Depleted Uranium - A world-wide cost?

[Nefarious]

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/U.S._signs_38_million_deal_for_0302.html

U.S. signs $38 million deal for depleted uranium tank shells

John Byrne
Published: March 2, 2006

The U.S. Army quietly placed an order for $38 million in depleted uranium rounds last week, bringing the total order from a West-Virginia based company to $77 million for fiscal year 2006, RAW STORY has learned.

The munition is highly controversial. While the Pentagon has been ambiguous about its health toll, leftover rounds from the first Gulf War are believed to have caused a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in Iraq. According to a detailed article by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2002, "Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans."

The new $38 million order was placed with Alliant Techsystems for 120-mm ammunition. Once the new pact is completed the firm will have produced 35,000 rounds for the U.S. military.
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The Pentagon uses depleted uranium in its rounds because they say it is extremely effective in penetrating heavy armor.

Depleted uranium remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years. The byproduct of manufacturing nuclear weapons or reactors, the rounds contaminate water and soil. Along some highways in Iraq where the weapon was used during in the first Gulf War, radiation levels register 1,000 times normal background radiation levels. Cancer levels in Iraq are attributed to the shells.

A destroyed Iraqi tank in Basra destroyed by the U.S. weapon registered 2,500 times normal background radiation.

Read more on depleted uranium in the Guardian here, and from the Post Intelligencer here.

In a release, the firm making the weapon said, "Its state-of-the-art composite sabot, propellant, and penetrator technologies give it outstanding accuracy and lethality." UPI first reported on the deal Feb. 20.

[Nefarious]

http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm

Horror Of US Depleted
Uranium In Iraq Threatens World
American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in
the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time."
US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die."
By James Denver
4-29-5


"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 ..

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.

[Guest]

What do you want them to do? Kill the enemy with repeats of Dr Phil?
If you want to jump on the anti-US bandwagon, and it is apparent that you do, then you should research the environmental effects that lead has on waterways from places such as rifle ranges or training grounds. It far outweighs the effect of D.U.

By the way... for any potential idiot out there who will read your post and decide it is another reason to hate Bush, militaries all around the world use ordinance which produces D.U, not just the American Army. And with all the wars going on in the world, i'm suprised someone who claims to be so 'environmentally concerned' would focus on the American Military instead of creating threads about how Russia disposes of its Nuclear Waste.

To summarise: you are not concerned with the environment, you simply want to create more anti-americanism.

And for the record.. No i am not American. I'm just not an idiot

[Nefarious]

Depleted uranium is a war issue, it has been used in numerous wars, with different leading heads. It is not a Bush-centric issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
'In the 1970s, The Pentagon reported that the Soviet military had developed armor plating for Warsaw Pact tanks that NATO ammunition couldn't penetrate. The Pentagon began searching for material to make denser bullets. After testing various metals, ordnance researchers settled on depleted uranium. DU was useful in ammunition not only because of its unique physical properties and effectiveness, but also because it was cheap and readily available. Tungsten, the only other candidate, had to be sourced from China. With DU stockpiles estimated to be more than 500,000 tons, the financial burden of housing this amount of low-level radioactive waste was very apparent. It was therefore more economical to use depleted uranium rather than storing it. Thus, from the late 1970s, the U.S., the Soviet Union, Britain and France, began converting their stockpiles of depleted uranium into kinetic energy penetrators'.

In short, because it was a cheap option for doing the damage in war that they wanted to do.

Bans on the use of the subtance have been called for around the world. The more stuff we dump into the atomosphere the more likely we are to have more and more children born with mutations/deformities. It is just another by-product of war that only leads to negative outcomes, where we are all harmed. There is no good outcome from war.

We were told long ago to change our energy using ways and now climate change is not a 'scaremonger's' story, it is an accepted reality. Must we be doomed to keep doing harmful things because of the financial gains until we are beyond hope?

Your lead arguments only serve to reinforce how destructive weapons are, irrespective of their type.

To dismiss the DU issue as you have done, though, to me is idiotic.

[Nefarious]

People should be concerned. Further...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060503&articleId=2374
Depleted Uranium - Far Worse Than 9/11
Depleted Uranium Dust - Public Health Disaster For The People Of Iraq and Afghanistan

by Doug Westerman

Global Research, May 3, 2006
Vital Truths and Information Clearing House

In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Jawad Al-Ali (55), director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent ( 2003) 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.",

"We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I feel afraid to even talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait - we were accused of being Saddam supporters."

John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization's chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report " on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust " was also deliberately suppressed.

The information released by the U.S. Dept. of Defense is not reliable, according to some sources even within the military.

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."


At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada.

PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 Army Division, 34th Platoon. (Names and numbers have been changed) was diagnosed with cancer several after returning from Iraq. Seven other men in the Platoon also have malignancies.

Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states:,

"Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity."

Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. He stated:

"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.

"We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension.


Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is "not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most cases."

Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases?

Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore Lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb.

"That's exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way."

According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. "The larger the bang" the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the "micron size" or smaller, he said.

When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific:

"I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people."


When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat " sufficient heat to ignite the DU. From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur). Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and therefore respirable.

Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised. In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a small fraction of the cases are being reported.

Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on an on. Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU. Weapons. Now they are commonplace. In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, "Doctor, is it a boy or girl?" but rather, "Doctor, is it normal?" The photos are horrendous, they can be viewed on the following website

Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated:

"Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA."

Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the "Baghdad Diaries" wrote:

"Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia."

"The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas."

This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers). So, it's 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!! Estimates of the percentage of D.U. which was 'aerosolized' into fine uranium oxide dust are approximately 30-40%. That works out to over one million pounds of dust scattered throughout Iraq.

As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002.

"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.

I don"t know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that.

"In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying."

By far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses " scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing 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 ..



Dr. Hardan also states:

"I arranged for a delegation from Japan's Hiroshima Hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we

Are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq."

Not only are we poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other countries who can help. The U.S. Military doesn"t want the rest of the world to find out what we have done.

Such relatively swift development of cancers has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the US military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 US personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served in the first Gulf War now have medical problems.

Although not reported in the mainstream American press, a recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes. On March 14, 2004, Nao Shimoyachi, reported in The Japan Times that President Bush was found guilty "for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms,"and the "tribunal also issued recommendations for banning Depleted Uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people." Although this was a "Citizen's Court" having no legal authority, the participants were sincere in their determination that international laws have been violated and a war crimes conviction is warranted.

Troops involved in actual combat are not the only servicemen reporting symptoms. Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

"I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach."

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, UMRC founder, and nuclear medicine expert examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.

The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq in Easter of 2003, the unit's members had been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.

"These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing.

In a group of eight U.S. led Coalition servicemen whose babies were born without eyes, seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. In a much group (250 soldiers) exposed during the first Gulf war, 67% of the children conceived after the war had birth defects.

Dr. Durakovic's UMRC research team also conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained "hundreds to thousands of times" the normal levels of radiation.

"This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991," Durakovic told The Japan Times.

"They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between Depleted Uranium and the illness," Durakovic said

"They do not want to admit that they committed war crimes" by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are banned under international law."

(NOTE ABOUT DR. DURAKOVIC; First, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers!)

Dr. Durakovic, UMRC research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 issue of Military Medicine Medical Journal. The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU. The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran. That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview.

The Japanese began studying DU effects in the southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit,a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer and early and painful death?

"Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1,000 times the damage of an X-ray", said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C.

It is this difference in particle size as well as the dust's crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading.

The U.S. Military and its supporters regularly quote a Rand Corp. Study which uses the natural uranium inhaled by miners.

Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time. Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs. Thus the effects are far different from natural uranium dust, whose coarse particles are almost entirely excreted by the body within 24 hours.

The military is aware of DU's harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU's effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU's chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone.

Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size.

For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.

"Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion," writes Lauren Moret, another DU researcher. "Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

"When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain," she wrote. "Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain.

Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is possible to approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. At .34 milligrams per dose, there are over 10 trillion doses floating around Iraq and Afghanistan.

How many additional deaths are we talking about? In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with estimates for the potential effects of the DU contamination left by the conflict. It calculated that "this could cause "500,000 potential deaths". This was "a theoretical figure", it stressed, that indicated "a significant problem".

The AEA's calculation was made in a confidential memo to the privatized munitions company, Royal Ordnance, dated 30 April 1991. The high number of potential deaths was dismissed as "very far from realistic" by a British defense minister, Lord Gilbert. "Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide," he said. These remarks were made prior to the more recent invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, where DU munitions were used on a larger scale in and near many of the most populated areas. If the amount of DU ordinance used in the first Gulf War was sufficient to cause 500,000 potential deaths, (had it been used near the populated areas), then what of the nearly six times that amount used in operation Iraqi Freedom, which was used in and near the major towns and cities? Extrapolating the U.K. AEA estimate with this amount gives a figure of potentially 3 million extra deaths from inhaling DU dust in Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan. This is about 11% of Iraq's total population of 27 million. Dan Bishop, Ph.d chemist for IDUST feels that this estimate may be low, if the long life of DU dust is considered. In Afghanistan, the concentration in some areas is greater than Iraq.

What can an otherwise healthy person expect when inhaling the deadly dust? Captain Terry Riordon was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving in Gulf War I. He passed away in April 1999 at age 45. Terry left Canada a very fit man who did cross-country skiing and ran in marathons. On his return only two months later he could barely walk.

He returned to Canada in February 1991 with documented loss of motor control, chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep problems, short-term memory loss, testicle pain, body pains, aching bones, diarrhea, and depression. After his death, depleted uranium contamination was discovered in his lungs and bones. For eight years he suffered his innumerable ailments and struggled with the military bureaucracy and the system to get proper diagnosis and treatment. He had arranged, upon his death, to bequeath his body to the UMRC. Through his gift, the UMRC was able to obtain conclusive evidence that inhaling fine particles of depleted uranium dust completely destroyed his heath. How many Terry Riordans are out there among the troops being exposed, not to mention Iraqi and Afghan civilians?

Inhaling the dust will not kill large numbers of Iraqi and Afghan civilians right away, any more than it did Captain Riordan. Rather, what we will see is vast numbers of people who are chronically and severely ill, having their life spans drastically shortened, many with multiple cancers.

