[ RadSafe ] Depleted uranium for dummies

[Roger Helbig]

As described by the lead dummy DU activist in UK .. note the number of groups he floods with this nonsense and unfortunately many believe this stuff .. he even mixes up his wars .. the term Shock and Awe was only used for the attack on Baghdad in 2003, not back in 1991 ..

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "davey garland" <thunderelf at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <abolition-caucus at yahoogroups.com>; <gulfwarveterans at yahoogroups.com>; <earthfirstalert at yahoogroups.com>; <pandora-project at yahoogroups.com>; <newsmatters at yahoogroups.com>; <ozpeace at yahoogroups.com>; <cndyorks at yahoogroups.com>; <du-watch at yahoogroups.com>; <asceptic at tiscali.co.uk>; <m.a.hannis at lancaster.ac.uk>
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 11:59 PM
Subject: [DU Information List] depleted uranium for dummies


http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12452.htm
Depleted Uranium For Dummies

Everything you need to know about depleted uranium.
Every day our 
troops remain in Iraq increases the chances that they
will come home 
sick, produce children with birth defects, and die
prematurely.

By Irving Wesley Hall

03/23/06 "ICH" -- -- Under the direction of Secretary
of Defense 
Cheney, the 1991 Gulf War began with a "shock and awe"
bombing campaign 
that destroyed large biological laboratories, chemical
plants, and 
nuclear enrichment facilities, most of them around
Baghdad. Many sites 
were illegally supplied by the Reagan-Bush
administration, in which 
both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld served, so the
United States 
government knew their locations.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons damage the
bodies of soldiers 
in distinct ways. The first employs deadly bacteria
and viruses to 
cause known illnesses. The second uses poisonous, or
toxic, substances 
to attack the body's chemistry. Nuclear weapons, such
as depleted 
uranium (D.U.), were unimaginable before World War II.
They attack the 
body with invisible radioactive energy that, as you
will soon read, 
produces a wider variety of symptoms that develop over
a longer period 
of time. Radioactive heavy metal particles embedded in
the body are 
both radioactive and toxic.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons can
potentially "blow back." 
Once they are released, they can kill and maim
civilians as well as 
enemy soldiers. Hence all three have been banned by
international 
treaties which the United States signed.

They also blow back on the army that uses them. The
practical danger to 
America's own troops prevented the widespread use of
WMD's until the 
atomic bombs in World War II and the chemical
herbicide Agent Orange in 
Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of American troops
suffered and died 
because of the testing and use of these weapons.

When George Bush Sr., Cheney, and Rumsfeld supplied
brutal tyrant 
Saddam Hussein with these substances in the 1980's
they showed 
disregard for the lives of folks living in the Middle
East. When they 
ordered the 1991 aerial destruction of stockpiles of
these weapons, 
they showed a deadly contempt for their own
citizen-soldiers.

Those early bombing attacks sent clouds of miniscule
toxic and 
radioactive particles into the air that floated over
the future 
battlefield and bivouac camps where hundreds of
thousands of American 
troops were awaiting the invasion.

Bush Sr.'s February 1991 ground war was even shorter
than Bush Jr.'s 
2003 "Mission Accomplished" operation. The former
lasted only 100 
hours. Afterwards 105 sites stockpiling dangerous
chemical and 
biological weapons were destroyed, contaminating
everything around 
them. In March, a huge weapons storage dump in
Khamisiyah was blown up 
by American engineers, sending a second huge toxic
cloud over troops 
preparing to depart for home.

Sgt. Dan Topolski, of the 87th Engineer Battalion,
participated in the 
Khamisiyah demolition. He speculates in the excellent
DVD Beyond 
Treason that the hasty action, without prior
inspection, inventory, or 
proper safety precautions, was political. Topolski
suggests this stupid 
order was motivated by Bush Sr.'s desperate desire to
hide the United 
States origin of that weaponry from United Nations
inspectors and the 
American people.

