Fw: Depleted Uranium:- Excellent summary of science and politics

 

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From: Karim A G

To: Karim A G

Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 1:56 PM

Subject: Depleted Uranium: Lessons in "Humanitarian" and Other Warfare

 

 

Depleted Uranium: Lessons in "Humanitarian" and Other Warfare

by Jeremy R. Hammond

June 2, 2005

 

Depleted uranium, or DU, is produced through the process of enrichment, in which the concentration of the U235 isotope of uranium is increased. For every 1 ton of enriched uranium resulting from the process, another 7 tons of “depleted” uranium are produced as a byproduct. Several hundreds of thousands of tons of DU are currently stockpiled in the United States.[1]

 

DU is heavy, nearly twice as dense as lead, and is used by weapons manufacturers because its properties allow munitions tipped with DU to effectively penetrate armor, and also because the use of such munitions also relieves governments of the responsibility to properly store DU.[2] And while the adjective “depleted” is used to describe the material because of its lower concentration of the U235 isotope, it is still both radioactive and chemically toxic. As Dan Fahey, a leading expert on DU, has put it, “The adjective depleted by no means diminishes the chemical and radioactive properties of DU, but it can affect how people perceive DUs risks.”[3] When a DU weapon strikes its target, it forms a fine aerosol of uranium oxides, which can be spread by the wind and inhaled by humans into the lungs, from where it can to other areas in the body.[4]

 

Weapons manufacturers and Pentagon officials are quick to point out that “depleted” uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium and claim that there are no adverse effects from exposure to DU. They are equally quick to make claims about its incredible effectiveness on the battlefield. In a briefing on DU, a Defense Department spokesperson explained that uranium was preferred over tungsten because it “has a characteristic that allows it to sharpen itself as it penetrates the target. The uranium shreds off the sides of the penetrator instead of squashing or mushrooming.”[5] Its first major use in combat was during the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon has acknowledged that at least 320 tons of DU remained on the ground after the war.[6]

 

But while the Pentagon claims that DU poses no significant health risk, Iraqi doctors have long claimed that the numbers of cancer cases and birth defects have increased dramatically since the war, and that the increase is due to the use of DU munitions.[7] Kudhim Ali, an oncologist at a cancer clinic in Basra, said in 1998 that “Since 1991 the number of cancer cases has increased five to six times over what it was.”[8] Abdel Karim Hassan Sabr, deputy director of the Hospital for Maternity and Children in Basra reported that the rate of birth defects at the hospital rose from 1.8 percent in 1993 to more than 4 percent by 2001.[9]

 

But reports from the Iraqi government on the health effects resulting from the use of DU weapons have been long dismissed by the US as propaganda. In one instructive example, the White House website published a report entitled “Apparatus of Lies” that states, “In recent years, the Iraqi regime has made substantial efforts to promote the false claim that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of children with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium.” This “campaign has two major propaganda assets”, which are that “Uranium is a name that has frightening associations in the mind of the average person, which makes the lie relatively easy to sell”, and that “Iraq could take advantage of an established international network of antinuclear activists who had already launched their own campaign against depleted uranium.”[10] There is little doubt that the Iraqi government has exploited the issue for propaganda purposes, but the possibility that there might be some truth to the Iraqi claims is, in such a manner, totally disregarded by the US government.

 

Many also believe there is a link between DU and the “Gulf War syndrome” which many veterans suffered after returning home from the war. There have also been reports of increased rates of birth defects among children of Gulf War veterans.[11] One study performed by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of medicine who also formerly served as a US colonel, found a “significant presence” of DU in two-thirds of the 17 veterans he tested. Speaking to the European Associations of Nuclear Medicine at a conference in Paris, he said, “Some of those particles were inhaled, and if they were too big to be absorbed they stayed in the lungs, and there they can present a risk of cancer.”[12]

 

In April, 2004, the New York Daily News conducted an investigation into the health effects of DU in Gulf War veterans. The Pentagon claimed that it has tested about 1000 veterans for DU, with only three coming up positive. But the paper’s investigation found four who came up positive for DU – out of only 9 tested.[13] After this story was published, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked to have a laboratory screening arranged. He had been ill since returning from the Gulf War. A subsequent story reported that

One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation whenever he urinated. The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain what was wrong. Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette. The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand. Matthew and his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of birth defects in either of their families. They have seen photos of Iraqi babies born with deformities that are eerily similar.

