As a radioactive emitter, DU also presents a risk to the lungs. Traditionally, radiation dosimetry measures the extent of harm by calculating the external radiation absorbed by the tissues; the so-called 'absorbed' dose.(9)However because DU dust is inhaled or ingested, it can remain in the body tissues and emit intensive radiation over a longer period. This way it can cause a large amount of damage over a relatively small area, changing a person's genetic codes and causing cancers. For these reasons soldiers and civilians exposed to DU risk developing lung cancers, particularly if they are smokers because their lungs will already have been irritated.

There is much new evidence emerging about the risks from so-called 'low level' radiation and the damage it can do to DNA. Considerable evidence has been accumulated recently about the 'by-stander' effect, which shows that irradiated cells pass on damage to surrounding healthy cells. In this way it is thought low-level radiation can cause much greater damage than would otherwise be expected.(10) Studies have also shown that irradiated cells pass on chromosomal aberrations to their progeny so that non-irradiated cells several generations, or cell divisions later, will exhibit this radiation-induced genomic instability (RIGI).(11)

New evidence is also suggesting that the chemical toxicity of DU and its radioactivity reinforce each other in a so-called 'synergistic effect', which means it 'punches above its own weight' in terms of the damage it can do to cells. Alexandra Miller of the US Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in the USA found in a study in 2003 that when human bone cells are exposed to DU, fragments break away from the chromosomes and form tiny rings of genetic material. This damage was seen in new cells more than a month after removal of the DU, leading to an eight-fold increase in genetic damage relative to that expected.

It's not just in terms of increased risk of cancer that DU DNA damage can affect health. It is also implicated in causing a depressed immune system, reproductive problems, and birth defects. For example, a study of US Gulf War veterans has found that they are up to three times as likely to have children with birth deformities than fathers who had not served; and that pregnancies result in significantly higher rates of miscarriage.(12) A major 2004 Ministry of Defence-funded survey study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf War are 50 per cent more likely to have physical abnormalities. They also found a 40 per cent increased risk of miscarriage among women whose partners served in the Gulf.

In Basra, in southern Iraq, there have been striking reports for a number of years about the rise in local childhood cancers and birth deformities seen there. The findings of a leading Iraqi epidemiologist, Dr Alim Yacoub,13 were presented in New York in June 2003 and suggest there has been a more than five fold increase in congenital malformations and a quadrupling of the incidence rates of malignant diseases in Basra.(14)

The Dutch Journal of Medical Science reported the findings of the Flemish eye doctor, Edward De Sutter. He found 20 cases out of 4000 births in Iraq of babies with the phenomenon anophthalmos: babies who have been born with only one eye or who are missing both eyes. The very rare condition usually only affects 1 out of 50 million births.

The damaging effects to health that DU weapons present are of particular concern because of the likelihood of civilians becoming exposed after conflicts have ended. Children especially are at risk because of playing in and ingesting contaminated soil and most of the health risks discussed are of particular danger to younger children.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION FROM DU

The release of DU into the environment can pollute land and water for decades to come. Its danger is not limited to battlefield releases but will expose present and future generations of civilians to contaminated food and water supplies. Environmental releases of this sort can also be expected to have negative effects on plant and animal life although little is known about this.

DU dust in the environment can become resuspended through weather conditions and human activity, such as farming. Of particular worry is that children are especially vulnerable to receiving significant exposures through playing on sites and ingestion of contaminated soil by way of typical hand-to-mouth activity.

DU can also contaminate soil through corrosion from the original penetrator. It is believed that 70-80% of all DU penetrators used in the Gulf and the Balkans remain buried in the soil. A United Nations Environment Programme study in Spring 2002 found that recovered penetrators had decreased in mass by 10-15%. Corrosion can feed uranium into groundwater, where it can travel into local water supplies. DU in soil can also enter the food chain since it is taken up by plants grown in it and by animals used for food. A UNEP post- conflict report on Bosnia and Herzegovina has indeed found that DU had also leached into local groundwater. The same study found that radioactive hotspots persisted at some of the sites studied. Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, said at the time, "Seven years after the conflict, DU still remains an environmental concern and, therefore, it is vital that we have the scientific facts, based upon which we can give clear recommendations on how to minimise any risk".