Dr. Doug Rokke states, "General Powell, General
Schwarzkopf, General 
Horner, and Secretary Cheney. . .made a conscience
decision. . . to 
blow up Iraq's chemical-biological stockpiles in
place. [They] also 
decided to blow up their nuclear reactors in place.
This is all 
confirmed in Schwarzkopf's autobiography. . .We warned
everybody that 
these exposures - downwind exposures - were going to
have a disastrous 
effect on U.S. military personnel, on coalition
personnel, on Iraqi 
personnel, and on the civilians and non-combatants in
the region. That 
warning was ignored."

Years later, ailing vets would force the government to
admit that CIA 
satellites had tracked the movement of the mass of
Khamisiyah 
contaminants in real time. The size and path of the
cloud explains the 
otherwise inexplicable incidences of Gulf War illness
among Navy 
personnel and pilots on battleships in the Persian
Gulf downwind.

During the early aerial bombardment and later tank
war, President Bush 
and Secretary Cheney authorized the use of massive
amounts of depleted 
uranium armaments for the first time in the history of
warfare. This 
material is produced only by the United States and had
been used 
experimentally in Vietnam and the 1973 Israel-Arab
War. Internal 
Department of Defense reports had warned since 1943
about its use, and 
accurately predicted its poison gas effects on our
troops.

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The Most Toxic Battle In Western Military History

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In his article, "The Gulf War Was The Most Toxic
Battle In Western 
Military History," Dr. Malcolm Hooper, emeritus
professor of medicinal 
chemistry at the University of Sunderland UK,
attributes the symptoms 
of mysterious "Gulf War Illness" among American and
coalition troops to 
a combination of toxic substances to which they were
subjected.

These included, in addition to weapons of mass
destruction, 
experimental vaccines, anti-nerve gas tablets,
aerosolized pesticides, 
and smoke from hundreds of burning oil wells. Some of
the vaccines were 
not approved by the FDA and had never been used on
human subjects. No 
one had studied the interactive effects of as many as
seventeen 
vaccines administered at the same time. Many soldiers
became violently 
ill immediately after receiving the battery of shots
and others 
developed a variety of symptoms later. Strangely, the
normally 
bureaucratic military kept no records of who received
what shots and 
when.

However, most researchers cite radioactive poisoning
from depleted 
uranium shells as the deadliest element in the Gulf
War Illness 
"cocktail." In the 1991 war the Pentagon fired more
than 340 tons of 
D.U. projectiles at targets in Iraq and Kuwait. More
than a half 
million Gulf era veterans are on medical disability.

At last count, more than 1,000 tons have been used in
Afghanistan and 
more than 3,000 tons in Iraq. Significantly, most Gulf
War tours of 
duty were short. Three quarters of today's troops in
Iraq and 
Afghanistan have served multiple tours: 26% are on
their first tour of 
duty, 45% are on their second tour, and 29% are in
Iraq for a third 
time or more. Some are now being ordered to a fourth
tour of duty.

Simple math suggests that depleted uranium may
eventually prove a 
hundred times more deadly to our forces than all the
Iraqi resistance 
fighters' improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.s) and
rocket propelled 
grenades (R.P.G.'s) combined.

Leonard Dietz is a retired physicist from the Knolls
Atomic Power 
Laboratory in upstate New York. Dietz, who pioneered
the technology to 
measure uranium isotopes, is quoted as saying,
"Anybody, civilian or 
soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent
dose, and it's 
not going to decrease very much over time. . .In the
long run. . 
.veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a
major problem."

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The Double Whammy Cocktail

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A D.U shell bursts into flames as soon as it leaves
the delivery 
device. When it hits a target, as much as 70 percent
burns on impact at 
a high temperature, releasing into the air billions of
invisible 
radioactive particles. This infinitesimally fine dust
of aerosolized 
uranium oxide consists of metallic micro-particles
that are smaller 
than viruses or bacteria.

All of our bodies contain tiny amounts of natural
uranium because it is 
found in water and in the food supply. But natural
uranium is quickly 
and harmlessly excreted by the body. However the
velocity and heat of 
the impact of D.U munitions convert the poisonous
uranium oxide from a 
heavy metal into a ceramic heavy metal that makes it
insoluble and 
therefore difficult to excrete.