After learning of his child’s deformity, Matthew asked the Army to test him for DU – but he never received the results. When he called to learn what had been the result of his urine sample, he was told that there was no record of his urine specimen. The test arranged by the Daily News found Matthew positive for DU.[14]

 

Leuren Moret is a leading anti-DU activist. In August 2004, she wrote an article in the San Francisco Bay View stating that

Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems. The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year.

Accordingt to Moret, one study of 251 veterans who all had healthy children before the Gulf War showed that “67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases.”[15]

 

Dr. Doug Rokke is a former US army colonel who was sent by the Army as a health physicist to the Gulf in 1991 to advise on cleanup procedures involving depleted uranium. According to Rokke, at least 30 members – nearly one-third of his entire team – are now seriously ill (himself included), and several others have died from cancer.[16] “According to the Department of Defense’s own guidelines put out in 1992,” says Rokke, “any excretion level in the urine above 15 micrograms of uranium per day should result in immediate medical testing, and when you get up to 250 micrograms of total uranium excreted per day, you’re suppose to be under continuous medical care…. My excretion rate was approximately 1500 micrograms per day.”[17]

“Since 1991,” Rokke has said, “numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown. That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem.” The procedures his team developed for training and management with regard to DU were ignored.[18]

 

Rokke’s team, uninformed about the dangers of DU, studied vehicles struck by DU shells during the Gulf War. Soldiers who died from DU explosions came to be called “crispy critters” by the team because they were so badly burned.[19] “When uranium munitions hit,” says Rokke, “it’s like a firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, and so we saw tremendous burns, tremendous injuries. It was devastating.” Besides contaminating Iraq with DU, “The US military decided to blow up Saddam’s chemical, biological, and radiological stockpiles in place, which released the contamination back on the US troops and on everybody in the whole region.”[20]

 

Rokke’s experience as an expert appointed by the Army to study DU in Iraq has led him to one unavoidable conclusion, which is that “uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity…” In an interview with YES! Magazine, Rokke, who was in the military for 35 years, observed: “When you reach a point in war that the contamination and the health effects of war can’t be cleaned up because of the weapons you use, and medical care can’t be given to the soldiers who participated in the war on either side or to the civilians affected, then it’s time for peace.”[21]

 

Since the Gulf War, DU has also been used in the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and in Bosnia in 1994-95. According to the Pentagon, 31,000 rounds of DU were used in Kosovo and around 10,800 rounds were used around Sarajevo.[22] A United Nations task force asked NATO to provide information on specific areas contaminated with DU immediately after the end of the Kosovo campaign. NATO didn’t respond until eight months later – to confirm that 10 tons of DU had indeed been dropped on Kosovo and Serbia. It took another seven months, under increasing pressure from among European allies, before NATO disclosed the locations of a number of contaminated sites, and several months more before the organization finally posted warnings at those sites.[23]

 

A UN sub-commission, meanwhile, called for an initiative to ban the use of DU. But the initiative has been blocked by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project. According to Parker, international humanitarian law recognizes four standards which weapons must meet to be considered legal. Weapons may not “have an adverse affect off the legal field of battle”, defined as “legal military targets of the enemy in war”; may not continue to act after cessation of hostilities; may not be inhumane; and may not have significant negative effects on the environment. According to Parker, “Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules.”[24] In August 2002, a UN sub-committee determined that the use of DU violated the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 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.[25] 

 

Moreover, the commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, a sub-commission of the UN Commission on Human Rights, passed a resolution on August 29, 1996, categorizing DU munitions as weapons of mass destruction by urging “all States to be guided in their national policies by the need to curb the production and the spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium”.[26] 

 

While NATO was pressured to release data on the use of DU to assist in studies of the aftermath of the war, the information finally given was not detailed enough to allow “an accurate field assessment of the environmental and human health consequences”, according to the United Nations’ Balkan Task Force (which later became the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit, or PCAU). In its report on the environmental aftermath of the Balkan conflict, the UN said it had been “forced to rely on available published information” due to the reluctance of NATO to assist with more detailed information.[27]

 

