Depleted Uranium

Sunday, August 24, 2003 5:14 AM

WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS WAR
WHAT HAVE THEY WROUGHT?

---An open letter to Christopher Hitchens, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity,
Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, the VFW, Ted Turner, David Hackworth, 
Madonna, Michael Moore, Robert Byrd, Rush Limbaugh, Dan Rather, Richard Perle, 
Ariel Sharon, the Pope, David Rockefeller, Amnesty International, and 
the King of Siam---

From Jon Rappoport
www.nomorefakenews.com


April 7, 2003
Yesterday, in an attempt to find out more about the death of NBC reporter, 
David Bloom, I spoke with the former head of the Pentagon Depleted Uranium 
Investigation Team, Dr. Doug Rokke.

Rokke was the man who went to Iraq a decade ago on a mission to report on 
depleted uranium (DU).  What he found was so horrifying the Pentagon scuttled 
his work and tried to make him an invisible man.  Rokke suffered uranium 
poisoning himself.  But his medical records, and those of who knows how many 
thousands of other soldiers, do not reflect that.  History has been suppressed, 
has been re-written. 
 
Our conversation began with me asking Rokke if he thought that the announced 
cause of David Bloom's death, pulmonary embolism, could have resulted from DU. 
But Rokke stopped me short.  He said, "This was the diagnosis they immediately 
gave out?  I don't see how.  You can't diagnose that from the battlefield. You 
really need an autopsy to discover whether that's the cause..."

Which opened up new questions.  Rokke began to talk about conditions in the 
Gulf now.  He said that the PR about the US limiting civilian casualties is 
absurd, because, for example, the Pentagon admits to losing 700 cruise missiles 
that have been fired at Baghdad in the current campaign.  In other words, those 
missiles strayed off course and no one really knows where they landed and exploded.  
"700 missiles, each one loaded with DU, is 700,000 pounds of explosives," he said.   
700,000 pounds of explosives going off, spreading cancer-causing uranium in all 
directions.

Rokke then informed me that, since 1990, and up to the beginning of Gulf War 2, 
some 260,000 US soldiers have been granted disability.  10,000 have died. I'm 
relaying these facts to you in a sober way, but of course I was staggered as Rokke 
talked.  He painted a picture of the Iraqi landscape as a toxic soup. DU, yes.  
But also many other toxins, because as he explained, when bombs and missiles rip 
up ANY material that is composite or synthetic, like plastics, you get all sorts 
of poisonous byproducts.  And that, for example, is what happened at the WTC on 9/11.  
Rokke said, "I trained a lot of those first health responders. They're dead now."

Rokke, over the years, together with colleagues, has issued report after report 
describing what, in essence, are the inevitable consequences of modern warfare as 
it is carried out.  A lingering toxic landscape that kills over time.
(All of the poisons discussed at this site kill slowly, so it looks like death
by "Natural Causes.")

When Rokke was in the Gulf a decade ago, one of his fears was confirmed: the masks
worn to protect against DU don't work.  They can't filter out the smallest and 
deadliest particles of uranium.  "We could taste the stuff [uranium]," he said.  
Rokke states that the Pentagon is completely aware of the dangers to US solders 
and combatants, and just doesn't care.

I asked him why DU is used in projectile shells and missiles.  He told me it was 
because uranium is so dense the weight of impact on a target causes a lot more 
damage.  And, he said, these shells are not merely coated or tipped with uranium, 
as some Pentagon people have stated.  They are packed with it.  Rokke likened the 
situation to having uranium rods in your backyard.  He went on to explain that the 
PB pills US soldiers have been taking, as protection against nerve gas, are them-
selves nerve agents.  If taken immediately before a nerve-gas attack -- and then 
followed up with two other medicines -- the soldier might get protection from nerve 
gas.  But the PB pills are being swallowed long in advance of any possible contact 
with nerve gas.  In essence, soldiers are getting "nerve gas" attacks FROM 
THE POISON PILLS.

Rokke mentioned a number of sites around the world -- Afghanistan and the former 
Yugoslavia, and places in the US -- where DU is a major problem right now.  By 
this point in our conversation, Rokke was piecing together an emerging picture 
of modern war as both murder and suicide.  He predicted the consequences of the 
Iraq war are going to be worse than Gulf War 1 - Worse, in terms of damage and 
death to US troops and the Iraqi people.

I hung up the phone stunned.  I can only ask that you get this information out 
to as many people as possible.  To give the widest possible benefit of the doubt 
to mainstream news reporters, THEY JUST DON'T KNOW.  They have no idea what they 
are supporting when they allow the picture of this war to be painted as a careful 
and controlled campaign.  All those maps and arrows and targets -- they need to 
be enveloped in a cloud of MULTIPLE POISONS.  Then we would have some 
concept of what is really going on -- and what is going to happen when it's over.