Melissa Sterry, another sick veteran, served for six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of 1991-92. Part of her job with the National Guard's Combat Equipment Company "A" was to clean out tanks and other armored vehicles that had been used during the war, preparing them for storage.

She said she swept out the armored vehicles, cleaning up dust, sand and debris, sometimes being ordered to help bury contaminated parts. In a telephone interview, she stated that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military's test because she could not trust the results. It is alarming that Melissa was stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq. Cleaning out tanks with DU dust was enough to make her ill.

In, 2003, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. If the troops were on a mission of mercy to bring democracy to Iraq, wouldn"t keeping children away from such dangers be the top priority?

The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. It is no surprise that the Japanese Court found President Bush guilty of war crimes.

Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion.
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.


FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM AFGHANISTAN

Verifiable statistics for Iraq will remain elusive for some time, but widespread field studies in Afghanistan point to the existence of a large scale public health disaster. In May of 2002, the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) sent a field team to interview and examine residents and internally displaced people in Afghanistan. The UMRC field team began by first identifying several hundred people suffering from illnesses and medical conditions displaying clinical symptoms which are considered to be characteristic of radiation exposure. To investigate the possibility that the symptoms were due to radiation sickness, the UMRC team collected urine specimens and soil samples, transporting them to an independent research lab in England.

UMRC's Field Team found Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning, along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation.

Two additional scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study's purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined. It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was causing the high levels of illness. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before.

Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous. How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months.

In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999. A researcher reported. "We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination."

In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill.

How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads:

"The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium."

In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of NON-DEPLETED URANIUM, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of "bunker buster" bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys.

"A significant portion of the civilian population"? It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children.

The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing.

------------------------------------

According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states "The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium". Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing "in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers".

There were only 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq, and they were there for a short time. The number of 109 represents about 3.6% of the total. If the same percentage of Iraqis get a similar exposure, that would amount to 936,000. As Iraqis are permanently living in the same contaminated environment, their percentage will be higher.

The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC's ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC's scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC's scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed "studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless." The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers).

Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said : "I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals," Fujita said. "As a result of the Iraq war, the situation will be desperate in some five to 10 years."

The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen's Tribunal that "convicted" President Bush gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen's court with no binding legal authority)

1. Their use has indiscriminate effects;

2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;

3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;

4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.

Two years ago, President Bush withdrew the United States as a signatory to the International Criminal Court's statute, which has been ratified by all other Western democracies. The White House actually seeks to immunize U.S. leaders from war crimes prosecutions entirely. It has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals.

CONCLUSIONS:

If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. 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. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place.

[guest0209]

What are you talking about, Nefarious. Your whole thread is 'scaremongering'.

Your whole post is too long and people will lose interest in its repeatitive, politically motivated nature. So I will pick the part that made me laugh the most to prove how stupid the theme of the article really is:

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms

What are they going to do? Collect a million pounds of dust, use bulldozers to put the dust in the back of dump trucks which then drive from the desert of a landlocked country such as Afghanistan all the way to some port where it is loaded on a Cargo ship bound for the US, in what would of course have to be the largest bulk logistical operation in the history of the world... all while maintaining secrecy from foriegn intelligence agencies? Yeah... this is really likely to occur!!!!
You scare no one!!

And you can say what you like about D.U, but compared to weapons of the past our weapons are getting cleaner, greener and smarter all the time. We are past the days of 'agent orange' and using white phosphurus in large proportions, and chemical/biological/nuclear munnitions are not used as they were during ww2, iran/iraq, iraq/kuwait wars.

Infact, It may interest you to read up on BAE's weapons programme which is researching not only weapons that are not harmful for the environment, but also weapons which put out a very low noise when in the air and when exploding!!!

Like I said, You have just read a few articles on some anti war site and now you think you are an expert on the issue.
Your article focusses on Iraq and Afghanistan and makes virtually no mention of some of the biggest wars in modern history, such as Iran/Iraq, and the constant military activities by Russia.
It is more anti-american doctrine and it really is becoming boring.

If Saddam succeeded in building another nuclear reactor and used that to make dirty weapons or even a nuke itself, what do you think the environmental result would have been when he decided to use it hmm?

You almost defeat your own argument in a few obvious ways.
1) You claim to be concerned about the Environment, Yet you only focus on issues where you can attribute blame mostly against the USA, and issues which are on a far less devistating scale than some of the REAL enviro concerns we should have.

2) When that fails, You claim to be a humanitarian who is 'concerned' about the health of Iraqi and Afghani children, But you make no mention of the worst Humanitarian events in Countries such as Suddan or Nigeria or Somalia, where Islamic Militia's are conducting their own style of ethnic and religious cleansing by stabbing, raping, torturing, murdering thousands and thousands of people... While the LUCKY ones end up in refugee camps which constantly move to escape attack and where dozens of people die each day due to hunger, disease and thirst.

You are not talking about the tens of thousands of barrels of radioactive waste that Russia has stored in Barrels in warehouses that are secured only with chains and padlocks.

When you come back with something less politically motivated then people might be interested, but it is apparent to even the most left winged fool that you are just using the latest political fad to attack the US military. I would love to know which country you are from, and how these 'child deforming' weapons have liberated/saved you and yours at some point in history.

[Nefarious]

What are you talking about, Nefarious. Your whole thread is 'scaremongering'.

Gee - your's seem to be 'assholism' or is it 'head in the sandism?' is there a difference?- each to their own I guess

Your whole post is too long and people will lose interest in its repeatitive, politically motivated nature. So I will pick the part that made me laugh the most to prove how stupid the theme of the article really is:

Ha ha ha ha - this is where you basically signal to people that they shouldn't bother reading it for themselves - you've got it all summed up for them - snigger

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms

What are they going to do? Collect a million pounds of dust, use bulldozers to put the dust in the back of dump trucks which then drive from the desert of a landlocked country such as Afghanistan all the way to some port where it is loaded on a Cargo ship bound for the US, in what would of course have to be the largest bulk logistical operation in the history of the world... all while maintaining secrecy from foriegn intelligence agencies? Yeah... this is really likely to occur!!!! You scare no one!!

Are you a moron? That part of the article was just a scenario put forward to say 'hey, imagine this happening to you - now turn it around and realise this is what has been done to the Iraqis. That you have taken it as you have just tickles me silly!

And you can say what you like about D.U, but compared to weapons of the past our weapons are getting cleaner, greener and smarter all the time. We are past the days of 'agent orange' and using white phosphurus in large proportions, and chemical/biological/nuclear munnitions are not used as they were during ww2, iran/iraq, iraq/kuwait wars.

Oh well golly gee mister, that makes it all ok then doesn't it - cos the means of murdering others is not as BAD as it was before - what kind of atavistic mentality is that?

Like I said, You have just read a few articles on some anti war site and now you think you are an expert on the issue.
Your article focusses on Iraq and Afghanistan and makes virtually no mention of some of the biggest wars in modern history, such as Iran/Iraq, and the constant military activities by Russia.
It is more anti-american doctrine and it really is becoming boring.

And you - apparently - are an expert on everything? Yeah, an expert in republican propaganda and sanitization. How lame are you - virtually no mention - wouldn't it have just been fantastic if you could have said I made no mention? Shame you had to try and attack me with 'virtually no mention', not that I am the author of the articles in any case - if you want to attack anyone attack the authors and the science leaders who contributed to their articles - but then that's a little more difficult isn't it eh? There are multiple articles here from multiple sources - you can denounce them all as anti-war sites if you wish. I could pour heaps more articles from more diverse sites into this thread, all saying variants of the same key points and drown you in your protestations - in fact that would be sublimely satisfying. Fact is, most are recent articles, so it is natural that recent events are salient to them.

If Saddam succeeded in building another nuclear reactor and used that to make dirty weapons or even a nuke itself, what do you think the environmental result would have been when he decided to use it hmm?

Yay - good for you - you used a what if - a what if this guy who was meant to have wmd's, had done this or that, good thing we took him out just in case he ever tried to do these things eh?

You almost defeat your own argument in a few obvious ways.
1) You claim to be concerned about the Environment, Yet you only focus on issues where you can attribute blame mostly against the USA, and issues which are on a far less devistating scale than some of the REAL enviro concerns we should have.

Exsqueeze me? You have no idea how much I am interested in, or in what breadth. I would ask you to put your money where you mouth is and tell me what you consider to be the enviro concerns that are REAL that we should care about instead, instead of poisoning the earth for billions of years to come that is. But I doubt you would bother.

[guest0209]

Sure, I will be happy to reply to you. And I will endeavor to do so without stooping to your level and using personal insults as a means of a response, as you have done.
And thankyou for trying to make it look as if you have addressed everything I said. However, Anyone who read your reply will note that you have chosen to ignore the key points that were raised to rebutt your argument.

Ha ha ha ha - this is where you basically signal to people that they shouldn't bother reading it for themselves - you've got it all summed up for them - snigger

I think you underestimate alot of forum readers. Anyone with a bit of common sense can come to the same conclusions as me.

Are you a moron? That part of the article was just a scenario put forward to say 'hey, imagine this happening to you - now turn it around and realise this is what has been done to the Iraqis. That you have taken it as you have just tickles me silly!

Oh so it was a 'what if' scenario? Did you not just attack me in your last post for using a 'what if' scenario? Ok if you want to be hypocritical. You may use this as a tool to support your argument, but how many people you fool is a different story.
We have done it to the Iraqis? According to International Law, and the International court of justice, Our actions are the responsibility of Saddam Hussein, and we have commited no crime using weapons containing D.U.
Maybe your thread should be one about International Law, instead of attacking the countries that Obide by it and defending those that don't?

Oh well golly gee mister, that makes it all ok then doesn't it - cos the means of murdering others is not as BAD as it was before - what kind of atavistic mentality is that?

Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!!
You have just proven to us that this is all apart of your anti-war stance, and not really about the environment!! It did not take long for your TRUE position to break through the BS did it?
Let me guess... Next you will say that you support the troops, not the war, while at the same time insinuating that they are murderers??
By rights, I should stop typing, as I have just succeeded in highlighting your true agenda, but then you will only accuse me of having no rebuttal and taking the easy way out, so I shall continue.

And you - apparently - are an expert on everything? Yeah, an expert in republican propaganda and sanitization.