Where does depleted uranium come from? It doesn't
occur in nature. 
Natural uranium has to be "processed' to remove less
than one half of 
one percent of a special kind of uranium called U-235.
Bomb makers use 
U-235 to make thermonuclear bombs that can explode
with a force 
equivalent to 100 million tons of TNT.

U-235 is also used to make fuel rods for nuclear
reactors. Used fuel 
rods are extremely radioactive for many years and will
kill any person 
near them in ten seconds. No one on earth knows what
to do with used 
fuel rods. Tons of deadly, radioactive used fuel rods
have been in 
temporary storage for more than 50 years.

D.U. is "depleted" only in the sense that more highly
radioactive forms 
of uranium have been partially removed. What's left,
depleted uranium, 
mainly U-238, is still highly radioactive and
dangerous. It is used to 
make military bullets, shells, land mines, armor
plating, missiles and 
bombs.

As we are all taught in elementary school,
radioactivity is dangerous 
because it causes cancer. That's why your dentist
covers your body with 
a lead apron before your X-ray.

According to a June 2002 National Radiological
Protection Board report,

"All uranium, whether natural, depleted or enriched,
is a toxic 
radiological element. Each differs from the other in
atomic structure 
by less than one percent. D.U. emits three types of
ionizing radiation: 
alpha and beta particles and photons. Alpha particles
are blocked by 
objects as light as a sheet of paper and humans
exposed to them are 
naturally protected by their skin. Beta particles
(high speed 
electrons) can penetrate human skin to a depth of one
centimeter while 
photons (x-rays and gamma rays) are more penetrating
and can pass 
completely through a human body."

Although blocked by the skin, alpha radiation can be
inhaled, ingested, 
and absorbed into the blood stream through scratches
and wounds. It is 
highly dangerous internally. In addition to being
physically 
radioactive it is also chemically toxic. This explains
the "double 
whammy" effect. Soldiers who are exposed can become
immediately ill 
from the toxicity, recover, and then suffer severe
additional symptoms 
from the radioactivity years or decades later.

A study in the April 2003 New Scientist magazine
suggested that D.U. 
toxicity combines synergistically with its
radioactivity to produce 
more serious effects.

Dr Keith Baverstock, a senior radiation advisor to the
World Health 
Organization, is quoted as saying, "The radiation and
the chemical 
toxicity of D.U. could also act together to create a
'cocktail effect' 
that further increases the risk of cancer."

Hence Gulf War vets were served a cocktail inside a
cocktail.

More troubling still is another study of the materials
inside the D.U. 
weapons used in Iraq and Afghanistan. That report
found that in 
addition to U-238, today's munitions contain
plutonium, neptunium, and 
the highly radioactive uranium isotope U-236. An
isotope is one of 
several slightly different atomic structures within
the same element, 
in this case uranium. According to a 1991 study by the
UK Atomic Energy 
Authority, these elements are 100,000 times more
dangerous than the 
U-238 in so-called depleted uranium.

U-236 is another man-made metal. It is created inside
operating nuclear 
reactors and is intensely radioactive. U-236 has been
found in the 
urine of sick Afghan and Iraqi villagers and on the
ground next to bomb 
craters.

Geologist Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and
internationally 
recognized expert on radiation, D.U., and public
health. She estimates 
that "one millionth of a gram [of depleted uranium]
accumulating in a 
person's body would be fatal. There are no known
methods of treatment."

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Quiet and Invisible Guests That Never Leave

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Why the wide variety of illnesses?

Depleted uranium contamination causes virtually every
known illness 
from acute skin rashes, severe headaches, muscle and
joint pain, and 
general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection,
depression, 
cardiovascular disease, brain tumors, and every other
type of cancer. 
Uranium replaces calcium, destroying teeth and bones.

D.U. is causing permanent disability and death for
hundreds of 
thousands of American veterans who served in the
Middle East.

