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du info bulletin no 61

Pandora du project | 16.11.2002 16:45

Regular update of Depleted Uranium news,

DU Info Bulletin no 61

1) Pandora website

Veteran News
2) US asked not to use DU arms against Baghdad
3) War Veterans Gather To Stop A New War
4) Gulf War illness

DU News
5) U.N. team discovers three radioactive sites in Bosnia
6) War in Iraq could kill half-a-million: Doctor's group says
7) Bunker-busters set to go nuclear
8) Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
9) Medical consequences of attacking Iraq
10) Iraq war could unleash oil spills, toxins: experts say
11) Depleted Uranium: UN addresses issue

New Research
12) Uranium Medical Research Center – latest reports





Pandora Website update
Pandora’s website is finally fully (fingers crossed) functional. We have a lot of new reports from Iraq on it, plus many other veteran and civilian studies. The site can be found at www.pandoraproject.org.




US asked not to use DU arms against Baghdad
The Frontier Post (Pakistan) November 11, 2002

“US forces must refrain from using depleted uranium weapons like the ones they used in Afghanistan in their possible attack on Iraq,” said the discoverer of Gulf War syndrome, Dr. Asef Dracovic, in an interview with Al-Jazeera television.He warned against the syndrome and said that if U.S. forces use depleted uranium (DU) in the threatened attack on Iraq, as they did in Afghanistan, it would have very serious implications. Dracovic said that U.S. forces used more DU weapons in Afghanistan than they used in the Persian Gulf War and the Balkans wars, adding that if the same amounts were used in Iraq, it would have terrible consequences. He stated that thousands of DU bombs were used by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. About 80,000 U.S., 15,000 Canadian, and a large number of British soldiers are suffering from Gulf War syndrome, but unfortunately the media has covered up the whole issue under pressure from the U.S. administration. Meanwhile, in recent days there have been numerous reports about the birth of many disabled and deformed children in Afghanistan. A large number of health specialists in Afghanistan as well as international observers, including one of the officials of a local hospital, regard the increased number of birth defects in Afghanistan to be the direct result of the U.S dropping DU bombs on Afghanistan.
 http://frontierpost.com.pk/main.asp?id=20&date1=11/11/2002

War Veterans Gather To Stop A New War

-- [ Angry military veterans attack "an administration of chickenhawks"
who demand the blood of another generation of US soldiers and marines --
blood these macho-posturing, drum-beating hyper-"patriotic" middle age
warriors refused to risk in their youth. ] --

By Stewart Nusbaumer

An enthusiastic crowd of approximately 350 military veterans jammed the
hall of the Martin Luther King Labor Center in New York City yesterday
to oppose a war with Iraq. The largest meeting of antiwar veterans in
many years, the "Protest Meeting & Speakout Against War with Iraq and In
Defense of Constitutional Rights" attracted a diverse group of veterans
and their spouses. All, however, agreed an invasion of Iraq is wrong;
all appeared to express a determination that the Bush Administration
must be stopped.

"This is crazy," said Ed a Navy veteran of World War II, "I really think
the Bush people don't care about the guys in the military. They only
care about the oil and the money."
 http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op==modload&name==News&file==article&sid=#8