Well I did expect this. Assumptions are what you have based alot of your thread on, so It was logical to expect you would continue with them.
No I am no republican. My country does not even have a 'republican party'
And I see you questioning my knowledge and experience without giving us any insight about yourself. How do you plan to discredit me when you have done nothing to credit yourself?

How lame are you - virtually no mention - wouldn't it have just been fantastic if you could have said I made no mention? Shame you had to try and attack me with 'virtually no mention'

You are now focussing on attacking words which could have been interpreted in a variety of ways. This is called 'deflection'. In other words, you have no rebuttal so you try to make out as if you have addressed this statement, without actually addressing it. The more I read, the more it seems you are a politician, or a wannabe! Probably the later.

not that I am the author of the articles in any case - if you want to attack anyone attack the authors and the science leaders who contributed to their articles - but then that's a little more difficult isn't it eh? There are multiple articles here from multiple sources - you can denounce them all as anti-war sites if you wish.

Not at all!! I have not questioned the validity of the information you have given, and am aware that DU poses health and environmental problems. The extent of which you have exaggerated.
I am not questioning the authors. You have not provided any citations so we have no idea where these articles came from. Some of these articles may have been researched for the US military, or BAE, in an attempt to learn about the environmental effects/costs.
What YOU have done, is compile them into one big anti-war spiel, and tried to disguse your spiel as being of 'environmental and humanitarian concern'. This is why I questioned your motives, and not those of the individual author, which would be hard to do as there are no citations.

What I am questioning is why you make out that this is the worlds most significant environmental issue, but this was answered when you made your anti-war statement early in your last thread.

I could pour heaps more articles from more diverse sites into this thread, all saying variants of the same key points and drown you in your protestations - in fact that would be sublimely satisfying. Fact is, most are recent articles, so it is natural that recent events are salient to them.

And I could probably pour heaps of articles regarding the environmental effects of cows farting, as this is a major contributer to greenhouse emmissions, yet I choose not to as I have no agenda other than to highlight what you are really trying to do here. Something you have just done with your last post!

Yay - good for you - you used a what if

As you did with your 1 million pounds of terrorist dust comment.

a what if this guy who was meant to have wmd's, had done this or that, good thing we took him out just in case he ever tried to do these things eh?

Well considering that the guy has at one time or another used every single weapon in his arsenal...yep, I'd say it was a fairly likely 'what if'.

I would ask you to put your money where you mouth is and tell me what you consider to be the enviro concerns that are REAL that we should care about instead, instead of poisoning the earth for billions of years to come that is. But I doubt you would bother.

Sure I will. Afterall, this is what the topic was supposed to be about, right?Or not. But sure

In my opinion, the biggest environmental concerns (not in order) are human consumption of natural resources and deforestation without 'replenishing'.
The growing hole in the Ozone layer.
The assumption that human activities are effecting climate change.
Major oil leaks into oceans and the effect on natural life/infrastructure such as reefs/animals.
The containment and desposal of hazardous waste including chemical, biological and radioactive, particularly from poor nations, specifically Russia.

YOU are making out that DU and the effects of war are the most damaging environmental issue we face which is complete BS.
In a 2005 poll conducted in November by CNN, not one single person cited DU as the most worrying environmental concern.
Now if your thread was designed to make people aware of DU, then I would say good on you. But we have seen it is nothing more than an anti-war and anti-American 'whinge' disguised as an environmental concern.

[Nefarious]

Sure, I will be happy to reply to you. And I will endeavor to do so without stooping to your level and using personal insults as a means of a response, as you have done.

Yes, after all, you've already stooped to that level on this board before I see. Glass houses, stones and all that.

And thankyou for trying to make it look as if you have addressed everything I said. However, Anyone who read your reply will note that you have chosen to ignore the key points that were raised to rebutt your argument.

Your multi-pronged tangents just attempt to draw the focus away from the point of the thread - DU - and hassle it into oblivion. I won't engage with you like this after this post.

Ha ha ha ha - this is where you basically signal to people that they shouldn't bother reading it for themselves - you've got it all summed up for them - snigger

I think you underestimate alot of forum readers. Anyone with a bit of common sense can come to the same conclusions as me.

Ergo anyone who does not agree with you has no common-sense - I wouldn't be so cheeky to assume so much as you seem to.

Are you a moron? That part of the article was just a scenario put forward to say 'hey, imagine this happening to you - now turn it around and realise this is what has been done to the Iraqis. That you have taken it as you have just tickles me silly!

Oh so it was a 'what if' scenario? Did you not just attack me in your last post for using a 'what if' scenario? Ok if you want to be hypocritical. You may use this as a tool to support your argument, but how many people you fool is a different story.'

I used the tool? No - Doug Westerman used that tool, it was from his article, I put in a hyperlink to the original source. You talk about me not providing citations - I provide hyperlinks to the sources on the net that they came from - if you want to find out if they were published in specific peer reviewed journals then be it on you, not I. Although I doubt you would find much in peer reviewed articles given the comments from some of the articles above it appears that there has been a heavy and shameful attempt to sweep the issue under the carpet.

Oh well golly gee mister, that makes it all ok then doesn't it - cos the means of murdering others is not as BAD as it was before - what kind of atavistic mentality is that?

Thankyou! Thankyou! Thankyou!!
You have just proven to us that this is all apart of your anti-war stance, and not really about the environment!! It did not take long for your TRUE position to break through the BS did it? Let me guess... Next you will say that you support the troops, not the war, while at the same time insinuating that they are murderers?? By rights, I should stop typing, as I have just succeeded in highlighting your true agenda, but then you will only accuse me of having no rebuttal and taking the easy way out, so I shall continue.

Yes, I guess you could say I am anti-war - I see no redeeming quality in it. It does massive amounts of damage not only to people but the environment. I do not see war and the environment as mutually exclusive because nothing is exclusive of our environment. You will note that I say 'war', as in war in general.

And you - apparently - are an expert on everything? Yeah, an expert in republican propaganda and sanitization.

Well I did expect this. Assumptions are what you have based alot of your thread on, so It was logical to expect you would continue with them. No I am no republican. My country does not even have a 'republican party' And I see you questioning my knowledge and experience without giving us any insight about yourself. How do you plan to discredit me when you have done nothing to credit yourself?

Given the amount of 'we' and 'our troops' comments you have made and how stridently you defend anything anti-Bush, it was an easy assumption to make that you were American - at the very least you come from a country that is in the coalition of the willing.

How lame are you - virtually no mention - wouldn't it have just been fantastic if you could have said I made no mention? Shame you had to try and attack me with 'virtually no mention'

You are now focussing on attacking words which could have been interpreted in a variety of ways. This is called 'deflection'. In other words, you have no rebuttal so you try to make out as if you have addressed this statement, without actually addressing it. The more I read, the more it seems you are a politician, or a wannabe! Probably the later.

I learnt that trick from reading your posts.

not that I am the author of the articles in any case - if you want to attack anyone attack the authors and the science leaders who contributed to their articles - but then that's a little more difficult isn't it eh? There are multiple articles here from multiple sources - you can denounce them all as anti-war sites if you wish.

Not at all!! I have not questioned the validity of the information you have given, and am aware that DU poses health and environmental problems. The extent of which you have exaggerated.
I am not questioning the authors. You have not provided any citations so we have no idea where these articles came from. Some of these articles may have been researched for the US military, or BAE, in an attempt to learn about the environmental effects/costs.
What YOU have done, is compile them into one big anti-war spiel, and tried to disguse your spiel as being of 'environmental and humanitarian concern'. This is why I questioned your motives, and not those of the individual author, which would be hard to do as there are no citations.

I have put forth - what is it - four hyper-linked articles. The arguments are theirs, not mine - don't try and twist it otherwise.

Yay - good for you - you used a what if

As you did with your 1 million pounds of terrorist dust comment.

No - as Westerman did - if you are going on the attack at least be able to show that you have the ability to read and absorb and get your accusations right. If this isn't an indication that people should read stuff for themselves instead of your summations, I don't know what is. If people have an interest and feel that they want to find out more about DU than the articles I have posted here, then I am sure they will follow that up on their own without any of your or my interpretations.

a what if this guy who was meant to have wmd's, had done this or that, good thing we took him out just in case he ever tried to do these things eh?

Well considering that the guy has at one time or another used every single weapon in his arsenal...yep, I'd say it was a fairly likely 'what if'.

Perhaps so, but then neither has his country used the widest weaponry arsenal available against multiple countries has it? He was a little dog with a lot of oil. In this world the bigger dogs eat the littler dogs and then try and convince the other dogs that eating your own kind is ok. Who the good guys are or who the bad guys are is never a simple matter, the world does not turn on such a simple dichotomy and it is propaganda when we try and force it to be evaluated in such terms. I say this to point out the subjectivity with which we interpret acts which, without our actions to dissolve cognitive dissonance and placate our conscience, are regardless nefarious acts

I would ask you to put your money where you mouth is and tell me what you consider to be the enviro concerns that are REAL that we should care about instead, instead of poisoning the earth for billions of years to come that is. But I doubt you would bother.

Sure I will. Afterall, this is what the topic was supposed to be about, right?Or not. But sure

In my opinion, the biggest environmental concerns (not in order) are human consumption of natural resources and deforestation without 'replenishing'.
The growing hole in the Ozone layer.
The assumption that human activities are effecting climate change.
Major oil leaks into oceans and the effect on natural life/infrastructure such as reefs/animals.
The containment and desposal of hazardous waste including chemical, biological and radioactive, particularly from poor nations, specifically Russia.

YOU are making out that DU and the effects of war are the most damaging environmental issue we face which is complete BS.
In a 2005 poll conducted in November by CNN, not one single person cited DU as the most worrying environmental concern.
Now if your thread was designed to make people aware of DU, then I would say good on you. But we have seen it is nothing more than an anti-war and anti-American 'whinge' disguised as an environmental concern.

I don't disagree that what you have listed are known environmental issues. My thread is about DU and given DU's use in the military, it is definately anti use of DU missiles - ergo to extend that to anti-war if you wish - I don't agree with war, so I won't argue that. However, I NEVER said that DU was the most damaging environmental issue did I? That is you making assumptions - so I guess we are square on that front.

I wonder what this 'we have seen it' is all about? Are you a collective of people writing responses to my posts or do you wish to give strength to your arguments by imagining that others agree with you, without first seeking their independent consensus?