For more information, every military family should
watch Beyond 
Treason, and every high school should play the DVD for
students 
subjected to military recruitment. According to
experts interviewed on 
the DVD, some soldiers return home contaminated with
billions of 
radioactive ceramic particles.

Leuren Moret states, "In a cubic meter of air there
are one billion 
particles a tenth of a micron in diameter. An ordinary
man breathes 
twenty-eight cubic meters of air a day and for that
reason our soldiers 
internally contaminated to depleted uranium have
billions of particles 
of depleted uranium distributed throughout their
bodies."

Let's follow the journey of these microscopic invaders
after they are 
inhaled. They attach first to the trachea and stick to
lung tissue. The 
heavy metal ceramic specks are practically insoluble;
so they so don't 
easily dissolve into the bloodstream. They cling to
the respiratory 
system for years, even decades, and irradiate the
surrounding tissues, 
damaging neighboring organs. Gradually they pass
through the lung-blood 
membranes into the bloodstream and lymphatic system,
causing illnesses 
and damage to the entire body. Radiation mutates
cells, causing 
cancers, leukemia, lymphoma, congenital disorders, and
birth defects.

Here's what happens when these microscopic radioactive
particles are 
ingested through the mouth or penetrate the body
through buried D.U. 
shrapnel or open wounds. They enter the bloodstream
and circulate 
freely throughout the body, emitting radiation as they
travel. Some 
concentrate in the lymph nodes and cause lymphatic
cancer. D.U. also 
damages the immune system by hastening the death of
white blood cells, 
and impairing their ability to attack bacteria.

Other ceramic particles cause "low-level" cell
irradiation in the bone 
marrow and the stem cells that the body creates there.
Stem cells are 
the progenitors of all the other cells that the body
manufactures in 
order to renew itself.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, formerly in charge of Nuclear
Medicine Service at 
the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, was
ailing veteran 
Terry Riordan's doctor whom we cite in "Dick and
Hillary's Dirty Little 
Secret," on www.notinkansas.us. Dr. Durakovic is now
the Director of 
the Uranium Medical Research Institute.

"Stem cells are very vulnerable," he says. "Bombarded
with alpha 
particles, their DNA will fall apart, potentially
affecting every 
organ."

The process is similar to building a house with
defective materials or 
cooking a meal with spoiled ingredients. If
malfunctioning stem cells 
become new liver cells, then the liver will
malfunction. Hence 
defective stem cells cause many veterans to suffer
kidney failure, 
brain damage, and poorly functioning joints and
muscles.

D.U. may transform semen into a caustic alkali, which
explains Terry 
and Susan Reardon's experiences during lovemaking that
we described on 
March 8. This explains the severe urinary problems
among veterans just 
back from Iraq to be described in the April 4
installment of We're Not 
in Kansas Anymore. Dr. Malcolm Hooper, at the
University of Sunderland, 
is familiar with 4,000 such cases among UK Gulf War
veterans.

Radiation expert Leuren Moret calls D.U, "The Trojan
Horse of nuclear 
war. . .There's no way to clean it up, and no way to
turn it off 
because it continues to decay into other radioactive
isotopes. . ."

As far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, the retired New
York State 
physicist, discovered that aerosolized D.U. particles
less than a 
millionth of a meter in diameter can travel long
distances. Some months 
ago, Leuren Moret told Dr. Elias Akleh, an
Arab-American writer, "D.U. 
dust is now everywhere. A minimum of 500 - 600 tons
now litter 
Afghanistan, and several times that amount are spread
across Iraq." As 
you will read on April 4, a serious level of depleted
uranium particles 
reached the UK nine hours after the United States 2003
"Shock and Awe" 
bombing of Iraq. It's likely that I am inhaling them
as I peck on my 
keyboard, and so are you as you read my words.

Compare the latest tonnage to the 340 tons used in the
Gulf War. Dr. 
Doug Rokke, the health physicist for the US Army, who
oversaw the 
partial clean up of depleted uranium bomb fragments in
Kuwait in 1991, 
reminded Alliance of Atomic Veterans writer Vincent L.
Guarisco that, 
in Bush and Cheney's new war, the massive radioactive
arsenal has been 
used mainly in Iraqi urban centers and civilian
neighborhoods, rather 
than in desert battlefields.