Yugoslav authorities accused NATO of polluting the environment, noting attacks on oil refineries and chemical factories in addition to the use of DU, and claimed that the number of DU rounds used by NATO forces was substantially higher than claimed.[28] Italy joined in the criticism of NATO and called upon the organization to give a full account of its use of DU following the deaths of several soldiers who served in the Balkans from cancer.[29] In early 2001, European Commission President Roman Prodi demanded an investigation into the claims that DU had caused deaths or illnesses, and several more European nations echoed his concerns. NATO dismissed the claims, saying that DU poses only a “negligible hazard”.[30] Germany also joined Italy in calling for a ban on DU munitions until it could be proven that they were truly harmless.[31] And despite NATO’s continued claims that DU posed no significant health threat, a German Defense Ministry document was released that showed that NATO had warned in July 1999 of a “possible toxic threat” and advised soldiers and aid workers to take “preventative measures”.[32] At the same time, briefings on the dangers of DU weapons had been cancelled for 1,000 British servicemen who were sent to Kosovo because of “pressure on the course programme.”[33]

 

Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands followed Italy in reporting a number of cancer cases among veterans who had served in the Balkans, while others complained of symptoms reminiscent of the “Gulf War syndrome”. Despite increasing concerns among European allies, the US continued to dismiss the claims. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, answered the criticisms by saying that “There’s absolutely no proof that there’s a connection” between DU and health concerns, such as increased risks of cancer. “It’s a very effective weapon”, responded a special adviser to the NATO Secretary General. “The medical consensus believes it does not pose health problems. It’s got less radiation than the normal uranium that can be found in your own backyard.” But besides being radioactive, DU is also chemically toxic, and as the 1999 NATO memo had warned, there is also “residual heavy metal toxicity in armored vehicles” struck by DU that could pose health risks to people who came into contact with them.[34]

 

This was not the first time that the public claims of proponents of the use DU munitions were contradicted by their own internal reports. According to a report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute from before the Gulf War, “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological. Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposure.”[35] After the Gulf War, the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute found that it is DU’s toxicity, rather than its radioactivity, that posed the greater threat and could cause damage to the immune system and central nervous system, as well as contributing to the risk of cancer. Another Army-funded study found that DU caused cancer when implanted in laboratory animals.[36] In 1991, according to Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle, a study by Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority that was suppressed by the British government until 1998 estimated that the use of DU in the Gulf War could result in hundreds of thousands of “potential deaths from cancer.”[37] A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute stated that “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences.”[38]

 

A United States Defense Nuclear Agency memorandum that was delivered to Doug Rokke’s team stated: “As Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), ground combat units, and civil populations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq come increasingly into contact with DU ordnance, we must prepare to deal with potential problems. Toxic war souvenirs, political furor, and post conflict clean up (host nation agreement) are only some of the issues that must be addressed. Alpha particles (uranium oxide dust) from expended rounds is a health concern but, Beta particles from fragments and intact rounds is a serious health threat, with possible exposure rates of 200 millirads per hour on contact.”[39]

 

In 1998, the Pentagon acknowledged that “Combat troops or those carrying out support functions generally did not know that DU contaminated equipment such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds required special handling. The failure to properly disseminate such information to troops at all levels may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures.”[40] This “failure”, however, was unlikely to have been a mere oversight. A July 1990 Army report predicted that, “Following combat, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU for military applications”, and added that DU is “linked to cancer when exposures are internal.”[41]

 

Similarly, a 1991 memo from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico entitled “The Effectiveness of Depleted Uranium Penetrators” was also sent to Doug Rokke’s team.[42] The memo noted that there was “a relatively small amount of lethality data for uranium penetrators”, but that the belief was “that DU penetrators were very effective against Iraqi armor”, adding that “assessments of such will have to be made.” The memo went on to argue that “proponency” should be “garnerned” in order that “a valuable combat capability” should not be lost. To this end, the memo noted: “There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal.”[43]

 

Leuren Moret has commented on the origins of nuclear material for use in munitions. “The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons,” she writes

is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project. Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent. Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly. They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust.[44]

Dan Fahey, a Navy veteran who has studied and written extensively about DU[45], has observed that

In order to ensure the continued use of DU munitions and avoid responsibility for environmental cleanup and health care costs, DoD spokesmen have lied about the health of US Gulf War veterans exposed to DU and exaggerated the importance of DU rounds. In addition, the US government has so far refused to conduct a thorough study of the health of the thousands of Gulf War veterans it acknowledges were exposed to DU, enabling DoD spokesmen to plausibly but deceptively deny the existence of evidence linking DU to veterans health problems.[46]

The Pentagon has responded to earlier revelations from its own internal documents about the health hazards associated with DU by claiming that scientific research contradicting those earlier findings has since occurred.[47] In particular, a RAND Corporation study, sponsored by the Department of Defense, found that no Gulf War veterans were exposed to enough DU to cause any health problems. As Dan Fahey has noted, the Department of Defense

is using the RAND report not only to argue that not one Gulf War veteran could be sick from depleted uranium poisoning, but also to assert that the use of depleted uranium munitions in current and future conflicts poses no risk to human health. This position contradicts many pre- and post-Gulf War military reports and documents which acknowledge health risks to armed forces and civilian populations following the use of DU ammunition in combat.

