63,002)
• Endocrinal and metabolic diseases (36,409)

Many times these conditions are lumped together under the convenient catch all heading of, ‘Gulf War Syndrome.’ It is very likely that at least some of these illnesses are caused by exposure to depleted uranium (DU). The effects of DU contamination may take up to 10 years to manifest and it is likely the number of veterans who will need medical care will be higher than from prior conflicts.

Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, Director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated in a conference in Japan, “Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers – one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney–he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer. Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.”

The U.S. Army’s own contractor, Doug Rokke, who headed a clean up of depleted uranium (DU) after the first Gulf War stated, “Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity.” Mr. Rokke went on to state that when his crew went to the Gulf they were all very healthy people, yet after performing clean up operations, 30 members of his staff died and the majority of the others, to include Mr. Rokke himself, “developed serious health problems.”Mr. Rokke has reactive airway disease now, as well as neurological damage, kidney issues, and cataracts………

A special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan, documented the effects of depleted uranium (DU) use in Iraq. Dr. Hardan stated, “American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Bagdad alone during the recent invasion. ”

The military is aware of depleted uranium’s harmful effects on the human genetic code. A study performed in 2001 related to DU’s effect on DNA was done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller of the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. And indicates that DU’s chemical instability causes 1 Million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone. We are poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, yet we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other nations who can help. The U.S. Military does not want the rest of the world to find out what we have done………….http://www.disabled-world.com/health/uranium.php

 

Relentless health impacts of depleted uranium

Dangers and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium, Disabled World,  Thomas C. Weiss, 4 Sept 13  ”…………Health concerns and DU center around the effect on the human body of nano-sized ceramic particles of uranium oxide (U238) that are released into the air when DU munitions are used in battle. Dr. Rosalie Bertell presented a concise explanation of the potential dangers of exposure to depleted uranium (DU). Dr. Bertell stated, “Uranium oxide and its aerosol form are insoluble in water. The aerosol resists gravity, and is able to travel tens of kilometres in air. Once on the ground, it can be resuspended when the sand is disturbed by motion or wind. Once breathed in, the very small particles of uranium oxide, those which are 2.5 microns (one micron = one millionth of a meter) or less in diameter, could reside in the lungs for years, slowly passing through the lung tissue into the blood.”

Another doctor, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, who founded the Uranium Medical Research Center, stated that over the course of a year 1 milligram of DU emits 390 million alpha particles, 780 million beta particles, as well as associated gamma rays for a total of more than one billion high energy, ionizing, radioactive particles and rays that may produce extensive biological damage to a person’s ovaries, kidneys, lungs, lymph nodes, blood, bones, breasts, stomach, and to fetuses. The health concerns, especially for people who live in Iraq, are particularly acute because of the young ages of the people being exposed.

The Department of Defense continues to deny health risks associated with the use of DU’s, yet it’s own actions belie their claims. May 15th of 2003 found Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor reporting that in Iraq, “Six American vehicles struck with DU “friendly fire” in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump.”

Studies performed by The Uranium Medical Research Center in Afghanistan show very high levels of, ‘non-depleted,’ uranium in not only bomb craters, but people. Of the 700,000 United States Veterans from the first Gulf War, greater than 240,000 are on permanent medical disability and 11,000 have died. An investigation by Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News found 4 of 9 soldiers of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army National Guard returning from Iraq tested positive for depleted uranium (DU) contamination; they are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the Iraq war.

A study performed in April of 2007 by researchers at the University of Southern Maine concluded that, “exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant genotoxic risk (risk of genetic mutation) and could possibly result in lung cancer.” A paper published in the same year in the scientific journal, ‘Science of the Total Environment,’ found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments, as well as household dust in the vicinity of a DU weapons factory in Colonie, New York 23 years after the plant had closed and despite massive efforts at clean up by the U.S. Army Corp of engineers. It also presented the fact that traces of DU contamination still remain in the urine of former workers and neighbors of the plant…………http://www.disabled-world.com/health/uranium.php

Depleted uranium – huge amounts are created by uranium enrichment

Uranium Enrichment Creates Massive Amounts Of Depleted Uranium (DU) – Used In Weapons Of Mass DestructionHow and where is depleted uranium manufactured? Most of the byproducts (garbage) “from uranium enrichment (96%) is depleted uranium (DU)… There are vast quantities of depleted uranium in storage. The United States Department of Energy alone has 470,000 tons.[1] About 95% of depleted uranium is stored as uranium hexafluoride (UF6).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle

