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The Nation: The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet
Here's an article on D.U. and Gulf War vets. Any comments from the
military folk out there?
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Subject: The Nation: The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet
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This week's issue of The Nation (http://www.TheNation.com/) has a cover
story on the Pentagon's use of depleted uranium (DU) in the Gulf War.
Here's a copy of the article, which can also be found on their website at:
http://www.TheNation.com/issue/961021/1021mesl.htm
The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet
An investigative report
By Bill Mesler
It is about two feet long, cylindrical and far denser than steel.
When fired from a U.S. Army M1 Abrams tank, it is capable
of drilling a hole through the strongest of tank armors. The
makers of this tank-killing ammunition say it is the best in the
world. But there is one problem with the Pentagon's super
bullet: It is made of radioactive waste.
The first time the Army used this "depleted uranium" (D.U.)
ammunition on a battlefield was during the Gulf War, in 1991.
Yet despite Pentagon assurances that only a small number of
U.S. troops were exposed to dangerous levels of D.U., a
two-month investigation by The Nation has discovered that
hundreds and perhaps thousands of U.S. veterans were
unknowingly exposed to potentially hazardous levels of
depleted uranium, or uranium-238, in the Persian Gulf. Some
soldiers inhaled it when they pulled wounded comrades from
tanks hit by D.U. "friendly fire" or when they clambered into
destroyed Iraqi vehicles. Others picked up expended rounds
as war trophies. Thousands of other Americans were near
accidental explosions of D.U. munitions.
The Army never told combat engineer Dwayne Mowrer or
his fellow soldiers in the First Infantry Division much about
D.U. But the G.I.s learned how effective the radioactive
rounds were as the "Big Red One" made its way up the
carnage-ridden four-lane Kuwaiti road known as the
"highway of death." Mowrer and his company saw the unique
signature of a D.U. hit on nearly half the disabled Iraqi
vehicles encountered. "It leaves a nice round hole, almost like
someone had welded it out," Mowrer recalled.
What Mowrer and others didn't know was that D.U. is highly
toxic and, according to the Encyclopedia of Occupational
Health and Safety, can cause lung cancer, bone cancer and
kidney disease. All they heard were rumors.
"Once in a while you'd hear some guy say 'Hey, I heard those
things were radioactive,'" Mowrer said. "Of course,
everybody else says, 'Yeah, right!' We really thought we
were in the new enlightened Army. We thought all that Agent
Orange stuff and human radiation experiments were a thing of
the past."
So Mowrer and his comrades didn't worry when a forty-ton
HEMTT transport vehicle packed with D.U. rounds
accidentally exploded near their camp. "We heard this
tremendous boom and saw this black cloud blowing our
way," he said. "The cloud went right over us, blew right over
our camp."
Before they left the gulf, Mowrer and other soldiers in the
651st Combat Support Attachment began experiencing
strange flulike symptoms. He figured the symptoms would
fade once he was back in the United States. They didn't.
Mowrer's personal doctor and physicians at the local
Veterans Administration could find nothing wrong with him.
Meanwhile, his health worsened: fatigue, memory loss,
bloody noses and diarrhea. Then the single parent of two
began experiencing problems with motor skills, bloody stools,
bleeding gums, rashes and strange bumps on his eyelids, nose
and tongue. Mowrer thinks his problems can be traced to his
exposure to D.U.
The Pentagon says problems like Mowrer's could not have
been caused by D.U., a weapon that many Americans have
heard mentioned, if at all, only in the movie Courage Under
Fire, which was based on a real-life D.U. friendly-fire
incident. The Defense Department insists that D.U. radiation
is relatively harmless -- only about 60 percent as radioactive
as regular uranium. When properly encased, D.U. gives off so
little radiation, the Pentagon says, that a soldier would have to
sit surrounded by it for twenty hours to get the equivalent
radiation of one chest X-ray. (According to scientists, a D.U.
antitank round outside its metal casing can emit as much
radiation in one hour as fifty chest X-rays.) Plus, the military
brass argues that D.U. rounds so effectively destroyed Iraqi
tanks that the weapons saved many more U.S. lives than
radiation from them could possibly endanger.