Gulf War illness
DAVE PARKS News staff writer
In a stunning about-face, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday a substantial research initiative based on evidence that many ailing veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War may be suffering from brain damage caused by toxic exposures. The announcement came after a British study discounted stress as a significant cause of mysterious health problems reported by Gulf War veterans and an advisory committee concluded that scientific evidence pointed to neurological damage. The VA said it plans to make available up to $20 million during fiscal year 2004 for research into Gulf War illnesses. That's twice as much as the agency has spent during any previous year on the problem, the VA said. The VA cited studies that used brain-scanning technology to show a neurological basis for health problems reported by some ailing veterans. The initial studies in this area were conducted on a group of sick veterans who served in the Gulf War with a Seabee unit based in Alabama. In addition to increased funding for research, the VA said it will create a center dedicated to medical imaging technologies to better understand Gulf War illnesses as well as other conditions. "Science is finally beginning to unravel the mysteries of Gulf War illnesses," VA Deputy Secretary Dr. Leo S. Mackay Jr. said in a prepared statement. "And finally, there is reason for hope."
Mackay announced the initiative at a meeting of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses. VA Secretary Anthony Principi appointed the committee in January. Its members include activists and scientists who have been critical for years of the government's efforts to discount Gulf War health problems as a reaction to stress. Dr. Robert Haley, a committee member and chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said Thursday's announcement shut the door on the stress theory. "It's dead as a doornail," he said.
 http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard .x sl?/base/news/103614765675100.xml ========================================================== VA shifts on 1


DU NEWS

U.N. team discovers three radioactive sites in Bosnia
By Ivana Avramovic, Stars and Stripes
TUZLA, Bosnia and Herzegovina — United Nations Environment Program experts said Monday they have discovered three radioactive sites in Bosnia. “Seven years after the conflict, [depleted uranium] still remains an environmental concern, and therefore it is vital that we have the scientific facts, based upon which we can give clear recommendations how to minimize any risk,” said Klaus Töpfer, executive director of environmental program. The 17-member team took almost 200 environmental samples from 15 locations around the country. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine also examined medical data and statistics from three hospitals in the Federation, the Muslim-Croat controlled part of the country, and the Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated part. Bosnian scientists joined the U.N. team on several occasions, according to organizers. The team found radioactive “hot spots” and pieces of depleted uranium weapons in the tank-repair facility and ammunition storage area in Hadzici, a city just outside Sarajevo, and in the Han Pijesak military barracks, about 50 miles northeast of Sarajevo.
 http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=11555





Radioactivity Detected in Bosnia Where NATO Used
Depleted Uranium Shells

VOA [Voice of America] News
November 11, 2002


United Nations environmental experts have said they
have detected radioactivity in three areas of Bosnia
where NATO forces used depleted uranium shells during
an air strike in 1995.
U.N. Environment Program officials Monday warned
against deploying forces in those areas for fear of a
possible health risk coming from the radioactive
material.
The head of the U.N. team, Pekka Haavisto, said the
three places of concern were an ammunition storage
site near Sarajevo, a nearby tank repair factory and a
military barracks in Han Pijesak in eastern Bosnia.
The areas were hit by NATO air strikes using depleted
uranium armor-piercing rounds in 1995 as part of an
effort to curb attacks by Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Investigators had probed 14 sites over the past month.

NATO authorities last year launched a probe into the
possible link between the use of depleted uranium
ammunition in the Balkans and increased cancer rates
among peacekeepers who had served in the area. But a
committee reported that medical research so far had
not proved any link between the weapons and the health
problems.
Some information for this report provided by AP and
AFP.
 http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=2E04BFCA-5B02-4AB4-AB6D812B566B5214


War in Iraq could kill half-a-million: Doctor's group says
Agence France-Presse
Sydney, November 12

A conventional war in Iraq could kill nearly 500,000
people, with the death toll shooting to four million
if nuclear weapons are used, a group of anti-war
doctors said on Tuesday.

A report issued by the Medical Association for
Prevention of War (MAPW) said the loss of life in the
first three months of a US-led attack on Iraq would
range from a minimum of 48,000 to more than 260,000
people.

The study compiled by medical and public health
experts around the world and titled "Collateral
Damage: the Health and Environmental Costs of War on
Iraq" estimated the post-war health fallout from the
conflict could claim another 200,000 lives.

If nuclear weapons were detonated, the death toll
could reach four million, said the study issued at the
Australian parliament early Tuesday and to be released
later in the day in London and Washington.
 http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_100430,0005.htm



Bunker-busters set to go nuclear
David Hambling
[NewScientist] 07 November 02


The US government is set to fund research into a new type of nuclear weapon
that is designed to penetrate and obliterate deeply buried targets such as
underground weapons bunkers.