 

New fracking method uses depleted uranium

Wrecking the Earth: Fracking has grave radiation risks few talk about   Rt.com  Christopher Busby 28 Aug 13,  Environmentalists point to various dangerous consequences of using fracking technology, but none can be compared to the issue of radiation exposure and radioactive contamination of the development areas it poses…….. The key to fracking

Uranium is the key element to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, to use its proper name. In the real-world version of Phineas Fogg’s “Eighty Days Around the World,” burning the ship’s masts and furniture to make steam, governments are now encouraging the oil and gas merchants to blast their way deep into the Earth to squeeze the last ounce of oil and gas from that poor creature. But there will be a terrible revenge. Locked up in the strata into which they pump the pressurized process water, to fracture and thus create the huge surface area sponge which will yield up its cargo of gas and oil, is a monstrous amount of natural uranium and its deadly daughter Radium-226. And vast amounts of the radioactive alpha emitting gas Radon-222, and its own daughters Bismuth 214, Lead-210 and the alpha emitter Polonium-210. Remember Polonium-210? That was the material used when a few millionths of a gram poisoned ex-Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Deep down in the earth, there is a lot of radioactivity, which is safe enough, so long as it is not brought up to the surface……. specially designed explosives called “shaped charges.” These are cone-shaped dense metal explosive devices that send the explosive energy in an enormously powerful directed jet of metal atoms that act as a drill and melt the rock or shale along the length of the jet. This creates a radially distributed set of channels along and around the length of the drill tube, in the shape of a bottle-cleaning brush. ……Nuclear implications

The metal which was formerly employed for the shaped charge head or “gun” was copper. This creates a pressure of 300,000 atmospheres which pushes the rock aside by plastic deformation. But in 1984 a (US Patent 20110000669)  was filed by one Thomas Wilson, entitled “Conical Shaped Charge Liner of Depleted Uranium.” The patent begins: “this invention relates to a novel blasting device especially adapted for drilling oil and gas wells.” Wilson records that DU is 5-times as efficient as copper in terms of the length of the jetted hole, creating a pressure of 600,000 atmospheres.

In case you might think this is all scaremongering, academic and unrelated to fracking, another patent was filed more recently in 2011 (US Patent 20110000669) by Halliburton (think: oil, gas, armaments, missiles, Dick Cheney) entitled “Perforating gun assembly and method for controlling wellbore pressure during perforating”. The patent specifically refers to Depleted Uranium.

So not only is there a lot of natural radioactive material surfacing in the gas or oil stream, and the production water, there is the possibility also a lot of unnatural radioactivity coming up from the DU shaped charges. And besides the fact that Depleted Uranium is the most efficient of these shaped charge metals, let’s not forget the attraction to the US nuclear industry of a way of getting rid of its vast stocks of Depleted Uranium, or even natural Uranium, or even nuclear waste. I mean, who is going to look at the radioactivity in the process water? It will be radioactive from the Radium and Radon daughters anyway. You would need to carry out some sophisticated analysis to see if it contained any nasty man-made radionuclides, especially DU nanoparticles.  Who will do that?……..

As Phineas Fogg is completing his “Around the World in 80 Days” trip, he is forced to burn the cabin furniture, the masts and other critical pieces of the ship carrying him back on his final leg, to win his wager. But in the dismantling and burning of our planet, there is no wager, just greedy and powerful individuals. We are burning our ship – when it’s all we have.    http://rt.com/op-edge/fracking-radioactive-uranium-danger-ecology-057/

Queen Elizabeth makes money out of depleted uranium

UK Queen in depleted uranium trade? British anti-war campaign group the Stop the War Coalition has in a video claimed that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is one of the richest women on earth and much of her profits are from arms trade including the notorious depleted uranium trade. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/05/317277/uk-queen-in-depleted-uranium-trade/

The video apparently created by anti-monarchy activists and published on YouTube says the British monarch has managed to increase her wealth from £300 million early in her 60-year reign to £17 billion at present thanks to investments in arms firms that produce uranium used in depleted uranium (DU) shells, including Rio Tinto Zinc