Rokke mentioned that, between Gulf War 1 and the start of Gulf 2, the Iraqis 
tried to build new water treatment facilities in Basra.  To clean up their 
horrible, illness-causing contaminated water.  Each time they tried, he said, 
those emerging facilities were destroyed... 

What is happening in the Gulf is not merely the result of ignorance.  It is not 
only depraved indifference.  It is a plan to depopulate and destroy.  US soldiers 
will be sacrificed, in huge numbers, to forward the larger goal: the depopulation 
and debilitation of Iraq.  Yet, the news networks still display that graphic: 
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.  And DOD spokesmen keep saying the protection of the 
Iraqi oil fields is being done to preserve "the future wealth of the Iraqi people."  
That sick joke takes on a new and very ominous meaning.

If 260,000 US vets now on disability from Gulf 1 can be hidden from the stupefied 
American people, what else can be hidden, here and in Iraq, in the coming months 
and years?  How many cases of cancer?  How many birth defects?  How many kidney 
and liver failures?  How many immune-system destructions?  How many American 
families who support their children now doing time in the Gulf will later watch 
those sons and daughters waste away, while the Pentagon claims it's all post-
traumatic stress?  How far do all the toxic clouds drift?  How many cases 
of illness are being misdiagnosed as the result of germs?

We are in a time of madness.  I can't fault prayer or the distractions of television 
or even the desperate accoutrements of so-called patriotism.  But somehow we have to 
live beyond clichés and summon up the outrage equal to the destruction - Equal to the 
moment.  The wretched hairless generals are striding through the Pentagon thinking 
they are on a course of victory, thinking whatever they have to think to avoid the 
truth that is chasing them like a snake.

Let the cardboard floors of lies give way and collapse.  Let the voices of the 
intelligent pro-war advocates incorporate this news.  Let them, finally, arrive 
at a further shore of conscience that compels them to take a stand. They are 
viewing old images, they are seeing a fantasy of war, they are imagining 
situations that no longer exist.

War is now different.  It is a sword you always fall on.  WAKE UP.   WAKE UP.

Sites relating to the effects of taking nerve agent antidotes and being in contact 
with Depleted Uranium...

https://www.mindfully.org/Health/Gulf-Children-Defects.htm
https://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9712/08/briefs/gulf.war.birth.defect/
https://www.chronicillnet.org/online/children.html
https://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_med_16jun.htm
https://www.af.mil/news/Jun1997/n19970605_970669.html



     Military Families Speak Out; 
     United For Peace; 
     Veterans Against the Iraq War; 
     Charles Sheehan-Miles; 
     Erik Gustafson; 
     Vietnam Veterans Against the War; 
     Bring Them Home Now. 
     

I. Iraq - Polluting the land, the people, and our soldiers. Nearly six months ago, Cutting Edge broke the story of the steadily developing story of the poisoning of Iraq, of Iraqis, and of our soldiers through a combination of Depleted Uranium, toxic vaccinations, the toxic bites of local insects, and the intense heat of the Summer. If you have not read our original article -- NEWS1843, "American Soldiers Are Ill and Dying. Is It Depleted Uranium?" We encourage you to stop right now to read it.

The news the past two weeks have greatly strengthened the reporting of this terribly sad story. Listen:

* "American Casualties", Radio Liberty, interviewed by Dr. Stan Monteith. On 11/25/03, Dr. Stan Monteith interviewed Captain Joyce Riley, who is now working with the Gulf War Veterans Association. She verified that the "Gulf War Syndrome" of Gulf War I was a combination of Depleted Uranium poisoning and toxic vaccinations. Then, she stated that veterans of this war are already suffering and dying from exactly the same symptoms! Riley said that over 9,000 "non-military casualties" have occurred already. She also said that the Pentagon is attemptingto hide the truth by either threatening soldiers to not talk, or they will lose medical benefits and by calling the sicknesses by various names.

Dr. Riley basically verified the key points of our original article, above. One additional bit of information we had not heard before came from Dr. Monteith during this interview; he stated that depleted uranium still contains 20% of its original radioactivity! As we are currently proving on the ground in Iraq, this amount of radioactivity is deadly!

* NEWS BRIEF: "The perfect weapon: Our love affair with depleted uranium masks a war crime in progress", By ROBERT C. KOEHLER, Tribune Media Services, November 17,2003. Daily News Updates, 11/16 and 11/26.

"... depleted uranium — the perfect weapon. At 1.6 times the density of lead, DU shells are the last word in penetration power: locomotives compressed to the size of bullets. The shells ignite the instant they're fired and explode on impact. I mean it's absolute kill ... Inside the vehicle is a giant firestorm'."