But the Pentagon has a credibility gap. For years, it has
denied that U.S. soldiers in the Persian Gulf were exposed to
chemical weapons. In September Pentagon officials admitted
that troops were exposed when they destroyed Iraqi stores of
chemical weapons, as Congress held hearings on "Gulf War
Syndrome." The Pentagon also argued, in its own defense,
that exposure to chemical weapons could not fully explain the
diverse range of illnesses that have plagued thousands of
soldiers who served in the Persian Gulf. Exposure to D.U. --
our own weaponry, in other words -- could well be among
the missing links.
Scientists point out that D.U. becomes much more dangerous
when it burns. When fired, it combusts on impact. As much
as 70 percent of the material is released as a radioactive and
highly toxic dust that can be inhaled or ingested and then
trapped in the lungs or kidneys. "This is when it becomes
most dangerous," says Arjun Makhijani, president of the
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "It becomes
a powder in the air that can irradiate you." Some scientists
speculate that veterans' health problems stem from exposure
to chemical agents combined with D.U., burning oil-field
vapors and a new nerve-gas vaccine given to U.S. troops.
"We know that depleted uranium is toxic and can cause
diseases," said Dr. Howard Urnovitz, a microbiologist who
has testified before the Presidential Advisory Committee on
Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. "We also know these soldiers
were exposed to large amounts of nerve-gas agents. What
we don't know is how the combination of these toxic and
radioactive materials affect the immune system."
Exactly how many U.S. soldiers were exposed to dangerous
levels of D.U. during the Gulf War remains in dispute.
Friendly-fire incidents left at least twenty-two veterans with
D.U. shrapnel embedded in their bodies. The Veterans
Administration is also monitoring the health of eleven more
soldiers who were in tanks hit by D.U. but who were not hit
by shrapnel, and twenty-five soldiers who helped prepare
D.U.-contaminated tanks for shipment back to the United
States without being told of the risk. The tanks were later
buried in a radioactive waste disposal site run by the Energy
Department.
No Protection
The Nation investigation has also discovered that the average
infantry soldier is still receiving no training on how to protect
against exposure to D.U., although such training was called
for by an Army report on depleted uranium completed in June
1995. On the training lapses, the Pentagon does
acknowledge past mistakes. Today the Army is providing
new training in D.U. safety procedures for more soldiers,
particularly members of armor, ordnance or medical teams
that handle D.U. on a routine basis. "I feel confident that if an
individual soldier has a need to know, they will be provided
that training from the basic level on," Army Col. H.E. Wolfe
told The Nation. But Wolfe confirmed that even now, not all
infantry will get D.U. training.
Although the full hazards of these weapons are still not
known, the law allows the President to waive restrictions on
the sale of D.U. to foreign armies. Documents obtained under
the Freedom of Information Act show that the Pentagon has
already sold the radioactive ammunition to Thailand, Taiwan,
Bahrain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Korea, Turkey,
Kuwait and other countries which the Pentagon will not
disclose for national security reasons. The proliferation of
D.U. ammunition around the world boosts the chances that
U.S. soldiers will eventually be on the receiving end of the
devastating weapon.
A broad coalition of veterans organizations, environmental
groups and scientists hope that won't happen. On September
12, they met in NewYork to kick off a campaign calling for
an international ban on D.U. weapons. Even the
conservative-minded Veterans of Foreign Wars and the
American Legion recently passed resolutions calling on the
Defense Department to reconsider its use of the controversial
weapon.
"Clearly the Department of Defense hasn't thought through the
use of D.U. on the battlefield and what kind of exposures
they are subjecting our troops to," charged Matt Puglisi, the
assistant director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation for the
American Legion. "It is a very effective weapon, which is why
the D.O.D. really doesn't want to see it re-examined. We
only spent a couple of days [in winning the Gulf War]. But
what if we had a fight that took years and years? We could
have tens of thousands of vets with D.U. shrapnel in them."