The British and US militaries have demonstrated extreme irresponsibility in releasing DU into the environment, using it without proper monitoring or information about the risks it poses even in their own countries. In January 2003, the US Navy admitted routinely firing DU from its Phalanx guns in prime fishing waters off the coast of Washington state since 1977. At the Dundrennan testsite in Scotland around 30 tonnes of DU rounds have been fired into the Solway Firth. Only one has ever been retrieved, when it was found in a fisherman's net.

Both governments have been equally callous in their disregard concerning the long term risk to civilians in countries where they have used DU.

DU AND THE MILITARY

DU is used in a variety of military applications. It is attractive to the military, governments and the nuclear industry for three main reasons. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, it is in cheap and plentiful supply and solves the problem of storage and monitoring. Secondly, it is a very effective battlefield weapon because its high density and self-sharpening qualities enable it to penetrate hard targets with ease. Thirdly, DU is pyrophoric, which means it burns on impact, enhancing its ability to destroy enemy targets. The UK test firing of DU began at the Eskmeals range in Cumbria in the early 1960s. Testing continues today at Dundrennan, in Southern Scotland, most recently before the 2003 attack on Iraq. DU is now used in two types of ammunition in the British armed forces: the 120 mm anti-tank rounds (CHARM 3), which is fired by the Army's Challenger tanks and 20mm rounds used by the Royal Navy's Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (a missile defence system). The Phalanx system was developed by the US Navy and is used by both the Australian and British Navies. In 1993, a leaked Pentagon report revealed how the use of DU could lead to increased cancer risks: this leak caused the US manufacturers to switch to tungsten alternatives. Because of this the Royal Navy has been forced to convert its replacement ammunition to tungsten too, although it still has stockpiles of DU.

The US military uses DU mainly for its Abrahams tanks and A10 warplanes, although it is also used in its Bradley fighting vehicles, AV-8B Harrier aircraft, Super Cobra helicopter and its Navy Phalanx system. It is also used by the US military for a variety of other applications including bombshells, tank armour plating, aircraft ballast and anti-personnel mines. Although the US and UK militaries are the only countries who have been properly documented as using DU weapons, they are known to be held by at least seventeen other countries including: Australia, Bahrain, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

The testing of DU weapons has caused considerable contamination at test sites across the world. At Dundrennan, in Scotland, for example, a 2004 Ministry of Defence report revealed how, since 1982 over 90 shells had either been misfired or had malfunctioned and scattered fragments of DU across the ground. Despite searches, some of these fragments have never been recovered. Contamination levels were high in these areas, which have had to be fenced off. At Okinawa in Japan, and Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, the US military used DU weapons without the appropriate licences and without informing their respective governments or local populations. In the US, the Army is attempting to walk away from its responsibilities to decontaminate former test sites, such as Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey and Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana.

It is now clear that the military have known the risks of depleted uranium but failed to provide safety instructions to soldiers in both the 1991 Gulf Wars and the Balkan conflicts. A study prepared for the US Army in July 1990, a month before Iraq invaded Kuwait, says: "The health risks associated with internal & external DU exposure during combat conditions are certainly far less than other combat-related risks. Following combat, however, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives & combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU."

Furthermore, a leaked 1993 document from the US Army Surgeon General's office said, "When soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk ... that increase can be quantified in terms of projected days of life loss."

DU IN IRAQ

The 1991 Gulf War saw the first verified use of DU weapons. Around 320 tonnes of DU in weapons were used in the war, of which about 1 tonne was used by the UK military. According to data from the US Department of Defense, tens or hundreds of thousands of US military personnel could have been exposed to DU. Both the US and UK Governments refused any responsibility for decontamination and both refused to study the exposure rates or after-effects of this DU use. After a few years, evidence began to emerge from Iraq about the increasing incidence of cancer and birth deformities in the south of the country. After heavy US lobbying in November 2001 the UN General Assembly voted down an Iraqi proposal that the UN study the effects of the DU used there.