Coming 50 years after the world's first hydrogen bomb was detonated in the Pacific,
the news has alarmed scientists opposed to nuclear proliferation.
They say the thousands of tonnes of radioactive
debris produced by a bunker-busting nuclear weapon would not be contained
within the rock, concrete and soil above the target, but would contaminate
a wide area around it.

Funding of $15 million has been proposed for research into the so-called
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), as part of the government's draft
Defense Authorisation Bill for 2003. But the bill has not yet been passed
by the Senate Committee on Armed Services. While a decision has been
delayed until after this week's Congressional elections, a source close to
the committee says the RNEP will get the green light.

Research into the nuclear bunker-buster follows the Bush administration's
leaked Nuclear Posture Review, which in part set out the circumstances
under which nuclear weapons might be used. It says the RNEP could be used
in pre-emptive strikes against rogue states using deeply buried facilities
to store weapons of mass destruction, for example.

"Mini-nukes"

The RNEP would be used on targets that may be immune to conventional
weapons. Its backers claim it would create little contamination above
ground, but critics say that it would produce huge amounts of nuclear
fallout. The RNEP may also remove the distinction between a nuclear
deterrent and conventional weapons, increasing the risk of a nuclear
exchange.
 http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993016

Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium
By LARRY JOHNSON SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq –
On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert. They also are radiating nuclear energy. Paul Kitagaki Jr. / P-I Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia. In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name. Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.
 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml




Medical consequences of attacking Iraq
Helen Caldicott
Thursday, October 10, 2002

As the Bush administration prepares to make war on the Iraqi people -- and
make no mistake, it is the civilian population of that country and not
Saddam Hussein who will bear the brunt of the hostilities -- it is important
that we recall the medical consequences of the last Gulf War. That conflict
was, in effect, a nuclear war.

During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States deployed hundreds of tons of
weapons, many of them anti-tank shells made of depleted uranium 238. This
material is 1.7 times more dense than lead, and hence when incorporated into
an anti-tank shell and fired, it achieves great momentum, cutting through
tank armor like a hot knife through butter.

What other properties does uranium 238 possess? First, it is pyrophoric:
When it hits a tank at high speed it bursts into flames, producing tiny
aerosolized particles less than 5 microns in diameter that are easily
inhalable into the terminal air passages of the lung. Second, it is a potent
radioactive carcinogen, emitting a relatively heavy alpha particle composed
of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. Once inside the body -- either in the lung if
it has been inhaled, or in a wound if it penetrates flesh, or ingested since
it concentrates in the food chain and contaminates water -- it can produce
cancer in the lungs, bones, blood, or kidneys. Third, it has a half-life of
4.5 billion years, meaning the areas in which this ammunition was used in
Iraq and Kuwait during Gulf War will remain effectively radioactive for the
rest of time.

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/10







Iraq war could unleash oil spills, toxins: experts say
By Katherine Stapp


NEW YORK: Major casualties of a war with Iraq would be
the region's fragile environment and the health of its
inhabitants and combatants, if the last Persian Gulf
conflict is anything to judge by, arms experts and
activists say.
Eleven years ago, both sides in the Gulf War left
Kuwait's ecosystems in chaos - Iraq by torching oil
wells as its soldiers retreated, and the United States
by littering the desert with thousands of rounds of
depleted uranium (DU) munitions.
DU is the trace element left over when uranium is
enriched; most of the highly radioactive types of
uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear
weapons.
Deployed in the Persian Gulf in 1991 and in Kosovo in
1999, DU munitions are prized for their high density
and ability to punch through walls and armoured
vehicles.
According to the Washington-based Centre for Defence
Information, the US has four weapons that rely on DU
and that could be used in a future war with Iraq: the
A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, the Apache and Cobra
helicopters, and the M1A1 Abrams Tank.
"These types of weapons will undoubtedly be used as
Washington has made it clear it wants to bomb bunkers
and kill as many of the Iraqi government leaders as
possible," said John Catalinotto of the New York-based
International Action Center, a leading critic of DU.
"This would lead to an even greater amount of DU being
spread around Baghdad, this time, a city of five
million people," he said
 http://www.dawn.com/2002/11/03/int11.htm

Depleted Uranium: UN addresses issue

In a message to the international community on the occasion of the
International day
for Preventing the Exp+loitation of the Environment in War and
Armed Conflict, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan specifically referred to Depleted
Uranium yesterday,
stating that it was damaging to the environment.

