DEPLETED URANIUM: THE WAR CRIME THAT HAS NO END

[rossana <rossana@comodinoposta.org>]

DEPLETED URANIUM: THE WAR CRIME THAT HAS NO END


Paul Rockwell


20 feb 2004 - The international dispatches about the U.S. invasion and 
occupation of Iraq - replete with graphic details about overcrowded 
hospitals, U.S. cluster bomb shrapnel buried in the flesh of children, 
babies deformed by U.S. depleted uranium, farms and markets destroyed by 
U.S. bombs – do not make pleasant reading. The mounting evidence from the 
invasion of Iraq establishes what many Americans may not want to face: that 
the highest leaders of our land violated many international agreements 
relating to the rules of war. Unless we address the war crimes of the Bush 
administration - and the prima facie evidence is overwhelming - we betray 
our conscience, our country, and our own faith in democracy.

The United States is bound by customary law and international laws of war: 
the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and 
the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations, December 11, 1945 
- all of which set limits beyond which, by common consent, decent peoples 
will not go. Under the Constitution, all treaties are part of the supreme 
law of the land. Humanitarian law rests on a simple principle: that human 
rights are measured by one yardstick. Without that principle, all 
jurisprudence descends into mere piety and power. Nor do violations of the 
laws of war by one belligerent vindicate the war crimes of another.

Of all the violations of the laws of war by the highest officials of our 
country, none is more alarming or portentous than the widespread, 
premeditated use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Eleven miles north of the 
Kuwaiti border on the "Highway of Death," disabled tanks, armored personnel 
carriers, gutted public vehicles – the mangled metals of Desert Storm - are 
resting in the desert, radiating nuclear energy. American soldiers who 
lived for three months in the toxic wasteland now suffer from fatigue, 
joint and muscle pain, respiratory ailments - a host of maladies often 
known as the Gulf War Syndrome.

Ever since the end of Desert Storm, when the Pentagon unloaded 350 tons of 
depleted uranium, American officials have been well aware of the health 
hazards of the residue that is collected from the processing of nuclear 
fuel. When President Bush and the Pentagon authorized the use of depleted 
uranium for the shock-and-awe campaign against Iraq in March 1983, the Bush 
administration not only committed a war crime against the people of Iraq, 
it demonstrated reckless disregard for the health and safety of American 
troops.

Article 23 of the Geneva Convention IV is clear and unambiguous: “It is 
forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously 
individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms, 
projectiles or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.” The 
Geneva Protocol of 1925 explicitly prohibits “asphyxiating, poisonous or 
other gasses, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices.”

The radiation produced by depleted uranium in battle is a poison, a 
carcinogenic material that causes birth defects, lung disease, kidney 
disease, leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and neurological 
disabilities.

Depleted uranium is much denser than lead and enables U.S. weapons to 
penetrate steel, a great advantage in modern war. But under the Geneva 
Conventions, “the means of injuring the enemy are not unlimited.” When DU 
munitions explode, the air is bathed in a fine radioactive dust, which 
carries on the wind, is easily inhaled, and eventually enters the soil, 
pollutes ground water, and enters the food chain. Unexploded casings 
gradually oxidize, releasing more uranium into the environment. Handlers of 
depleted uranium in the U.S. are required to wear masks and protective 
clothing - a requirement that Iraqi and American soldiers, not to mention 
civilians, are unable to fulfill.

After the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi hospitals recorded a surge in cancer and 
birth defects. Hospital statistics from Basra show that in 1988 there were 
11 cancer cases per 100,000 people. By 2001, after schools, homes, and 
entire neighborhoods were leveled from the air, the number increased to 116 
per 100,000. Breast and lung cancer and leukemia showed up in all areas 
contaminated by depleted uranium. Dr. Jawad al-Ali, cancer specialist at 
the Basra Training Hospital, noted that, “The only factor that has changed 
here since the 1991 war is radiation.” Thirteen members of his staff, all 
present when the hospital area was bombed, are now cancer patients.

The Christian Science Monitor recently 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.

The families who survived the tragic decade of sanctions, even the children 
who recently survived the bombing of Baghdad, may not survive the radiated 
aftermath of military profligacy. Uranium remains radioactive for two 
billion years. That's a long time for reconstruction.

According to Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist who led the first 
clean-up of depleted uranium after the Gulf War, “Depleted uranium is a 
crime against God and humanity.” Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was 
devastated by exposure to the fine dust. “When we went to the Gulf, we were 
all really healthy,” he said. After performing clean-up operations in the 
desert (mistakenly without protective gear), thirty 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.”

The growing outcry against the use of depleted uranium is not a matter of 
minor legal technicalities. 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. The use of depleted uranium is a crime 
whose horrific consequences have yet to run their course.

Years ago in the midst of France's brutal war in Algeria, the philosopher 
Jean Paul Sartre admonished the French intelligentsia:

“It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the 
crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right that you do not breathe 
a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having 
to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing to believe that at the 
beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted 
whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold 
your tongues.”

Paul Rockwell

For addtional information...

Afghan DU Recovery Fund: 
<http://www.afghandufund.org/>http://www.afghandufund.org/


Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association: 
<http://members.shaw.ca/cpva/>http://members.shaw.ca/cpva/


Coalición Internacional para la Abolición de las Armas Radiactivas: 
<http://www.amcmh.org/>http://www.amcmh.org/

The Eos life~work resource centre:
<http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm>http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/d
u2012.htm

GULF WAR SYNDROME UK SUPPORT GROUP: 
<http://www.gwsuk.org.uk>http://www.gwsuk.org.uk