As to what country I am from, none of your darn business.

[Nefarious]

I found this article when I was googling 'crispy critters'. It's not related to DU, but it is related to war and I found it to be a very raw and honest account of a soldier's experiences. I thought it is another perspective and something of a departure for me to post, but a story worth reading regardless.

www.theava.com/04/0915-warcrimes.html - 13k -

September 15, 2004
War Crimes?
by Bruce Patterson

I remember Cockburn's September 1st article entitled, "John Kerry, War Criminal-in-Chief," and I too thought it was in bad taste. I mean, the right wing was already doing a pretty fair hatchet job on the poor guy. But I'm not contradicting Cockburn because the man's a walking encyclopedia and he'd chew up a self-educated hillbilly like me and spit me out like a grapeseed. Still, those who consider the execution of wounded or helpless enemy soldiers to be a "war crime" are being sort of — well, rather fastidious.

If you are a foot solder and you survive enough battles, you might see a close friend who's been shot into so many pieces that, watching his exposed lung struggling to heave up and down inside of his exploded popcorn chest might make you want to raise your rifle and blow him away. Blow him away just to get him out of your sight if nothing else. Now, if you did, would that be a war crime?

When it comes to finishing off severely wounded enemy soldiers, that's always been a routine part of cleaning up a battlefield. I was lucky in that I served with a hunter-killer outfit and we spent nearly all of our time out in the jungle playing cat and mouse with the North Vietnamese Army. My war was mostly soldier-to-soldier, in other words, and you can't really commit atrocities on soldiers. Soldiers are fair game.

For example, say you are on a recon patrol, you clear a rise, raise your binoculars and, in rice paddies 2,000 meters away, you see four platoons of enemy infantry spread out and marching your way. You get on your radio, call in the coordinates and within a couple of minutes a battery of .155mm Howitzer cannons has spun around and the first salvo is arcing overhead. The shells land on target and in their impact domes you see bits and pieces of human beings flying like confetti. Does this mean that you immediately cease firing because you know that lying in those paddies are wounded and helpless soldiers who are more than ready and willing to surrender? Are you crazy? If I remember right (you didn't want to melt their barrels) our 155s fired four rounds per minute. So you'd order a 60 second barrage and that would bring in about 48 more shells (each with about a 50 meter "kill radius"). Next you'd begin "walking" your artillery away in ever expanding rings, trying to pick off any survivors who were running away. You'd search the nearby terrain and, if you saw anyplace that looked like a decent place for the enemy stragglers to re-group, then you'd pin point the locations on your map and schedule them for some future "Harassment and Interdiction" artillery strikes. Meanwhile, American fighter bombers, fresh on the scene, would start mopping up. Any of the enemy soldiers who had managed to make it into a tree line and to burrow into the roots would now be BBQed by napalm. After the fighter bombers had done their fiery thing, large splotches of green jungle would be left charred into black and white. Walk through the burnt spots later on and here and there in the ashes you'd see the lumps that we liked calling "crispy critters."

To summarize, as a Forward Observer you'd do all in your power to kill each and every last one of the enemy soldiers. If they were helpless, then that only made the job a whole lot easier and a whole lot less dangerous and so a whole lot more fun. But was it a "war crime"? Was it an atrocity, a massacre? Call it what you like, but such a use of American artillery was nothing other than Standard Operating Procedure and, if the body count in this case turned out to be half as good as you hoped, then you'd be put in for a medal, rewarded with a three day pass in town (payable the next time you got near a safe town) and given a battlefield promotion.

Another note on the uses of artillery: when in 1975 in the Central Highlands the NVA/VC captured batteries of 155s during their final drive toward Saigon, the first thing they did was turn the big guns on the roads jammed with columns of fleeing civilian refugees. Using tactics identical to those used by the Nazis during their "Blitzkrieg" in Poland, the NVA/VC clogged the roads with flaming civilian wrecks, the dead and the dying. By doing so they prevented the South Vietnamese Army, which had broken and was running for its life, from escaping to the coast and reaching reinforcements. Nobody knows how many hundreds, or thousands, of civilians were slaughtered, but the ARVN soldiers did not escape the trap and that had been the objective. The NVA/VC didn't want their enemies to live to fight another day and, besides, they had some unfinished business with these particular individuals.

I can't see how it can be a war crime to mutilate bodies. The whole notion seems crazy to me. You mean to tell me that I can tear a kid in half with a burst from a machine gun, or use artillery to grind him into hamburger, or flame broil him with napalm, or bore sizzling holes into his flesh with white hot pellets of flaming white phosphorus and yet I can't slice off his ears? I can't take a trophy from my dead enemy even though "his blood on my hands" has been an integral part of warfare for 10,000 years? When I was in Vietnam, did I slice ears? No, I did not. Did I watch it being done? Yes, I watched. Did I know GIs who wore necklaces of human ears — yes I did. The point is — so what? Who cares? I mean, if we gave a S*** about them we never would have killed them in the first place. Understand?

Regarding the question of whether or not we took prisoners...

As any foot soldier knows, the single most dangerous military maneuver is the act of surrender. For instance, during WW2 something like a quarter of a million German and Axis troops surrendered to the Russians in the steppes west of Stalingrad. The people living in those parts were not about to allow those POWs to return home to their families, and only a handful of them ever did. Now was the "disappearance" of a quarter of a million POWs a war crime? Or was it just another instance of traditional peasant justice? Peasant justice as in, "If you invade my country, destroy my property and kill my people, then make damn sure that you never allow me to get my hands on you."

In a modern firefight so much lead is flying that only a fool would try to surrender. If anybody ever tried to surrender to me, I didn't notice and, even if I had, it wouldn't have done him any good because I'd already have shot him.

So far as the possibilitity of us getting captured by the VC or NVA, we didn't think we'd allow that to happen. I was on a machine gun crew, I carried an M-16, a .45 pistol, four grenades, a machete and a bayonet, and nobody was taking me alive. Our enemies were not sweethearts, and the American foot soldiers that did get captured usually got tortured and then executed (the fate of most of the foot soldiers now officially listed as Missing in Action). Anyway, we all promised each other that we'd fight to the death.

We Americans must have taken hundreds of thousands of NVA and VC prisoners. Keeping in mind that the life expectancy of any POW in any war has always been not very long (witness the sadistic treatment of both Union and Confederate POWs during the American Civil War), it's not an exaggeration to say that most of our prisoners were treated not too severely. Still, war being war, by taking your surrendered enemy prisoner, as opposed to just executing him on the spot, you were not necessarily doing him a favor. There are, indeed, things worse than death and a lot of them are inflicted in POW camps.

The only large group of VC prisoners that I saw was while I was switching choppers at an air base outside Tuy Hoa. All peasants, all boys about my age, they looked scared shitless and I couldn't blame them.

Fast forward to American GIs now fighting the Iraqis in Iraq. Given the worldwide media attention given to the White House sponsored American torture chambers at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib Prison and elsewhere (it's only Americans who refuse to look and see what the American government is up to), do you think there are many GIs in Iraq who'd allow themselves to get captured? Put the shoe on the other foot: you are an Iraqi teenager armed with an AK-47 and you're out to help drive the invaders from your land. Now what are the chances of you surrendering to the sadistic, sacrilegious, sexually perverted Americans?

The Rules of War were designed to make war easier on its victims, and I suppose they are well intended. But how about drawing up some rules for gang rape? While we're at it, how about establishing some rules for child molestation? How about drawing up a list of do's and don'ts for us to follow while we're putting innocents to the slaughter?

When you let loose the hounds of war, you shouldn't be surprised when they rip at human flesh and devour their masters' souls. To speak of evil and the lesser evil and the greater evil and the worst evil of all — what does it matter to the murdered? Do the dead hear your high-minded debates? You come home from work, your house has been bombed, your first born son and his kid sister are decorating your walls — what lives and breathes and stalks the godless earth but the monster's cry for vengeance?

Most Americans glorify war and that's understandable because we have been brought up in a commercial culture that glorifies violence and war and "winning" and Strong Men. People around the world are born trusting and that makes us gullible, and America's sons and daughters now being butchered in Iraq are not the first ones to have fallen for the lies of their fathers. War is the war crime. America's war against Indochina was hideous and obscene. World War Two, the American Civil War, the Peloponnesian Wars — all were hideous and obscene.

You can blame soldiers for war if you want to. We Americans have always believed fervently in Individual Responsibility just so long as it belongs to somebody else. But, as Cicero wrote over 2,000 years ago, "the sinew of war is infinite money." When it comes to buying guns and ammunition, bombers and battleships, is it the soldiers who own the deep pockets?

If I buy you a gun and I know you are going to use it to kill somebody else, under the laws of this country I am guilty of murder. Since neither God nor the Constitution has placed any American above the law, the same goes for taxpayers.

When the advocates of war, instead of its opponents, are treated as outcasts, when chest-pounding, death-dealing preachers and politicians are judged to be worse than plague, worse than famine — when all of war's cheerleaders are scorned as tiny, blind, blood sucking bats — that's when children will sleep safe from vampires.

[Nefarious]

Getting back to DU and also the war on Iraq more generally, here is an article that does have citations:

www.zianet.com/boje/peace/facts_and_myths_about_iraq_war.htm - 62k -

Postmodern Oil War II: . Strikes Back Sequel
FACTS versus PROPAGANDA

David Boje, Ph.D. October 16, 2002 New Mexico State University (Revised Feb22 2003)

"All We are Saying --- Is Give Peace A Chance" (John Lennon's hit song on top 100 list for 1969).

In preparation for the Teach-In Speak-Out for Peace in Iraq event scheduled for October 28th (9AM to 10PM) at New Mexico State University (Corbett Center), I put together some data that noted scholars and activists are using to deconstruct propaganda being disseminated by the War Machine. Propaganda is defined here as the rigging of intelligence analysts and media reporters so as to stack the information deck given to the masses to be supportive of a leader's/country's agenda (Boje, 2003, Deconstructing Sun News editorial).

President Bush Jr. recently stated his reasons for invading Iraq: (1) Iraq used chemical and biological weapons, (2) Iraq tried to build nuclear weapons, (3) the US tried to bring Iraq into the "family of nations" (said first by Bush Sr.), and (4) Iraq has a long history of lying to the world. The problem is the data not live up to the president's rhetoric claims.

