US FORCES' USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IS'ILLEGAL' By Neil Mackay March 30, 2003; The Sunday Herald (Scotland) http://www.sundayherald.com/32522 BRITISH and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Background on Depleted Uranium Ammunition For much more check out: Discounted Casualties - The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium provided by the Hiroshima, Japan newspaper - The Chugoku Shimbun. Also the Federation of American Scientists has a Depleted Uranium Ammunition page. And the Military Toxics Project has a campaign against depleted uranium weapons. (left) US Armor Piercing Incendiary [Depleted Uranium] 30mm Ammunition Also See: US Wins Defeat of Depleted Uranium Study Reuters 11/30/2001 Iraqi Cancers, Birth Defects Blamed on U.S. Depleted Uranium Seattle Post-Intelligencer 11/12/2002 Iraq Links Cancers to Uranium Weapons; U.S. Likely to Use Arms Again in War San Francisco Chronicle 1/13/2003 DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children. Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defense with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'. Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such double-standards are repellent.' The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when an American A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British soldier and injuring three others in a 'friendly fire' incident. According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts. DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war syndrome -- typified by chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and memory loss -- among 200,000 US soldiers after the 1991 conflict. It is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number of birth deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war. 'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and deformities between four and six times,' according to the UN subcommission. The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts say 1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure. In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert. The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling. A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers. Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions. 'To do so is a crime against humanity. 'We must do what is right for the citizens of the world -- ban DU.' He called on the US and UK to 'recognize the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation'. He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic wasteland behind them and kill indiscriminately. 'It is equivalent to a war crime.' Rokke said that coalition troops were currently fighting in the Gulf without adequate respiratory protection against DU contamination. The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the Ministry of Defense had test-fired some 6350 DU rounds into the Solway Firth over more than a decade, from 1989 to 1999. ©2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd - - - - - THE HUMAN COST OF DEPLETED URANIUM The Chugoko Shimbun - Hiroshima http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html During the Gulf War in 1991, US and UK forces used a new weapon against Iraq. This new weapon, the depleted uranium (DU) projectile, is radioactive. Unlike atomic or hydrogen bombs, it involves no nuclear fusion or fission, but nine years after the end of the war, adverse health effects from DU exposure continue to manifest among military personnel and civilians in Iraq where the fighting took place, and among US and British veterans and their families. As I traveled through the US, UK, and Iraq to cover this story, I was confronted at every turn by the sad and frightening spectre of "discounted casualties,"- people exposed to depleted uranium and other toxic substances, and now tormented by leukemia and a whole array of chronic disorders. (Akira Tashiro, senior staff writer ) Leukemia, congenital defects - 430,000 US troops in contaminated areas Huge amounts of depleted uranium (uranium 238 from which most uranium 235 has been extracted) are generated in the process of enriching uranium for nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors. Denser and more penetrating than lead, DU has proven to be extremely effective when used for penetrators fired from anti-tank guns. Quick to ignite from friction, DU burns on impact, dispersing minute radioactive particles into the air. This radiation, in combination with high chemical toxicity, contaminates the environment and produces harmful effects in animals and humans. During the Gulf War, US and British troops fired from tanks and planes a combined total of about 950 thousand rounds (about 320 tons of DU) over a wide geographical area. As a result, it is estimated that 436,000 US ground troops entered areas contaminated with radioactivity, inhaled particles of depleted uranium, and were thus exposed to radiation. As of July 1999, of the 579,000 American veterans who participated in the Gulf War, 251,000 (43%) were seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs. About 182,000 (31%) were seeking compensation for medical disabilities or damage related to illness or injury. The illnesses for which claims are being filed include leukemia, lung cancer, chronic kidney and liver disorders, respiratory ailments, chronic fatigue, skin spotting, and joint pain. To date, more than 9,600 veterans have died, and quite number of their children, born after the war ended, suffer from congenital defects. Similar health problems have appeared among the British soldiers who took part in the war. In Iraq, soldiers who managed to survive the combat show an increased incidence of leukemia, lymph cancer, and a variety of other cancers, as do Iraqi civilians and children. A conspicuously large number of newborns are being born with congenital abnormalities. The shortage of medicines and medical equipment resulting from UN-based economic sanctions against Iraq applied by the US, Japan and the Western allies aggravates the situation tragically. The US Defense Department and the British Ministry of Defence refuse to concede that depleted uranium shells harm human bodies or the environment in any way. The US military used DU again in the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. In a letter on Kosovo sent to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on February 7 this year, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officially admitted that about 31,000 depleted uranium shells were used. In the US, the effects of DU are apparent among employees working at factories that produce DU munitions, those who live near those factories, and those who live near firing ranges, but a comprehensive picture of DU radiation exposure has yet to emerge.