The Gulf War Test
The U.S. Army began introducing D.U. ammo into its
stockpiles in 1978, when the United States and the Soviet
Union were engaged in intense competition over which side
would develop the most effective tank. Washington feared
that the Soviets with their T-72 had jumped ahead in the
development of armor that was nearly impenetrable by
traditional weapons. It was thought that D.U. rounds could
counter the improved Soviet armor. But not until Iraq's
Soviet-supplied army invaded oil-rich Kuwait and President
Bush sent an expeditionary force of 500,000 to dislodge it
was there a chance to battle-test the D.U. rounds.
American M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley armored personnel
carriers fired D.U. rounds; the A-10 Warthog aircraft, which
provided close support for combat troops, fired twin
30-millimeter guns with small-caliber D.U. bullets. All told, in
the 100 hours of the February ground war, U.S. tanks fired at
least 14,000 large-caliber D.U. rounds, and U.S. planes
some 940,000 smaller-caliber rounds. D.U. rounds left about
1,400 Iraqi tanks smoldering in the desert. Gen. Norman
Schwarzkopf recalled one commander saying his unit "went
through a whole field of burning Iraqi tanks."
The D.U. weapons succeeded beyond the Pentagon's wildest
dreams. But they received little public attention compared
with the fanfare over other high-tech weapons: smart bombs,
stealth fighters and Patriot missiles (which looked good, even
if they didn't, as it turned out, work). D.U., perhaps the most
effective new weapon of them all, was mentioned only in
passing. "People have a fear of radioactivity and radioactive
materials," explained Dan Fahey, a former Navy officer who
served in the gulf. "The Army seems to think that if they are
going to keep using D.U., the less they tell people about it the
better."
As the U.S.-led coalition forces swept to victory, many
celebrating G.I.s scrambled onto -- or into -- disabled Iraqi
vehicles. "When you get a lot of soldiers out on a battlefield,
they are going to be curious," observed Chris Kornkven, a
staff sergeant with the 304th Combat Support Company.
"The Gulf War was the first time we saw Soviet tanks. Many
of us started climbing around these destroyed vehicles."
Indeed, a study by the Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm
Association found that out of 10,051 Gulf War veterans who
have reported mysterious illnesses, 82 percent had entered
captured enemy vehicles.
Other soldiers might have been exposed to harmful levels of
D.U. as they rescued comrades from vehicles hit by friendly
fire. A Gulf War photo book, Triumph in the Desert,
contains one dramatic picture of soldiers pulling wounded
Americans from the burning hull of an Abrams tank that had
been hit by a D.U. round. Black smoke from the
depleted-uranium explosion billows around the rescuers. Still
other G.I.s picked up fragments of large-caliber D.U. rounds
or unexploded small rounds and wore them as jewelry, hung
around the soldiers' necks. "We didn't know any better," said
Kornkven. "We didn't find out until long after we were home
that there even was such a thing as D.U."
But the Americans facing perhaps the greatest risk from D.U.
were those who had been hit by D.U. shrapnel, especially
those still carrying radioactive fragments in their bodies.
Robert Sanders, who drove a tank, was one apparent
casualty. On the third day of the ground war, his tank was hit
by a D.U. round fired from another U.S. tank. "I had stinging
pain in my shoulder and a stinging pain in my face from
shrapnel," Sanders said.
Military doctors removed the shrapnel. Several years later,
however, Sanders heard that D.U. was radioactive and toxic,
so he obtained his medical records. He found an
interdepartmental fax saying doctors had removed bits of an
"unknown metal" from his shoulder and that it was "probably
D.U." Four years after he was wounded, Sanders took a
urine test for depleted uranium, which revealed high levels of
it in his system. The Pentagon had never made an effort to tell
him of his likely exposure.
Even the end of the ground war on February 28, 1991, did
not end the threat of exposure to U.S. soldiers. Government
documents reveal that in one accident alone, at a camp at
Doha, about twelve miles from Kuwait City, as many as 660
rounds weighing 7,062 pounds burned, releasing dark clouds
of D.U. particles. Many of the 3,000 U.S. troops stationed at
the base participated in cleanup operations without protective
gear and without knowledge of the potential dangers.