Over time, the health of all foreign troops will be
affected. The 
health effects on the natives of Iraq and Afghanistan
will be 
catastrophic. Based on the increase in cancer rates in
the aftermath of 
the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear meltdowns,
many Iranians, 
Saudis, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Israelis
will die 
prematurely thanks to our government's unprovoked
nuclear attack on 
Iraq.

As you will read on April 18, because of their more
rapid cellular 
development, children are the most vulnerable to
depleted uranium 
poisoning.

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Radioactive Showers and Chow

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In Iraq's arid climate, sandstorms blow tiny particles
of D.U. away 
from the blast epicenter, impacting the surrounding
environment without 
geographical limitations. It enters the soil,
polluting the water 
table, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and infecting
the food chain. 
Fertile, D.U.-contaminated grasslands west of Basra in
southern Iraq 
produce vegetables and grains for livestock that are
consumed by 
American troops as well as Iraqis.

The New York State National Guard Rainbow Division
just returned from 
six months stationed in Camp Forward Danger on the
Tigris River near 
Tikrit, north of Baghdad. Saddam Hussein's rebellious
hometown was the 
site of major combat using D.U. munitions during the
initial invasion 
and for months afterward.

An official June 2005 United States Central Command
communiqué reported 
that soldiers of the 62nd Quartermaster Company from
Fort Hood, Texas 
were supplying Camp Forward Danger's water from the
Tigris River. The 
engineers ran it through a reverse osmosis water
purification unit that 
dissolved the solids. The water is purified again and
chlorinated. 
However it seems that it is not tested for
radioactivity.

I have attempted to verify the degree of radioactive
poisoning to which 
the New York National Guard members were subjected. I
had contacts with 
officers at the base before this series went on line.
However, Pentagon 
public relations officers, Capt. Bill Roberts and 1st
Lt. Tawny M. 
Dotson, have ignored several requests for email access
to Camp Forward 
Danger. I've appealed to Maj. Richard J. McNorton, the
CENTCOM's 
special officer in charge of helping bloggers obtain
accurate 
information, but he hasn't responded either. We'll
keep you posted on 
We're Not in Kansas Anymore.

Even if the water were monitored, there is no way,
outside a 
sophisticated nuclear laboratory, to remove
carcinogenic depleted 
uranium from water, air or food-as you can understand
from the 
discussion above.

According to a recent interview with Dr, Doug Rokke,
formerly the 
military's top expert in this field, the only way to
monitor 
bacteria-sized D.U. particles would be to send samples
to a specialized 
laboratory.

Depleted uranium is nasty stuff. Think about this as
you read news 
reports of the current massive aerial bombing campaign
the U.S. is 
waging around Samarra, north of Baghdad. You might
have thought 
"insurgents" would be the only casualties before you
read "Depleted 
Uranium For Dummies." But you're not a "dummie"
anymore.

Our men and women of the New York State National Guard
have just spent 
six months taking radioactive showers and washing
small open wounds in 
a depleted uranium broth. They've eaten over 500 meals
with food, 
plates and silverware washed with hot water, in two
senses of the word. 
Thanks to George Bush Sr. and Dick Cheney's decision
to use depleted 
uranium munitions in 1991, the Tigris river, the
Bible's Edenic river 
of life, has become a modern river of death. And our
brothers and 
sisters are drinking the forbidden water, with knowing
it-despite 
informational videotapes produced for them by Major
Doug Rokke and his 
team. The tapes, pamphlets, and bulletin board posters
are mandatory, 
but how many of our men and woman serving in
radioactive areas have 
seen them?

Our troops inhale depleted uranium with every single
breath. 
Radioactive particles the size of a virus cannot be
filtered outside a 
laboratory. Even the 800,000 gas masks provided Gulf
War troops were 
useless because the charcoal filters became inert
within days. The only 
protection is airtight MOPP suits connected to oxygen
tanks.