In the 2003 attack on Iraq, the US and UK militaries used DU again despite the lack of reliable data on the effects of using it in Iraq 12 years previously. The British Government has admitted using 1.9 tonnes of DU. Even though this is only a tiny proportion of all DU used in Iraq, it is double the amount used in 1991. The US authorities have still not said how much has been used, although an initial Pentagon source revealed 75 tons of DU may remain in Iraq from A-10 planes alone.

The implications for Iraqi civilians are very alarming. Unlike the first Gulf War, which was largely confined to desert areas, much of the DU use has been in built-up, heavily populated areas. The US Government has refused any cleanup of DU in Iraq, clinging to the statement that it has no link with ill health, while the British Government has for the first time admitted it does have a responsibility but says it is low on their list of priorities.

OTHER COUNTRIES CONTAMINATED BY DU

BOSNIA 1994-1995

DU rounds were used in Bosnia by US A-20 warplanes under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Around 10,800 DU rounds, or 3 tonnes, were used in Bosnia. However NATO always denied DU had been used until 2000, 6 years after the attacks, when media reports began to emerge. For all this time no cleanups or public awareness campaigns could be run, leading to unnecessary civilian exposures. The UNEP report,1 mentioned earlier, and released in March 2003, found DU contamination of drinking water and radioactive 'hotspots'. UNEP recommended ongoing monitoring of drinking water, cleanup of DU sites, cleaning of contaminated buildings and the release by NATO of all DU-attack coordinates.

KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA - 1999

US A-10 aircraft fired around 31,300 rounds of DU, or 9 tons of DU in areas of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro during NATO action there in 1999. Partial information about the use of DU was released a year after the war when UN Secretary General KofiAnnan sent a letter requesting the information to NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson. An analysis in a UNEP Post-Conflict field study of recovered DU shells, published in March 2001, found that some of the shells were made with recycled uranium (that is, with uranium that had been through a nuclear reactor) and were contaminated with plutonium. The study did not find widespread contamination but did find evidence of airborne movement of DU dust. It also found localised points of concentrated contamination showing U-238 at 10,000 times normal background levels. The study recommended decontamination, removal of penetrators and drinking water monitoring. A separate report published by UNEP on DU contamination in Serbia and Montenegro found "widespread, but low-level DU contamination, airborne DU particles" and that "DU dust was widely dispersed into the environment."

As well as official reports there has been widespread anecdotal evidence of so-called 'Balkans syndrome' among both soldiers deployed in the region and civilian populations. Symptoms are similar sounding to "Gulf War Syndrome" with heightened levels of leukaemia, respiratory and immune system illnesses. By mid-2004 twenty-seven Italian soldiers have died of symptoms thought to be linked to DU exposure. A court in Rome ordered the Italian Ministry of Defence to compensate the family of Stefano Melone, a soldier who died of a malignant vascular tumour. According to the court, Mr Melone's death was "due to exposure to radioactive and carcinogen substances" on missions in the Balkans.

Tension was caused within NATO as member countries were not warned that their soldiers would be entering DU contaminated zones.

AFGHANISTAN 2001- 2004

There is some evidence that DU has been used in Afghanistan, although this has never been confirmed officially. For example, US A-10s and Harrier aircraft, which both use DU ammunition, are known to have been active in the region. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that the US has found radioactivity indicating DU use by the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.