Propaganda exploits our fears and constructs a leader that gives us hope for safe passage (Boje, 2003 Oil War: Propaganda and Root Cause). Corporate media is a major factor in the distribution of Heroic War and Demonizing the Enemy propaganda because it resorts to hype and fear, under reports the Peace Movement. Compliant corporate media owns the Western press and does not allow reports about the swelling peace movement in the U.S. Rather, the role of the Western corporate-owned media is to make the American-Iraq war appear 'just' and 'essential' to America's homeland 'security.'

We in the university are complicit when we do not engage in critical thinking about the War Machine. The draft is coming back. Campus police and university administration is being asked to spy on students, turn over information to the Homeland Security and FBI (Boje, 2002, What Students and Faculty Need to Know about the Iraq War).

Forms of U.S. resistance (i.e. carnival of street theatre, the waving of peace signs at motorists in downtown Las Cruces from 4 to 6 PM each Wednesday) to the war do not get media coverage.

This is done by blocking out coverage of the peace movement and the true human costs of this latest war (See local press coverage). 500,000 in Washington DC gets reported as "thousands" in the the Sun News, in all mainstream news. The U.S. media is part of the war machine and is unwilling engage in facts-based analysis of presidential rhetoric or to depict the human carnage of war. The carnage is not nearly as pretty as heroic war rhetoric.

Figure 1: Modern War image. (Photo shows victim of depleted uranium tipped munitions, dubbed “Crispy Critters” by Dessert Storm soldiers; Source Desert Storm Think Tank).

A Crispy Critter struck by depleted uranium munitions of US military arsenal is not heroic. It is is economic; it cost the US $4 Trillion dollars since 1945 to pay corporations to build weapons of mass destruction. There is also benefit: the USA is the biggest arms seller in a one trillion dollar arms market. The intelligence community is being pressured to provide false data to support the administration's war machine (Boje, 2003 Deconstructing Bu$h). I witnessed this before in the manufacture of body counts and the faking of incidents (e.g. Tonkin Bay), in order to sustain public support for the war machine during Vietnam. The current need is to turn the propaganda machine into a way to sell the current postmodern war. Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq are postmodern wars, media-driven, theatrical, spectacles of corporate and state propaganda to enlist spectator support for war. Postmodern war is defined, by philosophers Best and Kellner (2001), as the implosion of human and machine in cyber and bio technology (Boje, 2002a).

The Gulf spectacle was “postmodern” in that, first, it was a media event that was experienced as a live occurrence for the whole global village. Second, it managed to blur the distinction between truth and reality in a triumph of the orchestrated image and spectacle. Third, the conflict exhibited a heightened merging of individuals and technology, previewing a new type of cyberwar that featured information technology and “smart” weapons (Best & Kellner, 2001: 73).

Figure 2: Postmodern War image. Source: http://www.cursor.org and http://www.mnftiu.cc

A postmodern war uses hyperreality and interactive simulation cyber technologies to sanitize war into bloodless images I analyzed 9-11 (Afghanistan) as a postmodern war (Boje, 2002a). The theatrics of 9-11, a postmodern war, makes military confrontation and collateral damage (cruel civilian casualties in Figure 1), mere digital abstractions (such as Figure 2)

Technological innovations in warfare from biotechnology, cyber war, and infotainment have fused with state, military, and corporate capitalism to transform the theatrics of capitalism into a social corporeality more postmodern than Vietnam or WW1 and WWII (Boje, 2002a).

In postmodern war, the line between military combat and entertainment gets blurred in endless graphic-enhanced replay and simulation: The differences between the modern and postmodern theatrics of warfare include current uses of robot drones, satellites, digital battlefields, and other high tech technologies that change both the theatre of operations, the game of war, and its theatric strategy.

During the Gulf War the commentary of military and football analysts -- and the methods deployed to illustrate and explain sports and the war -- became almost indistinguishable. During ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XXV, an important part of the rhetorical [I’d say theatrical] strategy was to turn the event into much more than a game in order to justify playing the contest. Indeed, the Super Bowl and its viewers became important--even essential--participants in the war effort.[i] [additions in brackets, mine].

The logic of this latest postmodern war, is that Iraq civilian lives must be sacrificed in preemptive invasion in order to protect future American lives. In pre-game (pre-war) analysis, President Bush tells the media corps that the Iraqi regime is in league with al-Qaida. The international media and more critical scholars argue that Bush's claims are misleading the American public, and that war is not justified. The postmodern war theatrics call for building up Saddam as the Super Bowl-type enemy that will be defeated by the red, white and blue team. In an election year, critical analysis and opposition to the war among politicians (even democrats) is few and far between. In postmodern war it becomes difficult to separate fact from propaganda. Nevertheless, the facts are quite sobering.

Fact: Bush administration has offered no concrete proof of any of the Iraqi al-Qaida connection. Even the recent CIA letter says there is no evidence that Saddam intends to commit terrorism against the United States (Click here for CIA report).

Fact: The Bush administration (i.e., Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz) is pressuring the corporate-owned media and its CIA analysts to tailor their assessments of the Iraqi threat to help build the president's case against Saddam Hussein (Click here for Times article on the pressure).

Below I put some facts to the propaganda of this postmodern war (I also include some dialog I have had with peopel who pose counter-facts):

Here are facts and counter-facts about "Iraq used chemical weapons"

1. Question: Is there one piece of credible evidence that Iraq has stockpiles of weapons of chemical weapons that it intends to use against the U.S.?
* A former US soldier tells me, "Several of my friends were exposed to burning bunkers that were destroyed by coalition armor. It was reported that some of these bunkers may have contained mustard gas."
2. Allegation: President Bush said about Saddam, "He's used poison gas on his own people." FACT: US officials, including his Bush Sr. had no qualms about helping Saddam gas Iranians;
3. Fact: Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1985 and met with Saddam Hussein as a private businessman on behalf of the Reagan administration. In the last major battle of the Iran-Iraq war, some 65,000 Iranians were killed, many by gas.
* One person tell me, "In 8 years almost 1 million Iranians died. There was no tally after the last battles. I have yet to find a record of the last battles casualties."
4. Fact: Iraq did possess and use chemical weapons in the 1980s, but it is the U.S. that helped arm Iraq with military equipment, including chemical weapons, to use against Iran between 1985-1988; "U.S. government manufactures chemical and biological weapons, a fact that was routinely denied and only admitted after the anthrax attacks of 2001" (International Answer).
* A former US soldier tells me, "Fact is that while the US was providing aid to Iraq in the form of older obsolete weapon system Iraq was using the available funds to buy 30,000$ T72M2s from Russia. Including some T62s and T55 tanks which by this time were also very obsolete."
5. Fact: U.S. continued to sell chemical weapons to Iraq until Kuwait invasion in 1989; "These included anthrax, components of mustard gas, botulinum toxins (which causes paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing and is often fatal), histoplasma capsulatum (which may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver and spleen, anemia, acute inflammatory skin disease marked by tender red nodules), and a host of other nasty chemicals materials" (Boles, 2002; also S.R.103-900, May 25, 1994, pg. 264);
6. Fact: "During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq did not use chemical or non-conventional weapons, but the U.S. did. It dropped tons of depleted uranium weapons all over Iraq" (International Answer).
* A former US soldier tells me, "Fact the Iraqi armored forces did in fact use DU ammo supplied by the Soviet Union."
7. Fact: "U.S. government used chemical weapons in Vietnam, spraying Agent Orange over vast parts of that country. Thousands of U.S. GIs and an unknown number of Vietnamese people died, or live difficult and painful lives from the after-effects" (International Answer).
8. Fact: Mr. Tenet's CIA letter says Iraq Chemical weapons is NOT a threat - "CIA stating that while Saddam Hussein poses little threat to America now, a US invasion could push him into retaliating with chemical or biological weapons" (Borger, 2002b; more on Tenet letter).
* Counterpoint - A former US soldier tells me, "Fact is that if Saddam has no Weapons of Mass Destruction then if we make the mistake and attack him and he retaliates then we were right all the time."
9. Question: "Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?" and "if there were any weapons from 1990-1998 found by UNSCOM Inspectors, they were provided by the US." (Congressman Ron Paul).
* Counterpoint, from former US soldier, "It is believed that the Clinton administration sent the agents to Iraq to help start a war with the US so Clinton could look good............Fact is the sale of agents to Iraq never happened after the war ended."
10. Fact: "George Bush [Sr.], operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy." - Koppel, June, 1990 - as cited in Boles, 2002.
11. Fact: Iraq has only a shadow of the power it had in 1990; Iraq's military is 1/5th the size it was in 1990, which at that time proved unable to defend anything.
* Counterpoint, from former US soldier, "The Iraqi Army is in fact a shadow of itself. BUT if it does have WMD then its military is larger than it was during the Gulf War."

Here are the facts about Iraq tried to build nuclear weapons; Bush said, "Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the (U.N.) International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites."

1. Question: Is there one piece of credible evidence that Iraq has stockpiles of nuclear weapons that it intends to use against the U.S.?
2. Fact: International Institute for Strategic Studies, based in London, concluded in a report issued last month that "Iraq does not possess facilities to produce fissile material in sufficient amounts for nuclear weapons" and that "it would require several years and extensive foreign assistance to build such fissile material production facilities."
3. Fact: "U.S. has the largest nuclear arsenal--more than 6,000 nuclear missiles and bombs. It has spent $4 trillion on nuclear weapons since 1945" (International Answer).
4. Fact: UNSCOM Chief Inspector, Scott Ritter, says that Iraq is essentially
disarmed of all weapons of mass destruction.
5. Fact: Bush statements about Iraq nuclear weapons are directly counter to assessments made by U.S. intelligence agencies.
* e.g. CIA Director George Tenet said the CIA had concluded that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW (chemical or biological weapons) against the United States.
* e.g. Report by the CIA said that unless Iraq is able to obtain enriched uranium abroad, it will take at least five years to be able to develop the uranium necessary for a nuclear warhead (Collier, 2002).
6. Question: How many chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction are stored in New Mexico?

Here are the facts about how US tried to bring Iraq into the "family of nations" (said first by Bush Sr.).