There can be no doubt but that Depleted Uranium munitions offer the Pentagon superior firepower against an enemy. When generals are given the assignment to gain a victory over an opponent, they will absolutely love Depleted Uranium munitions for it truly annihilates the enemy. However, such munitions also kill the friendly soldiers wielding it! This is the disaster the Pentagon is striving so hard to hide from everyone. Let us now go back to this Tribune article to see why D.U. kills all who come into contact with it, whether the victim is an enemy soldier, an Iraqi civilian, or the soldier wielding the weapon.

"...'depleted uranium' isn't really depleted of anything. It's dirty: U-238, the low-level radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. And when the ammo explodes, poof, it vaporizes into particles so fine — a single micron in diameter, small enough to fit inside red blood cells... "

Obviously, such fine polluted powder will pass through any mask any soldier is wearing. As we stated in our original article, American and British soldiers are "the walking dead".

What kind of a problem are we facing because of Depleted Uranium munitions? Let us go back to this Tribune article.

"... we've sewn pulverized DU across Kosovo and Afghanistan, and now, once again, Iraq. This time, 2,000 tons of it. 'That's the solid estimate'. Two thousand tons. And you can't clean it up. This is a long-term public health disaster of fearful proportions for Iraqis. But even those of you who have a hard time caring about their fate surely see that it is also an imminent disaster for our own men and women in uniform. They are utterly unprotected from DU contamination."

Captain Riley also reported that many of our soldiers are returning with rectal cancer because they were tank men sitting above the D.U. weapons stored underneath the seats in the Abrams Tanks. She also reported that a growing number of soldiers are coming down with brain cancer. But, most surprisingly, she reported that as many as 40% of the wives of D.U. poisoned soldiers are also become poisoned, a parallel development to the experience of Gulf War I.

* NEWS BRIEF: "IRAQ: Worse Could Follow, Says New Study", Inter Press Service News Agency, 11/11/03. Daily News Updates 11/17.

"LONDON, Nov 11 (IPS) - The consequences of the war in Iraq on people's health may be felt for generations, says a report by the medical charity Medact ... 'The full impact of the war on health will not be known for years', the report adds ... The legacy of the war continues to kill, injure and damage people in all sorts of ways, the report points out. One direct consequence of the war is the masses of unexploded ordnance lying around. Cluster weapons, landmines and depleted uranium weapons 'remain a potential health hazard for local populations years after the conflict', the report says. 'Deaths and injuries from unexploded ordnance are likely to be under-reported'."

* NEWS BRIEF: "'Health will suffer for generations' ",James Meikle, health correspondent, The Guardian, London, Wednesday November 12, 2003

"Iraqis will suffer the health consequences of the second Gulf war 'for years, maybe generations', says a report warning of an 'information black hole' on what is truly happening in the country ... disruption to the country's health was still considerable, says the report's author ... pointing to dangers such as leftover explosives and ammunition - Unicef has said this has hurt more than 1,000 children - landmines, and risks of cancers from toxic dust from weapons with depleted uranium. 'The mental and physical health of already weakened and unhealthy people is being damaged further'."

In early May, I asked our medical source, a doctor serving in a foreign army, if our Depleted Uranium poisoning of Iraq was so serious that, over the course of a generation, the entire land may be rendered unlivable for civilians. This doctor replied that, yes, this scenario was not only possible, but probable.

Now the British are getting in on the act of Depleted Uranium poisoning. Listen:

NEWS BRIEF: "Soldiers to sue over new Gulf War syndrome", Mark Townsend, Guardian Unlimited, November 23, 2003

"Dozens of soldiers who served in Iraq are to sue the Government, claiming they are suffering from a new form of Gulf War syndrome. Multiple vaccinations given in the run-up to the conflict are being blamed for chronic pains, stomach problems, rashes, swelling, fever, depression and anxiety. Lawyers and medical experts say the symptoms are identical to those which affected thousands of veterans after the 1991 Gulf conflict."

Did you catch that critical understanding?

"... the symptoms are identical to those which affected thousands of veterans after the 1991 Gulf conflict."

Since we know that the Gulf War I Syndrome was caused by a combination of Depleted Uranium poisoning and toxic vaccinations, we can rest assured this is the reason these soldiers are now dying.

As one author whom we quote in our original article stated, "American and British soldiers now in Iraq are the walking dead"!

Since we are thoroughly poisoning the entire country of Iraq, you will appreciate the faulty logic of the next article.

NEWS BRIEF: "Left Behind Author Says Iraq Will Be Prominent In End-Times Events", by Allie Martin, Agape Press, 11/19/03.