Geneva Convention Rules (to which US and UK are signees) - The limitation of unnecessary human suffering [Art.35.2] - The limitation of damage to the environment [Art. 35.3 and 55.1] - It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering [Art. 35.3] - It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. [Art. 35.2] - In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives. [Art. 48] - Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. [Art.51.4] - Care shall be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against widespread, long-term and severe damage. This protection includes a prohibition of the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population. [Art. 55.1] Update: February 20, 2006 UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells Mark Gould and Jon Ungoed-Thomas [Sunday Times Online] RADIATION detectors in Britain recorded a fourfold increase in uranium levels in the atmosphere after the ³shock and awe² bombing campaign against Iraq, according to a report. Environmental scientists who uncovered the figures through freedom of information laws say it is evidence that depleted uranium from the shells was carried by wind currents to Britain. Government officials, however, say the sharp rise in uranium detected by radiation monitors in Berkshire was a coincidence and probably came from local sources. The results from testing stations at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston and four other stations within a 10-mile radius were obtained by Chris Busby, of Liverpool University¹s department of human anatomy and cell biology. Each detector recorded a significant rise in uranium levels during the Gulf war bombing campaign in March 2003. The reading from a park in Reading was high enough for the Environment Agency to be alerted. Busby, who has advised the government on radiation and is a founder of Green Audit, the environmental consultancy, believes "uranium aerosols" from Iraq were widely dispersed in the atmosphere and blown across Europe. "This research shows that rather than remaining near the target as claimed by the military, depleted uranium weapons contaminate both locals and whole populations hundreds to thousands of miles away," he said. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) countered that it was "unfeasible" depleted uranium could have travelled so far. Radiation experts also said that other environmental sources were more likely to blame. The "shock and awe" campaign was one of the most devastating assaults in modern warfare. In the first 24-hour period more than 1,500 bombs and missiles were dropped on Baghdad. During the conflict A10 'tankbuster' planes ‹ which use munitions containing depleted uranium ‹ fired 300,000 rounds. The substance ‹ dubbed a {silver bullet{ because of its ability to pierce heavy tank armour ‹ is controversial because of its potential effect on human health. Critics say it is chemically toxic and can cause cancer, and Iraqi doctors reported a marked rise in cancer cases after it was used in the first Gulf conflict. The American and British governments say depleted uranium is relatively harmless, however. The Royal Society, the UK¹s academy of science, has also said the risk from depleted uranium is "very low" for soldiers and people in a conflict zone. Busby's report shows that within nine days of the start of the Iraq war on March 19, 2003, higher levels of uranium were picked up on five sites in Berkshire. On two occasions, levels exceeded the threshold at which the Environment Agency must be informed, though within safety limits. The report says weather conditions over the war period showed a consistent flow of air from Iraq northwards. Brian Spratt, who chaired the Royal Society's report, cast doubt on depleted uranium as a source but said it could have come from natural uranium in the massive amounts of soil kicked up by shock and awe. Other experts said local environmental sources, such as a power station, were more likely at fault. The Environment Agency said detectors at other sites did not record a similar increase, which suggested a local source. A MoD spokesman said the uranium was of a "natural origin" and there was no evidence that depleted uranium had reached Britain from Iraq. Spreading Cancer Depleted uranium turns Bush's lies into high-tech horror By ROBERT C. KOEHLER Tribune Media Services June 29, 2006 The unending game of "pretend" that the U.S. media allow George Bush to play on the global stage, so often letting his lying utterances hang suspended, unchallenged, in the middle of the story, as though they were plausible -- as though a class of third-graders couldn¹t demolish them with a few innocent questions -- feels like the journalistic equivalent of waterboarding. Gasp! Some truth, please! I suggest the prez has forfeited the right to command a headline, or half a story, or an uninterrupted quote: ". . . we'll defend ourselves, but at the same time we¹re actively working with our partners to spread peace and democracy," he said last week in Austria. Surely "spreading democracy" should no longer be allowed to appear in print, between now and 2008, unless accompanied by a parenthetical clarification ("not true," stated as profanely as local standards allow). And that, of course, would only be the media's first step back into integrity with the public. The occupation of Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan, the entire