1. Question: Is there one piece of credible evidence that the U.S. is trying in any way to bring Iraq into the family of nations?
2. Fact: "We've bombed Iraq thirty-odd times this year" (Tripp, 2002). Reason U.S. elects to bomb Iraq is they can not retaliate; "'Stop the bombing' - More bombing and war in the case of Iraq will not achieve anything but civilian deaths and misery. All parties should disavow preparations for war and the threat of war" (Voice 4 Change).
3. Fact: The continuation of US and UK bombing of Iraq since Dessert Storm in 1991 has not been sanctioned by the UN (Guardian).
4. Fact: U.S. plays Iran off against Iraq, and vice versa; covert operators of the U.S. armed Iran, at the same time other operative armed Iraq.
5. Fact: Bush plans to install government in Iraq to exploit oil profit; Faisal Qaragholi, the "petroleum engineer who directs the London office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of opposition groups that is backed by the United States" says that "Our oil policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected by the people." Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, put it more bluntly and sadi that he favored a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields, which would replace the existing agreements that Iraq has with Russia and France. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi said (Boles, 2002); Halliburton Co. had interests in Iraqi oil production after the [Gulf ] war."
6. Fact: this is an oil war: "Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?" and "Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?" (Congressman Ron Paul).
7. Fact: When Iraq Oil War happens, oil prices will go up, oil companies will get rich, and middle-class Americans will pay the higher prices for oil.
8. Fact: "Oil, clearly, is the commercial jackpot in this war" (Ridgeway, 2002). This is the black-gold rush for the oil-igarchy.

Facts about propaganda - by topic and by U.S. presidency

Weapons inspections [William J. Clinton president from 1993-2001 & George W. Bush president from 2001-present]

1. Question: Is there one piece of credible evidence that Iraq has stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction that it intends to use against the U.S.?
2. Fact: Between 1991 and December 12, 1998. There were over 9,000 inspections to assess Weapons of Mass Destruction. The fact is there were very few incidents where there were any delays or challenges to inspections.
3. Fact: "For the last four years it has been the U.S. government that has worked hard at manipulating the UN so that there would be no inspectors in Iraq" (International Answer).
4. Fact: "United Nations Special Commission--UNSCOM--cited only five "obstructions" to the 423 inspections conducted between Nov. 18-Dec.12, 1998 (a typical inspection period just before Dessert Fox war). All five incidents were trivial and not a justification for all out war:
1. One was a 45-minute delay before allowing access, while keys were fetched.
2. Another was Iraq's rebuff to a demand by a U.S. inspector, Dianne Seamons, that she be able to interview all the undergraduate students in Baghdad University's Science Department.
3. Inspect a building on a Friday, a Muslim holy day.
4. Inspect another building on a Friday, a Muslim holy day
5. On December 9, an inspection of a small headquarters of the Baathist political party was challenged;. Inspectors left after they were asked, 'what is the relation between the
small headquarters of a party and the disarmament mission?' (See International Answer; CIN Just Archives).
5. Fact: Scott Ritter, a former UN inspector and Marine Intelligence Officer, says that UNSCOM confirmed that Iraq had destroyed all biological, chemical, missile, and nuclear weapons. (Chicago Tribune, "Cheney's warped perspective," 9/10/02).
6. Fact: "Less than 48 hours after the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq, the Pentagon began the massive bombing campaign known as Operation Desert Fox on Dec. 16-19, 1998" (International Answer).
7. Fact: Who are the weapons inspectors? U.S. officials publicly admitted the weapons inspectors were intelligence agents who provided Pentagon bombing planners with bombing coordinates. (New York Times, Jan. 7, 1999)
8. Question: How to rid the world of U.S. weapons of mass destruction. "Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?" (Congressman Ron Paul).
9. Options: How about - UN inspectors -- not only in Iraq, but open up US facilities to parallel inspections (Voice 4 Change).

Global Terrorism [George W. Bush president from 2001-present]

1. Question: Is there one piece of credible evidence that Iraq has any connection to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or 9-11 terrorist attacks?
2. Question: "Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?" (Congressman Ron Paul).
3. Fact: "CIA and FBI investigators -- said that despite allegations of links between Mohamed Atta, the main planner of the terrorist attacks, and an Iraqi intelligence agent, there was no evidence of ties... One of the Palestinians cited by Bush, Abu Nidal, was last active in the 1980s and died in Baghdad in August. Another, Abu Abbas, conducted his last terrorist act in 1990, now renounces violence, and lives in the Gaza Strip with apparent Israeli permission" (Collier, 2002). More on this point from UK intelligence sources.
4. Fact: "Bob Baer, a former CIA agent who tracked al-Qaida's rise, said that there were contacts between Osama bin Laden and the Iraqi government in Sudan in the early 1990s and in 1998: 'But there is no evidence that a strategic partnership came out of it. I'm unaware of any evidence of Saddam pursuing terrorism against the United States'" (Borger, 2002a).
5. Fact: Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay interviewed over a dozen military, intelligence and diplomatic officials on link of Iraq and global terrorism -- "These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses -- including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network -- have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East. They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary" (Strobel & Landay, 2002).
6. Fact: 15 of the 19 participants in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
7. A fearful people is easier to rule.

Vietnam War - 1970s [Lyndon B. Johnson president 1963-69; Richard M. Nixon president 1969-74; Gerald R. Ford president 1974-77]

1. Fact: 50,000 American lives were lost in Vietnam in an undeclared war.
2. Fact: President Lyndon Johnson staged a fake raid on a Navy vessel in Tonkin Gulf incident as legitimacy for U.S. to go to (undeclared) war in Vietnam
3. Fact: Hitler staged a phony invasion from Poland as legitimacy for Germans to go to war (Lightwear, 2002).

Gulf War - 1991-1992 [George Bush, President from 1989-93]

1. Question: "Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?" (Congressman Ron Paul).
2. Fact: How many Iraq civilians died in 1991 Dessert Storm is hard to estimate. Both sides are motivated to under-count. The U.S. estimate is 13,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, while Iraq estimate is only 8,243. Voice $ Change says- A quarter of a million people died in Operation Desert Storm in 1992 (Voice 4 Change). A recent study suggests a civilian casualty cover-up by both sides, where as many as 300,000 civilians probably died in the conflict (Axelrod, 2002)
3. Fact: Who supplied? Bush Sr. authorized U.S. corporations to sell of $4.8 million worth of advanced technology products between July 18 and August 1, 1991, right up to the Gulf War.
4. Fact: "April Glaspie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Bush administration, seems to have given Hussein a partial go-ahead to take some border oil wells just before he went farther and seized all of Kuwait in August 1990.
5. Fact: Bush Senior's 1990-91 liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation depended upon building Hussein into an international ogre. Yet, Hussein was and is a second rate despot, not a world threat" (Phillips, 2002). "Central to [Bush Sr.'s] campaign [for 2nd term in office] was the glorious Desert Storm victory (Axelrod, 2002).
6. Fact: When Bush Sr. called off U.S. military when Sadam's days seemed numbered. This outcome fed voters' sense of a Bush failure and caused him the reelection. Bush Jr. in 2002 wants to finish Bush Sr.'s unfinished war, as his legacy.

Iran-Iraq War - 1983-1988 [Ronald W. Reagan president from 1981-89]

1. Fact: Over one million people died in the Iran-Iraq war of 1983-1988 (Voice 4 Change).
2. Fact: U.S supported Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s despite their use of chemical weapons (Phillips, 2002); 1984 the U.S. State Department officially, but quietly, confirmed the use of chemical weapons by Iraq.
3. Fact: Iraq is not all Muslim; there are over three-quarters of a million Christians in Iraq; church in Iraq pre-dates the arrival of Islam there by some six hundred years.
4. Fact: 1988 Saddam's military began gassing its own Kurdish population; US corporations provided the key products used and US continued to drag its feet in condemning chemical & biological warfare until the oil fields of Kuwait were invaded, and US went into Gulf War in 1991.
5. Fact: U.S. corporations, says a 1994 Senate subcommittee hearing, were the key suppliers of the toxins and spores Iraq had used to build up its chemical and biological arsenal it then used against Iran.

Operation Dessert Fox war - beginning Dec. 16 1998 [William J. Clinton president from 1993-2001]

1. Fact: There were no major weapons inspections by Iraq; between Nov 18 and Dec 12, 1998 there were only 5 quite minor violations (e.g. a 45 minute delay before keys were retrieved, two inspections demanded on Muslim holy day, an unreasonable request by an inspector to interview every undergraduate at Baghdad University's Science Department). In addition, President Sadaam Hussein publicly accepted all the U.S. demands, making it difficult for U.S. President Bill Clinton to justify Dessert Fox..
2. Fact: Under pretext of failure to comply with weapons of mass destruction inspections, the U.S. and UK dropped tons of missiles and bombs for 100 days; including 400 cruise missiles and 600 precision-guided bombs (15% missed their targets). The biggest part of the raid took place between 17 and 21 December 1998.
3. Fact: "The explosions began at 12:49 a.m. Thursday (4:49 p.m. EST Wednesday)" (AP Dec 16 1998).
4. Fact: "Crude oil prices rose 7% Wednesday before the U.S. air strikes against Iraq and then surged in after-hours trading" (Bloomberg News, Dec 17 1998). The attack on Iraq worked off a global supply glut estimated at 100 million to 150 million barrels (ibid).
5. Fact: Before the raid, U.S. intelligence agents pretending to be United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) treaty inspectors did target where the bombs and missiles would fall.
6. Fact: The timing of Dessert Fox related to Congress/Senate deliberation over Clinton's impeachment; The Impeachment Hearings and the Bombings began on the same day [Bombs fell on evening of Dec 16th]. Therefore, you one can assert that Operation Fox was a diversion strategy by a president under siege by the opposition party. On Dec 17th Congress voted to delay the Impeachment Hearings (AP, Dec 17, 1998). An AP poll said 182 lawmakers would support impeachment, 181 said they would oppose it (ibid, for more see US-Iraq Coverage).
7. Fact: Cost to US of Dessert Fox - $2.6 billion dollars for ordinance and $20 million to deploy US troops.
8. Fact: US and UK destroyed every electric utility, every sewage treatment plant, and every water purification facility in Iraq. Few have been rebuilt.
9. Fact: U.S. dropped 390 tons of radioactive nuclear weapons. This spread radio active particles throughout Southern Iraq.
10. Fact: US and UK have continued periodic bombings of Iraq between 1998 and today. Those air strikes left 156 dead and wounded another 371; But this pales in comparison to the 5,300 a month dying from the sanctions in next 12 years.