No place in Iraq is free from radioactive
contamination, including 
today's supposedly "safe" Green Zone in Baghdad where
top military 
officers, civilian occupation authorities,
international journalists, 
and the Iraqi government leaders live and work.

Saddam Hussein's former palace is now the middle of
the Green Zone. It 
was bombarded with D.U. munitions before and during
the invasion. So 
has greater Baghdad ever since. So Green Zone
residents inhale and 
ingest depleted uranium every day. Perhaps that's why,
during President 
Bush's Thanksgiving visit, he was served a plastic
turkey.

UPI reported last December that Wilder Gutierrez
Rubio, 38, had died a 
few hours after returning home to Lima, Peru. He had
been diagnosed by 
doctors at Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad with severe
leukemia, which 
they attributed to depleted uranium exposure, even
though he had served 
in Baghdad only a short time. Gutierrez was part of a
contingent of 
Latin Americans recruited by a U.S. company to provide
security for 
Baghdad's Green Zone.

Tragically, our celebrated comrades of the New York
State National 
Guard Rainbow Division are home from Camp Forward
Danger, but not home 
free from danger.

After Dick Cheney sprayed the entire Army, Army
Reserves, and National 
Guard with God-zillions of time-release miniscule
radioactive ceramic 
buckshot, why should he feel guilty about shooting a
few dozen ordinary 
pellets into one Texas lawyer?


Is Poisoning Your Entire Army an Impeachable Offence?

A majority of Americans, recently polled agree that
Bush and Cheney 
should be impeached if they lied to Congress and the
American people in 
order to launch this war. According to the latest
poll, a plurality of 
Americans say that it's time for impeachment, period.

The troops want to come home.

Last month's Zogby poll of troops on the ground in
Iraq reported that 
29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of
the armed 
forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq "immediately."
And 89% of the 
reserves and 82% of those in the National Guard said
the U.S. should 
leave Iraq within a year.

And most of these folks have yet to read about the
depleted uranium 
lodged throughout their bodies.

The 2006 election is nine months away. Are you
registered to vote? Have 
you called your congressperson, senator, or local
opposition 
candidates?

We did-earlier this month. We emailed all five
candidates for New 
York's 24th Congressional district. We also reached
both Democratic 
contenders for New York's 20th district.

We urged that they check out this website and our
sources.

Four out of seven responded promptly--with thanks.
These were Michael 
A. Arcuri, Kirsten Gillibrand, Leon Koziol, and Les
Roberts, all 
Democrats. Like the overwhelming majority of citizens,
they were not 
fully informed about depleted uranium. Their positions
on eliminating 
D.U. and promptly withdrawing the troops will be
announced on 
www.notinkansas.us. Now that you understand D.U., you
can oppose the 
position of many "Bush-lite" Democrats who want to
withdraw some troops 
but to increase the tonnage of D.U. bombs dropped in
civilian areas. 
Only ignorance prevents them from realizing this
policy will kill more 
American troops than Iraqi resistance fighters.
Imagine the long-range 
effects on 26 million Iraqi civilians. Do you want
that on your 
conscience?

Contact your representative about We're Not in Kansas
Anymore. Let us 
know their responses. Call your current representative
in Washington, 
D.C. at 1-800-426-8073. It's toll free. Warn them
about the devastating 
effects on our troops, and the residents of the Middle
East if Bush and 
Cheney launch a nuclear attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities. Such an 
action is a death warrant for most of our loved ones
in Iraq and 
Afghanistan.

Please don't just sit in your chair while a million
men and women--who 
volunteered to defend your freedoms--are exposed to a
triple whammy of 
deadly radiation and condemned to a slow and agonizing
death like a 
half million Gulf War vets before them.
---------
This is an abridged version of the third in a
comprehensive series on 
depleted uranium, Over the Rainbow, dedicated to the
New York National 
Guard to appear on the website We're Not in Kansas
Anymore, where you 
will find sources and a bibliography.
www.notinkansas.us.