war (to promote) terror . . . please, please, can these no longer be trotted out in consequence-free abstraction, but as the high-tech malevolence they are, actively continuing the incalculable devastation of countries and their populations? The bodies keep piling up, the toxic horrors spread. Hasn't anyone in this place ever heard of depleted uranium? Is the health crisis in Iraq and, indeed, throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, not to mention Kosovo and among returning vets for the last four American wars, somehow irrelevant to "the course" we're asked to stay? "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 two 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. . . . My wife has nine members of her family with cancer." This is Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, director of the oncology center at the largest hospital in Basra, speaking in 2003 at a peace conference in Japan. Why is it that only peace activists are able to hear people like this? Why hasn't he been asked to testify before Congress as its members debate the future of this war and the next? "Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning," he went on. "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." Depleted uranium -- DU -- is the Defense Establishment euphemism for U-238, a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process and the ultimate dirty weapon material. It's almost twice as dense as lead, catches fire when launched and explodes on impact into microscopically fine particles, or "nano-particles," which are easily inhaled or absorbed through the skin; it's also radioactive, with a half-life of 4.468 billion years. And we make bombs and bullets out of it ‹ it's the ultimate penetrating weapon. We dropped at least 300 tons of it on Iraq during Gulf War I (the first time it was used in combat) and created Gulf War Syndrome. This time around, the estimated DU use on defenseless Iraq is 1,700 tons, far more of it in major population centers. Remember shock and awe? We were pounding Baghdad, in those triumphant early days, with low-grade nuclear weapons, raining down cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects and much, much more on the people we claimed to be liberating. We weren't spreading democracy, we were altering the human genome. As we "protected ourselves," in the words of the president, from Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, we opened our own arsenal of WMD on them, contaminating the country's soil and polluting its air -- indeed, unleashing a nuclear dust into the troposphere and contaminating the whole world. "We used to think (DU) traveled up to a hundred miles," Chris Busby told me. Busby, a chemical physicist and member of the British government's radiation risk committee, as well as the founder of the European Committee of Radiation Risk, has monitored air quality in Great Britain. Based on these findings, "It looks like it goes quite around the planet," he said. While Bush mouths ironic whoppers -- "We will be standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes for freedom and liberty are fulfilled," he told the U.N. General Assembly a while back -- his actions pass, in the words of former Livermore Labs scientist Leuren Moret, "a death sentence on the Middle East and Central Asia." A war crime of unprecedented dimension is unfolding as we avert our eyes. Perhaps it's simply too big to see, or to grasp, so we lull ourselves into the half-belief that the powers that be know what they're doing and it will all turn out for the best. Meanwhile, the contagion spreads, the children die, the planet becomes uninhabitable. Italian Soldiers Dying Because of DU January 2007 Italian soldiers are still dying following exposure to depleted uranium in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, their relatives say. Troops who served during the wars in the 1990s believe they have contracted cancer and other serious illnesses from extended exposure to the munitions. The US says it fired around 40,000 depleted uranium rounds during the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts. A pressure group says 50 veterans have died and another 200 are seriously ill. Depleted uranium is used on the tips of bullets and shells. Because of its density it can pierce the armour plating on tanks. But when it explodes it often leaves a footprint of chemically poisonous and radioactive dust. The Italians who served in Bosnia and Kosovo were involved in the clear-up of battlefields and came into close contact with exploded ammunition. Children with disabilities The association representing the soldiers, known as Anavafaf, says many of those who have died or are ill have contracted cancer. In 2002 the Italian defence ministry published a report compiled by independent scientists which found a higher than average number of servicemen were suffering from cancer. It said there was an excessive number of Hodgkin's disease victims among Italian Balkan peacekeepers. A number of children fathered by the soldiers have been born with disabilities. There are similar reports from soldiers' associations in Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. Both the US and Britain acknowledge the dust from depleted uranium can be dangerous if inhaled but they insist the danger is short-lived and localised. For more updated stories, see Article in Truthout Back to Viewzone || Body Mind Spirit