Iraq Sanctions war [William J. Clinton president from 1993-2001 & George W. Bush president from 2001-present]

1. Question: Is Oil for Food the answer?
2. Fact: Over half a million Iraqi children died in the twelve years of the US-led sanctions regime (Unicef statistic; Voice 4 Change; 10 Reasons to End the Sanctions).
3. Fact: 5,300 Iraqi children die every month from 12 years of sanctions and continued bombing by US and UK (30 times in 2002) (source Guardian).
4. Fact: Sanctions is a U.S. strategy to destabilize the Iraq economy. The terms include a prohibition against Iraw feeding itself. For example Iraq had 1.5 million bushels of wheat (a bumber crop) but could not use it to feed anyone, under the OFF program terms. The result?:
* In 12 years of sanctions, children die at rate of 5,300 per month, half million dead.
* Total dead from sanctions as of Feb 2003 is estimated at 1.7 million civilians
* Iraq Dinar was devalued by 600,000 percent.
* UNICEF says 410,000 metric tons of food are delivered a month; this means Iraq is a virtual refugee camp.
5. Fact: Aug. 6, 1990, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 661, imposing economic sanctions on Iraq.
6. Fact: United States has maintained its own sanctions against Iraq since Aug. 2, 1990
7. Fact: And, 1 million Iraqi civilians through the quieter, less dramatic weapon known as economic sanctions (International Answer).
8. "Ramsey Clark offers the sobering reminder that U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq "have now killed more than 750,000 human beings, perhaps twice that many, the great majority, infants, children, older persons and those who suffered serious chronic illnesses." [ii]; In 12 years the sanctions killed $1 million people through mal nutrition, lack of medical supplies, infant mortality, polluted water, prohibitions against Iraqi growing and eating their own food crops.
9. Question: Is it true "none of the designated president's advisers who advocate a regime change in Iraq have had any experience in the military (even the designated president's military experience in the Texas Air National Guard included one year AWOL) ?" (Keener, 2002).
10. Point: The real goal of the Iraq sanctions and the new Iraq War is a grab for the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world (10% of the world's total reserves).

Afghanistan war [William J. Clinton president from 1993-2000; George W. Bush president from 2001-present]

1. Fact: In August 1998, President Clinton launched cruise missiles at Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and at a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan to distract attention from Monica Lewinsky (Phillips, 2002).
2. Fact: In Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists used cluster bombs and dropped landmines in populated regions to attack dubious military targets. Estimates are that 3,000 to 3,400 civilians died in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan (Click here for article by Dr. Herold, 2002).

Iraq War [George W. Bush president from 2001-present]

1. Fact: Iraq is no threat to the U.S. Iraq has a GNP the size of Kentucky. Iraq's army, after the Gulf war, is 1/5th the size that was no match to U.S. military.
2. Fact: This is a Bush family vendetta left over from the unfinished Persian Gulf War. Bush Jr. is fighting daddy's war.
3. Fact: Iraq war is a way to deflect USA public attention away from a sliding economy in an election year.
4. Fact: the USA military budget is six times any other nation, and is more than the top military budgets of 27 nations (Boje, 2003 Militarism and Middle School).

Gulf War Syndrome - USA use of Depleted Uranium

The following facts come form a documentary "Invisible War: depleted Uranium and the politics of radiation" and from presentations by Damacio Lopez (Feb 2, 2003), a resident of Socorro, New Mexico and an expert in USA cover-up of the death toll to USA service men and women, and to Iraqi civilians. Mr. Lopez is trying to get medical study of deaths and diseases in Socorro he suspects come from open air testing of Depleted Uranium weapons on top of Socorro mountain. He is part of IDUST (International Depleted Uranium Study Team). These weapons are also tested at White Sands Military Reserve (WSMR). The Pentagon tells us that depleted uranium is so safe we would have to swallow pounds of it to be affected, that it is no more toxic than beach sand, that Gulf War vets are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, not from any effects of USA weapons of depleted uranium.

1. Fact: Depleted Uranium effects on Socorro citizens are not being studied. "Since the 1950s weapons containing DU have been tested and developed near communities across the U.S.. One such community is Socorro, New Mexico where DU open air testing began in 1972 and ended in 1993 after pressure from a local citizens group called "Save our Mountain" (International Depleted Uranium Study Team).
2. Fact: Depleted Uranium was used in 1991 Gulf War, 1998 Dessert Fox War, as well as Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo. In Gulf War I, 230 tons of DU was used in USA arms and another 800 tons of uranium waste for USA nuclear program was dropped onto Iraq. The 'Highway of Death" in Iraq, is where military vehicle carcasses, riddled with depleted uranium are on exhibit as a permanent health hazard. The Highway of Death has 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. Children play with the spent uranium rounds, civilians breath in the cancerous agents (See Ramsey Clark report:
WAR CRIMES
A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal by Ramsey Clark and Others
3. Fact: U238 (a waste product of the Plutonium used in Nuclear Power plants) has been found in the Depleted Uranium dust and in the vehicles left on the Highway of Death.
4. Fact: DU contamination lasts 4.5 billion years.
5. Fact: Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, 250,000 USA Gulf War vets have reported to the VA to get treatment for Gulf War Syndrome (code for exposure to USA weapons of Depleted Uranium). See NM Depleted Uranium Study Team analysis for more recent statistics.
6. Fact: 159,000 USA Gulf War vets are getting VA medical benefits, but little serious treatment for exposure to Depleted UraniumSee NM Depleted Uranium Study Team analysis for more recent statistics.
7. Fact: As of Feb 2003, 9,600 USA Gulf War vets (1990-1991) have died from Gulf War exposure to USA weapons that fired rounds tipped with Depleted Uranium. They breathed in the dust, they ate the dust, they passed along the effects to their unborn children. See NM Depleted Uranium Study Team analysis for more recent statistics which put it at 10,324 deaths.
8. Fact: Instead of science, the Pentagon performs and contracts junk science to cover-up the health hazards of depleted uranium weapons. For example, Lieutenant Col. Eric Daxon and his aide, Bernard Rsstoker, were tasked by USA congress to study the effects of DU in Gulf War upon USA service men and women. Lieutenant Col Dixon (2001 Video "Invisible War) said "the science says it is very unlikely: that anyone would die from exposure to depleted uranium. Medical doctor, Naomi Harvey of NYU Medical School, does contract work for the Pentagon to prove that depleted uranium has no adverse health effects. For example, Dr Harvey reports (1999), "depleted uranium is less radioactive than the natural form and is about half as radioactive as the original natural uranium" (United Nations Panel discussion of Depleted Uranium - October 26, 1999). She concludes, "There are a tremendous number of people that have been followed for years to detect any health effects. There have been industrial exposures that have been quite enormous, from accidents, etc. Nobody has seen a significant health effect to date." Dr. Harvey cites a Rand Study, which is a literature review (See report summary). On the other side is Mr. Fahey, a national organizer on depleted uranium munitions for the Military Toxics Project, a non-governmental organization. Fahey says, "The RAND Report, I believe, in the future will be largely discredited." Hari Sharma adds "The information gathered so far through the analysis of urine samples convinces us that uranium dioxide produced by the use of uranium weapons finds its way in human lungs through inhalation. Presence of uranium dioxide in lungs in veterans and in the civilian population does put the exposed population to undue risk. It is therefore essential that the use of uranium weapons in warfare must be banned" (United Nations Panel discussion of Depleted Uranium - October 26, 1999).
9. Fact: 800 tons of Depleted Uranium was dropped onto the population of Iraq, and USA troops breathed the dust, and had it fall onto their skin, and ate it when it fell on their food. Depleted Uranium is dropped in so-called "Dirty Bombs" to spread uranium poison in the battle field. Depleted Uranium is used in Cluster bombs. Depleted Uranium is used in USA produced anti-personnel mines.
10. Fact: A study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, "nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine" (Johnson, Nov 12 2002 Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium).

Depleted Uranium Sites

* IDUST International Depleted Uranium Study Team
* STAR foundation
* The Prop1.org Web Domain
* Military Toxics Project
* The Centre for Peace in the Balkans
* Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq
* Depleted Uranium Watch - Stop NATO Killings
* Chugoku List of DU sources.
* Report, Don't Look, Don't Find: Gulf War Veterans, the U.S. Government and Depleted Uranium (www.miltoxproj.org/DU/Report.pdf), Dan Fahey of The Military Toxics Project criticizes the RAND report for bias and error.
* Damacio Lopez Story -Disclosure-Test firing of radioactive weapons
* USE OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS IN MILITARY WEAPONS: DEPLETED URANIUM 30 December 2002 Presented by Damacio Lopez, Director, IDUST (International Depleted Uranium Study Team) The United Nations Development Program.
* The Use of the Radioactive Material Depleted Uranium U-238 (DU) as a Military Weapon 20 October 2000 presentation by Damacio Lopez, Executive Director, International Depleted Uranium Study Team (IDUST)
* Listen to Damacio Lopez's Story: DEPLETED URANIUM: METAL OF DISHONOR on Democracy Now.
* Boje's "Good Morning Iraq" Presentation on DU at ROTC at NMSU on Feb 13



Cluster Bombs

Why are cluster bombs being used? Cluster bombs are not a surgical air strike; they are weapons of mass destruction. They are loaded with Depleted Uranium, and spread toxic dust on USA troops and the civilian population. Cluster bombs are used to cover a broad area rather than a single specific target. CBU-89 Gators, for example, are 1,000-pound cluster bombs dropped by B-52 and B-1 bombers. Cluster bombs were used extensively in the 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia two years ago. Each bluster bomb unleashes 147 to 700 bomblets, each firing a plasma-jet able to penetrate armor but having a secondary anti-personnel effect with over 2,000 sharpened pieces cutting into the bomb casing. According to the UN, 30,000 unexploded bomblets remained in Kosovo after the conflict ended. 60 percent of the 531 cluster bombs dropped by the RAF during the conflict in Kosovo missed their intended target (5% and 12% of the bomblets fail to Explode, according to UN estimates). [iii]

Conclusions

The media and the administration's analysts are setting up the next postmodern war, a war staged in the media through sanitized images and football-game-style graphic replays. We are about to see more replays of laser guided missiles with video cameras relaying the action to American TV sets 10,000 miles from the action. The Iraq postmodern war will be one more sanitized, quickie technowar, fought (Nintendo-style) by remote-control, before a national election. As in the Bush Sr. war, the Bush Jr. war will be accompanied by the same uncritical, self-censored media coverage of the conflict which will once again facilitate the slaughter of Iraqis by a superior military superpower. There will be self-censoring of the more gory aspects of the victor’s slaughter, and we will hear claims of acceptable collateral damage. As in the last postmodern war, CNN, Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC will compete for audience-share by offering better simulations and digital interactive experiences to spectators. Postmodern war is an infotainment commodity in the ratings game. Corporate-media can offer digital experience that is less terrifying, so spectators need not look at 'real' bodies, or the blood and gore of war.