The fundamental problem with the RAND study, Fahey writes, is that

The assumption that not one Gulf War veteran could have been exposed to enough depleted uranium to cause any health problems is inherently flawed and it undermines the overall conclusions of the RAND report. The fact is no one can state with any reliable degree of certainty how much depleted uranium individual Gulf War veterans may have inhaled or ingested in single and multiple exposure incidents during and after the war. The baseline data for such an assessment is missing: no risk assessments of depleted uranium on the battlefield were performed after the war and a only a small sub-group of the veterans believed to be most heavily exposed were tested and examined two years after their exposure.

Furthermore, “No one is willing to explain why not even one veteran was tested after the war for a DU exposure, in blatant violation of U.S. Army safety regulations. To protect the careers of current and future military commanders, the U.S. Army has re-written its regulations to deny medical testing for soldiers exposed to DU in combat.”[48]

Other researchers have pointed out that many studies, including those produced by the World Health Organization and the RAND Corporation, failed to closely examine the effects from the inhalation of DU, which is regarded as the most dangerous form of exposure. Leonard Dietz, a research associate of the Uranium Medical Research Centre, said that the fact that no governmental study has examined inhaled DU “amounts to a massive malpractice.” Dietz was part of a study published in the Military Medicine journal that looked at inhaled DU in Gulf War veterans. The study found that, nine years later, 14 out of 27 veterans excreted DU in their urine.[49] 

 

Also contrary to the Pentagon’s repeated declarations, other studies also continue to show that there are health risks associated with DU. A 1997 British Ministry of Defense document warned that “Inhalation of insoluble uranium dioxide dust will lead to an accumulation in the lungs with very slow clearance – if any”, adding that “Although chemical toxicity is low, there may be localized radiation damage of the lung leading to cancer.” In a passage under the heading “Risk assessment relating to Gulf war uranium exposure”, the document stated that “All personnel…should be aware that uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk…[and] has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers.”[50]

 

A 2001 WHO report recommended that “Where practicable, areas where significant DU contamination actually or potentially exists should be cordoned off until a survey has determined that it is safe for habitation. If levels warrant a clean-up of the area, the cordons should be retained and appropriately adjusted for actual conditions until results of a final status survey show the area is safe for unrestricted access.” The report added that “collecting of intact or fragmented DU penetrators or other equipment containing DU for souvenirs or fabrication into other products should be actively discouraged.”[51]

 

In January 2001, the European Parliament called for a ban on the use of DU while investigations into its possible effect on the health of those who are exposed to it are carried out.[52] The European Commission ordered an investigation, and in March a panel of experts found no evidence that DU had an effect on human health. Professor Ian McAulay, who headed the panel, said, “I don’t think there is any reason to be afraid.” However, the panel seems to have focused primarily on the possible effects of radiation, but at the same time noted the possibility that the toxicity of DU may be of more concern. Despite there not being “any reason to be afraid”, McAualay also determined that “Warning signs should be put up where there are large concentrations of depleted uranium.”[53]

 

Other scientists questioned the EU panel’s findings. Malcolm Hooper, a professor of chemistry at the University of Sunderland, told the BBC that “Any inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium is a health hazard. It emits alpha radiation. There is published work showing that there is no safety threshold for internal alpha radiation – one alpha particle is enough to cause a mutation in a gene.” Referring to the panel’s findings, he asked, “Are these researchers saying all this earlier work is wrong?”[54]

 

Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published its findings on the impact of DU in Kosovo, concluding that the “radiological and chemical risks are insignificant” - after finding no widespread ground contamination in the areas investigated, which were limited due to the lack of cooperation from NATO. The group did, however, express concern for the safety of groundwater, saying that there was a risk of contamination. They also called for a similar examination of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and recommended several precautions, including the removal of radioactive shrapnel, decontamination of affected areas, and instructions for locals on what to do if a contaminated site is found.[55] The team also found low levels of radioactivity at a number of sites where DU weapons were used and warned its personnel to avoid those areas.[56]

 