It will be remembered that US military aircraft deployed tonnes of
weapons coated or
tipped with depleted uranium in southern Iraq and in Yugoslavia
during conflicts in
the 1990s. Systematic claims by the Iraqi Health Authorities,
published in
Pravda.Ru, were scorned or ignored and constant complaints by
the Yugoslav
authorities concerning alarmingly high clusters of cancerous
diseases among
civilians living near areas in which DU weaponry was deployed,
were investigated -
but met wqith systematic denial by the Pentagon and by NATO.
 http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/11/07/39269.html

NEW RESEARCH (Dai Williams section)

UMRC latest reports



It is recommended reading the Uranium Medical Research Center's latest reports at:
 http://www.umrc.net/whatsNew.asp
These include:
a) Dr Durakovic paper presented in Qatar, 20 October 2002 (first report of 100
times normal Uranium levels in civilian medical samples from Afghanistan, page 4).
b) Extracts from new report of 2nd Afghan field study trip of bombing locations, October 2002
c) Self-diagnostic questionnaire for suspected DU contamination (for troops, NGO staff
and other civilians).
These issues become more urgent in view of the growing number of reports of
severe medical problems in Afghanistan since the US bombing. I recommend
searching news reports on the Reuter's Health website at
 http://www.reutershealth.com/en/index.html (search "Afghanistan". NB subscription
is required for more than a few full reports).
Compare symptoms of illnesses reported with descriptions of the health of civilians
adjacent to bombing targets in the UMRC field trip report and check list of symptoms
in the UMRC self-assessment questionnaire.
There is deep concern for very high levels of maternal mortality in Afghanistan
in two recent reports - from the American Medical Association in September
 http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v288n10/ffull/jlf20033.html and from the CDC/
UNICEF study for the Afghan Ministry of Health (6 November) at
 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_10239.html
The researchers were unaware of suspected Uranium hazards and did not report
on the health of children who died or survived maternal mortality. Post-mortem
examinations were not reported.
There have also been several lethal epidemics of "mystery illnesses" this year
including an influenza-like epidemic in March, several haemorrhagic epidemics
and recently something similar to whooping cough among children. The possibility
that endemic health problems may have been greatly exacerbated by spreading
uranium dust contamination had not been considered in most medical reports
because the US and UK governments have consistently denied the use of any
uranium weapons in Afghanistan. Similar outbreaks were reported in Bosnia and
Kosovo within the first year after US bombing in 1995 and 1999.
The initial UMRC test results greatly increase the need for rigorous environmental
testing by the UNEP Post Conflict Assessment Unit that started work in Afghanistan
in September, and for Uranium testing to be included in diagnostic tests by WHO
and other NGO medical aid teams. Facilities for such tests only exist in a few
centres, mostly in Europe.
For background on the weapons systems used in Afghanistan suspected of containing
Uranium warheads and potential health hazards for civilians and troops see:
1) Depleted Uranium weapons 2001-2002: Mystery Metal Nightmare in Afghanistan
31 January 2002 at  http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm (+ PDF copy of full report)
2) Hazards of Uranium Weapons in Afghanistan and Iraq, 23 October 2002 at:
 http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/u232.htm (plus linked files).
For the latest assessment (13 November) by Prof Marc Herold (who analysed civilian Bombing fatalities
in December 2001) see  http://www.cursor.org/stories/uranium.htm

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