The purpose of postmodern war is cathartic, not realistic. Aristotle (350 BCE), for example, argues that “fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle,” in the spectator. The fear and pity are what happens to those who disagree with war. The Bush rhetoric and the spectacle-dispensing media are making critical reflection upon the war a tragic character flaw; to be against the war they say is to be weak-minded, even unpatriotic. The media is quick to critique those who disagree with the war machine, to instruct spectators that reversal of fortune will befall critics of the war.

Postmodern war is corporeal theatre, more real than real. Soon the TV cameras will depict the lines at the gas stations, the higher prices at the pumps, the patriotic citizens giving blood at the blood bank, the nifty surgical strikes, and the street theatre of resistance to the spectacle of military industrial power. Postmodern war is all consuming, all life becomes a stage, even resistance becomes part of the commodity production for mass consumption. The Bush Jr. postmodern war is a sequel to the Bush Sr. postmodern war. I call it "Oil War II, the Sequel: The . Strikes Back."

The US strategy of War in the Middle East is a way to destabilize the economy of the region. The strategy is exactly what Britain did in its 19th century colonial "small wars." We like Britain are using higher-tech weapons (smart bombs) to mow down a starving mob of spear-waving tribes at war with each other. One more massacre is being planned by our Joint Chiefs, and another decade of sanctions that will bring the death toll of Iraqi children to one million. There is no glory in this postmodern war that substitutes sanitized images using digital simulation for the blood cruelty of war. This is no Super Bowl. The US sends the mightiest warriors on the planet to kill children on the oil turf.

Behind the war rhetoric about fear of the evil one who has amassed weapons of mass destruction, there lies the corporate campaigns and lobbying of the oil industry. We have surrendered media and government to the oil industry colonization of nations destabilized by perpetual war. The US-based corporations manufacture the lion's share of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, sells them to both side The US left 370,000 tons of unexploded bombs, mines and artillery shells in the Gulf War alone. The radiation particles dusted Southern Iraq.

References

Axelrod, Patricia (2002). Clean lies, dirty wars. Reno News Review.

Best, Steve & Douglas Kellner (2001). Postmodern Adventure. London: Guilford Press.

Boje, David M. (2002a). From the book, Theatrics of Capitalism. Scene 11 Post-11. To be released soon I hope, from Hampton Press (San Francisco).

Boje, David M. (2002b), What Students and Faculty Need to Know about the Iraq War.

Boje, David M. (2003a) Oil War: Propaganda and Root Cause. Feb 1

Boje, David (2003b) Deconstructing Sun News editorial - Jan 1

Boje, David M. (2003c) Deconstructing Bu$h's State of the Union Theatre, Jan

Boje, David M. (2003) Militarism and Middle School Jan 15

Boles, Elson E. (2002). Helping Iraq Kill with Chemical Weapons: The Relevance of Yesterday's US Hypocrisy Today. Counter Punch. October 10, 2002.

Borger, Julian (2002a). White House 'Exaggerating Iraqi Threat' Bush's Televised Address Attacked by US Intelligence. The Guardian (UK) October 8, 2002.

Borger, Julian (2002b). CIA in blow to Bush attack plans. The Guardian (UK). October 10, 2002

Collier, Robert (2002). Bush's evidence of threat disputed Findings often ambiguous, contradict CIA. San Francisco Chronicle. October 12.

Herold, Marc W. (2002). A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting [revised]. Herold is professor in the Departments of Economics and Women's Studies, Whittemore School of Business & Economics, University of New Hampshire. Accessed http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Lightwear, Christos (2002). The psychology behind mass subservience to tyranny and The Consequent Rise of the Fourth Reich. Professors for Peace, Oct. 11.

Phillips, Kevin (2002). Of Politics and Vengeance. LA Times. October 13 2002

Ridgeway, James (2002). The Spoils of War: Be the First on Your Block to Make a Buck off Iraq. Village Voice. October 9 - 15, 2002.

Strobel,Warren and Jonathan Landay (2002). Some administration officials expressing misgivings on Iraq. Houston Chronicle Oct 8.

Tripp, Ben (2002). Let Wag the Dogs of War or No Peace at Any Price. Counter Punch. October 9, 2002

[Nefarious]

The callousness of greed

Denied the ability to feed their people off their own crops, when they have sufficient to do so? Unthinkable! This amounts to a slowly manipulated, long term, genocide.

[Guest]

Your multi-pronged tangents just attempt to draw the focus away from the point of the thread - DU - and hassle it into oblivion. I won't engage with you like this after this post.

Refer your next posts regarding US military action against Iraq, including actions before The Bush Administration.
Your posts contain about 10% DU discussion and 90% anti-americanism which has nothing to do with DU whatsoever.

Any source that includes

2. Fact: This is a Bush family vendetta left over from the unfinished Persian Gulf War. Bush Jr. is fighting daddy's war.

is in no way neutral. You know this, I know this, Only you are dumb enough to think others may be fooled into thinking that this info is from a credible source! Tell me, was Clintons attacks on Iraq part of the 'Bush family Vendetta' too?

When Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and John Edwards voted in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, were they doing so as part of the 'Bush Family Vendetta'??

I wouldn't be so cheeky to assume so much as you seem to.

Your whole argument is based on an assumption. And you know this, but it suits your agenda so you are more than happy to use it!

I used the tool? No - Doug Westerman used that tool

Oh, so you get your views from extreme environmentalists. This guy is not known for anything other than his anti-war material. He is not a respected scientist or part of any respected neutral organisation.
In other words, you get your viewpoints from an extremist nutter. Well done.

Yes, I guess you could say I am anti-war - I see no redeeming quality in it.

Except when it is in support of your cause right??
Im sure at some point or another, there was war in defence of your country. This is probably the reason you refuse to say where you are from. Screw everyone elses cause, because you are safe now? right?

You will note that I say 'war', as in war in general.

No, I will note that you say 'war in general' and then go on to attack only the wars in which America lead.

Given the amount of 'we' and 'our troops' comments you have made and how stridently you defend anything anti-Bush, it was an easy assumption to make that you were American - at the very least you come from a country that is in the coalition of the willing.

Wrong again. I am not an American, nor reside in America. Yes, I am one of the 40+ countries that were part of the coalition of the willing. I am sure you are too. Correct me if I am wrong, I suspect you are from America.

I learnt that trick from reading your posts.

Another case of you deflecting.

I have put forth - what is it - four hyper-linked articles. The arguments are theirs, not mine - don't try and twist it otherwise.

No, you have put together a thread based on information you can use for your anti-war spiel, and you have tried to disguise it as an 'environmental' post. Then you have turned it into an anti-war, anti-america post as we knew you would do.

No - as Westerman did - if you are going on the attack at least be able to show that you have the ability to read and absorb and get your accusations right.

Oh so your 'qualified environmentalist' comes up with these kinds of 'scenarios' in order to scare a few ignorants into believing his extremist views? Don't you just love the effect of scaremongering?

Perhaps so, but then neither has his country used the widest weaponry arsenal available against multiple countries has it?

This was a poorly constructed sentance. Are you saying that Saddam has not used his deadliest weapons against more than one country?

I say this to point out the subjectivity with which we interpret acts which, without our actions to dissolve cognitive dissonance and placate our conscience, are regardless nefarious acts

Don't you just love thesaurus.com. trying to 'outmuscle' me with words from a thesaurus is not only over-kill, but it shows you are struggling to come up with anything good, so you want to appear more intelligent than others. Don't you have anything more than a sexed-up sentance?

I don't disagree that what you have listed are known environmental issues. My thread is about DU and given DU's use in the military, it is definately anti use of DU missiles - ergo to extend that to anti-war if you wish - I don't agree with war, so I won't argue that.

Yes, I noticed. Which was the whole point of this thread. Your thread is about DU and not about industrial pollution and contamination from developing nations (a much greater threat) because It is the best argument to support your anti-US war spiel, as we see in your above posts, which go on and on and on about the US, and make little mention of DU.

[quote]As to what country I am from, none of your darn business./quote]

Figured as much. One has to wonder why you would be so hesitant in naming your own country.

[guest0209]

I especially love this part of your Depleted Uranium thread:

Fast forward to American GIs now fighting the Iraqis in Iraq. Given the worldwide media attention given to the White House sponsored American torture chambers at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib Prison and elsewhere (it's only Americans who refuse to look and see what the American government is up to), do you think there are many GIs in Iraq who'd allow themselves to get captured? Put the shoe on the other foot: you are an Iraqi teenager armed with an AK-47 and you're out to help drive the invaders from your land. Now what are the chances of you surrendering to the sadistic, sacrilegious, sexually perverted Americans?

Just wondering... Where was the mention of DU in that quotation from your previous post? Is that article supposed to be neutral too? Is that article about the health and environmental effects of DU? And if so, why is it talking about the Guantanimo Bay Detention Centre?

Sadistic, Sacrilegious, sexually perverted Americans? Oh, so is this article straight from the book of Jihad, or just an Islamic extremist website?

There it is people... This person does not give a stuff about the environment. This person is only interested in anti-americanism.
You cannot get any more obvious than that.

[Nefarious]

Tell me, was Clintons attacks on Iraq part of the 'Bush family Vendetta' too?

The war machine is larger and has existed for a much longer time than just the Bush family - Bush Jnr is just the latest figurehead - he's just more transparent than most. That much came across loud and clear in the Boje article. I was shocked by the information in the Boje article - very sobering, very depressing stuff.