In January 2001, the World Health Organization responded to requests from Iraq for an international inquiry into the use of DU by announcing that it was planning to perform a study to determine whether the increases in cancer and birth defects were attributable to DU.[57] The WHO had sent a mission to Iraq in 1995 to look at the cancer issue and provide advice. A second mission was sent in August 1998 to advise on potential investigations into the growing cases of leukemia.[58] But no study on the relationship between DU and the growing health concerns in Iraq had ever been performed. The growing concern in Europe over the weapons (which could not be dismissed as Iraqi “propaganda”) played no small role in Iraq’s pleas for an investigation finally receiving some attention from the international community.[59] In August, the WHO announced that it would send a delegation to Baghdad to investigate the reports of increased rates of cancer and birth defects.[60] A WHO spokesman said, “The Iraqis have been saying for a while that there has been an increase in cancers caused by depleted uranium. If we have determined there has been an increase, then we will look at possible causes.”[61]

 

According to Dr. Alim Yacoub, dean of the medical school at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the WHO project was blocked by UN sanctions, which prevented the necessary radiology equipment from being imported.[62] I contacted Dan Fahey to ask if he had any information on what became of the WHO mission, and he said that according to one of his sources, the project was blocked by the government of Iraq, which wanted a level of control over the study that was unacceptable to the WHO. For example, Iraq wanted to choose which sites and hospitals could be visited and did not want any samples removed from the country. Dr. Michael Kilpatrick said in a Department of Defense briefing that “The World Health Organization went into that area [around Basra] and took a look at what it would take to do the appropriate epidemiological medical studies to understand why are people ill in this area of the world. They laid out that requirement of that kind of study and said the World Health Organization is capable and willing to do this. And the government of Iraq said no.”[63] Little has been reported on what became of the WHO mission, and just what occurred is largely unknown and shrouded in ambiguity.

 

In February 2004, Scotland’s Sunday Herald reported that a WHO sponsored study concluding that inhalation of DU could lead to cancer was “suppressed”. Dr Keith Baverstock, the principle author of the report, which was completed in 2001, and the WHO’s top expert on radiation and health for 11 years, alleges that it was deliberately kept secret. “Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock said, adding that “There is increasing scientific evidence the radioactivity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed.” According to one WHO official, “The article was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect accurately what a WHO-convened group of international experts considered the best science in the area of depleted uranium.” In other words, it was not considered fit to print because the report contradicted earlier findings. Among the report’s conclusions were that DU particles, which can be blown around by wind, are likely to be inhaled by civilians for years to come and that once inside the body, its radiation and toxicity could lead to the growth of malignant tumors and an increased risk of cancer.[64]

 

Iraq also proposed that the UN itself study the effects of DU. In November, a report from Reuters noted that the Iraq Health Ministry had reported an increase in cancer cases from 6,555 in 1989 to 10,931 in 1997, “especially in areas bombed during the war”, but that, “After lobbying by Washington, the General Assembly rejected yesterday an Iraqi proposal that the UN study the effects of the depleted-uranium shells by US-led forces in the Gulf War.”[65]

 

Leuren Moret has also alleged that there has been a widespread cover-up of the effects of DU. In just one example, “A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only. Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.”[66]

 

There are historical precedents for such a cover up. According to a 1994 congressional report, “Approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite [blister gas]. Most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical followup after their participation in the research. Additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents and family doctors. For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing.”[67]

 

“Military men,” Henry Kissinger is alleged to have said, “are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”[68] That mindset seems to hold true for policy makers at the Department of Defense.

 

Reports on the potential dangers of DU, meanwhile, have continued to emerge. In 2001, the Royal Society, one of the United Kingdom’s premier scientific bodies, released a report saying that “It should be incumbent on nations using DU munitions in future conflicts to advise the local population of the potential dangers of handling fragments of penetrators.”[69] In March, 2002, another Royal Society report was released, which concluded that inhaling or swallowing high levels of DU could lead to kidney failure within days, and that there are long-term risks for children who play in contaminated areas.[70] 

 

In March 2003, UNEP released its report from its investigation of DU in Bosnia and Herzogovina. The report notes that “there has been very little scientific fieldwork with proper measurements as well as laboratory work outside of the military community”, making it “difficult to come to any significant conclusions.” Despite this, four “new and significant findings” are found in the report. First, analysis of surface soil samples “revealed low levels of localized ground contamination.” Second, DU penetrators buried beneath the surface had corroded, losing 25% of their mass over a 7 years period. Third, DU contamination was found in drinking water at one site, and while the doses found “are insignificant for any health risk”, the report adds that “because the mechanism that governs the contam

posted Thursday, 2 June 2005