The Aftermath
At war's end, U.S. forces left behind about 300 tons of
expended D.U. ammunition in Kuwait and Iraq, a veritable
radioactive waste dump that could haunt inhabitants of the
region for years. In August 1995, Iraq presented a study to
the United Nations demonstrating sharp increases in leukemia
and other cancers as well as other unexplained diseases
around the Basra region in the country's south. Iraqi scientists
attributed some of the cancers to depleted uranium.
Some U.S. officials and scientists have questioned the Iraqi
claims. But former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who has
made two recent trips to Iraq, observes that "the health
ministry and doctors particularly in Basra and the south are
terribly concerned about a range of problems that were not
experienced before: fetuses with tumors, high rates of
leukemia." And a secret British Atomic Energy Authority
report leaked to the London Independent in November
1991 warned that there was enough depleted uranium left
behind in the Persian Gulf to account for "500,000 potential
deaths" through increased cancer rates, although it noted that
such a figure was an unlikely, worst-case scenario. That figure
was based on an estimate that only forty tons of D.U. was left
behind.
Another study, by Siegwart Gunther, president of the
Austrian chapter of Yellow Cross International, reported that
D.U. projectiles "were gathered by children and used as
toys." The study noted that a little girl who collected twelve of
the projectiles died of leukemia. Gunther collected some D.U.
rounds in southern Iraq and took them to Germany for
analysis. However, when Gunther entered Germany, the D.U.
rounds were seized. The authorities claimed that just one
projectile emitted more radiation in five hours than is allowed
per year under German regulations.
Cleaning up the radioactive mess in the Persian Gulf would
cost "billions," even if it were feasible, said Leonard Dietz, an
atomic scientist who wrote a report on depleted uranium for
the Energy Department. But the Pentagon maintained in a
report that "no international law, treaty, regulation, or custom
requires the U.S. to remediate Operation Desert
Shield/Desert Storm battlefields."
Those who suggest otherwise have found that they must fight
the military industry as well as the Pentagon. In January 1993
Eric Hoskins, a public health specialist who surveyed Iraq as
a member of a Harvard team, wrote an Op-Ed in The New
York Times warning that D.U. may be causing health
problems in Iraqi children. A few weeks later a harsh letter to
the editor accused Hoskins of "making readers of limited
scientific literacy the lawful prey of his hyperbole," which
reaches the "bizarre conclusion that the environmental
aftermath of the Persian Gulf war is not Iraq's fault, but ours!"
The author, Russell Seitz, was identified as an associate with
the "Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University."
Though the letter appeared to be the work of a neutral
scientist, the Olin Institute at Harvard was established by the
John M. Olin Foundation, which grew out of the
manufacturing fortune created by the Olin Corporation,
currently the nation's only maker of D.U. antitank rounds.
Seitz did not answer a request from The Nation seeking
comment.
Despite the Pentagon's love affair with D.U., there is an
alternative -- tank ammunition made from tungsten. Matt
Kagan, a former munitions analyst for Jane's Defence
Weekly, said the latest developments in tungsten technology
have made it "almost as effective as D.U." That assessment is
shared by Bill Arkin, a columnist for The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists who has consulted on D.U. for
Greenpeace and Human Rights Watch. "It comes down to
this," Arkin said. "Is there a logical alternative that provides
the same military capability and doesn't leave us with this
legacy? The answer is yes, tungsten."
But tungsten is more expensive and must be imported, while
the United States has more than 500,000 tons of depleted
uranium, waste left behind by the production of nuclear
weapons and by nuclear generators. Scientists have long
looked for a way to re-use what otherwise must be stored at
great expense in remote sites.
"It's just a cost issue," argued Arkin. "But nobody ever
thought through what would happen when we shoot a lot of
this stuff around the battlefield. It's not a question of whether
a thousand soldiers were exposed or fifty soldiers were
exposed. We were probably lucky in the Gulf War. What
happens when we're fighting a war that makes the Gulf War
look like small potatoes?"
Bill Mesler is a reporter working with the Investigative
Fund of The Nation Institute.
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