"A best-selling Christian author says the present-day tension in the Middle East is falling in line with biblical prophecy. Dr. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the popular Left Behind series of Christian novels, says world events are pointing to the Middle East in general and Israel in particular as the center for prophesied world events. And he says Iraq will play a prominent role in upcoming events leading to Christ's return ... The author and theologian says the war to liberate Iraq will pave the way for that nation to eventually emerge as a world power ... As the region comes into its own, the people of Iraq will want to develop a distinct identity and in the last days old Babylon will become a sort of 'Switzerland' for the world, a neutral country."

Obviously, this prediction is most likely to never develop because we are seriously polluting the entire land -- including the location of Ancient Babylon -- with severe Depleted Uranium poisoning! With the entire land polluted with a radioactivity whose half-life is measured in thousands of years, how many people will be willing to build Iraq into a world power and how many people of the world will want to work and to vacation in Ancient Babylon when they know they will die by breathing polluted dust?

Remember, you cannot clean up this poisoning!

Greenpeace Says 'Frightening' Radioactivity In Iraqi Villages

TUWAITHA, Iraq - Environmental group Greenpeace called Tuesday on the US-led coalition governing Iraq to clean up villages surrounding a nuclear site outside Baghdad that have been contaminated by "frightening levels" of radioactive material.

Carrying Arabic and English banners that read "Al-Tuwaitha - nuclear disaster. Act now!", Greenpeace activists returned a large uranium "yellowcake" mixing canister to US troops stationed inside the nuclear plant, 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of the capital.

The canister -- the size of a small car -- contained significant quantities of radioactive yellowcake and had been left open and unattended for more than 20 days on a busy section of open ground near the Tuwaitha plant, Greenpeace said.

"No one cares about us. We are dying slowly. Our whole neighborhood is contaminated. Although Greenpeace came, it is too late," said Tareq al-Obeidi, a 41-year-old Tuwaitha city council member.

"We need medicine and good hospitals. Removing it from the garbage is just the beginning of our long suffering," he said.

Greenpeace said there were three kilograms (6.6 pounds) worth of yellowcake -- slightly enriched uranium -- inside the mixer looted following the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime.

"It is a disgrace that occupying forces can say they are taking care of human health here in Iraq and they can still allow this to lie open on the ground where children can play in it," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Sara Holden.

Greenpeace said in a statement released in Baghdad that "if this had happened in the UK, the US or any other country, the villages around Tuwaitha would be swarming with radiation experts and decontamination teams.

"It would have been branded a nuclear disaster site and the people given immediate medical check-ups."

Much of the material was looted from the facility by villagers who used it for house building and water and food storage, according to Greenpeace International official Mike Townsley.

During a week-long survey, Greenpeace said it had uncovered radioactivity in a number of buildings, including one source measuring 10,000 times above normal and another, outside a 900-pupil primary school, measuring 3,000 times above normal.

Locals were still storing radioactive barrels and lids in their houses, several objects carrying radioactive symbols lie discarded in the community, and there are "consistent and repeated stories of unusual sickness after coming into contact with material from the Tuwaitha plant," the statement said.

Greenpeace said the preliminary survey "highlights the total failure of the occupying forces to address the urgent need for a full assessment, containment and clean up of missing nuclear material from the Tuwaitha nuclear facility."

The environmental group accused the coalition of refusing so far to allow experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out proper documentation and decontamination in Iraq.

"The Greenpeace team has only been surveying for eight days and has discovered frightening levels of radioactive contamination," said Townsley.

"The IAEA must be allowed to return with a full mandate to monitor and decontaminate. They may believe they have accounted for most of the uranium, but what about the rest of the radioactive material?"

IAEA inspectors have been charged with taking a stock inventory at Al-Tuwaitha, including checking on levels of uranium ore believed to have been looted.

Source: BBC

More Bush Nukes

The United States is pushing ahead with the development of a new generation of weapons, dubbed `mini-nukes`, that use nuclear warheads to penetrate underground bunkers. Week of December 7, the Bush administration gave a quiet yet final go-ahead to a controversial research project into the bunker-buster. The move effectively ends a 10-year ban on research into `low-yield` nuclear weapons. Critics fear it may lead other countries to push ahead with developing such weapons. It also comes at a highly sensitive time diplomatically, with the US lobbying countries such as Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear plans. The new warheads are designed to use shockwaves to destroy deep bunkers even if the bomb does not reach them. Experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has shown army planners that bunkers are being built deeper and more securely. ``We have to be able to match our capability to our potential targets,`` one White House official said (`Therefore, we must destroy whatever protection those third world idiots have and poison their people with depleted uranium, so the New World Order can dominate. The American Republic clearly doesn`t know what`s good for the rest of the world, so the HELL WITH THEIR OPINIONS`). (Please see The Haig-Kissinger depopulation policy...)

Paul Harris, The Observer