SILENT  WMDs -- EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM
There are no words ...  Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs
Inside camp of troubles
US troops test positive for DU contamination
POISONED?The New York Daily News  by JUAN GONZALEZ Saturday, April 3rd, 2004
Soldiers demand to know health risks  The New York Daily News  by JUAN GONZALEZ Saturday, April 3rd, 2004
Army to test N.Y. Guard unit   The New York Daily News by  JUAN GONZALEZ Saturday, April 3rd, 2004
Diehl/Fahey are traitors to veterans --- work for nuke sector   by  "Amarie" <amarierosa@yahoo.com>
Dutch military in Iraq delays troop transfer from suspected DU contaminated area   April 8 2004 by  www.risq.org

VISIE Foundation
INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR
WAR (IPPNW)
CONFERENCE: DIALOGUES WITH DECISION MAKERS
NEW DELHI,  INDIA, FEBRUARY 29, MARCH 1-2, 2004
CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE INDIAN DOCTORS FOR PEACE AND
DEVELOPMENT (IDPD)
CONTACT:  DR. ARUN MITRA  <idpd2001@hotmail.com>

Texr version

SILENT  WMDs -- EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM

By  Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat

Former Chief of the Naval Staff, India

FEBRUARY 29, 2004

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot ..that it do
singe yourself.

           -  William Shakespeare

            This brief presentation is aimed at
conveying to the primarily Indian participants of the
Conference the fateful and disastrous  consequences
of the indiscriminate use of depleted and non DU
munitions on the people of the west, central and south
Asian regions, women, children , men , animals, plant
and animal life now and in the future, in gross
violation of international law, the Hague convention
and domestic US military law.

              Official Gamma Ray damage caused studies
have been deficient in a number of respects..internal
contamination, internal dose to individual cells,
omissions of diseases other than cancer, mutagenic,
long term degeneration ,  oncogenesis, effects of the
killer isotopes in particular. The case studies of the
years 1945-50 were ignored.  A recent European
Parliament Report ECRR 2003 (European Committee on
Radiation Risk ) concludes that A Bomb studies
underestimate the radiation risk by more than 1000
times and failed to consider the internal exposure and
diseases  caused by Alpha and Beta rays.  They did
not consider the Manhattan Project  classified memo
that, in case the Project objective of producing
Plutonium fission and theA Bomb did not succeed ,
Depleted Uranium munitions would be deployed towards
the attainment of the same objective (encl. 1).

              DU weapons emit Alpha particle dose to
a single cell from U-238 which is 50 times the annual
dose level. Cancer is initiated with one alpha
particle, its daughter isotopes effect generations as
the isotopes  bio-concentrate in plants and animals,
and travel up the food chain.  It is a nuclear weapon
because the energy is derived from the nucleus of the
atom.  They enter the body through the lungs, the
digestive system or breaks in the skin.  One gram of
DU releases more than 12,000 particles per second.
The radiation slowly kills the cells that make life
possible.  The Gulf War syndrome of 1991 did just that
( reported by Dr Asaf Durakovic, Prof. of Medicine ,
Georgetown University, and discoverer of the Gulf War
Syndrome.)

              We are well aware that the radiation
fall-out map  Under the Cloud: Decades of Nuclear
Testing  has demonstrated the effects  of 1200
nuclear weapon tests conducted at the Nevada Test
Site; and the US Government admitted in Nov. 2002,
that every living person in the US between 1958-63 was
exposed to this fall out  resulting in cancer, gene
mutation, heart disease, autism, diabetes, Parkinsons,
ALS, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome , hypothyroidism
in new-borns, obesity and learning disabilities.  One
out of  twelve children in the US is disabled. The
fall out did not stop at the US borders.  It travelled
around the world, as atmospheric dust and remains even
in the biosphere/ sub-orbital space today.  High
breast cancer rates have been co-located in the
proximity of nuclear power plants in the west and more
so in the east coast areas of the US (The Breast
cancer map from The Enemy Within: the high cost of
living near nuclear reactors, quotes US Govt. Disease
Control Centers.

             The Radiation & Public health Report
(RPHP), rendered by a group of independent scientists
collected 4000 baby teeth and by measuring Strontium
90 levels in the baby teeth  ( a built in dosi-meter )
they have been able to co-relate with radiation
related diseases in children living near the nuclear
power plants; the main path ways being dairy products
and drinking water.

            The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in
Iraq, the radio-active trash from nuclear plants broke
a 46 year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war, an
omnicidal weapon has since then continued to be used
more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the
age of the earth  ( estimated at 4.5 billion years. )

            The long-term effects from over a decade
of DU exposures are emerging in Southern  Iraq. They
are devastating. The increased  quantities of
radio-active material ( including non-depleted
uranium), used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater
than Iraq 199.  In Iraq 2003 they are already
estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991 and will travel
through a larger area and affect many more people,
babies and unborn.  Countries within a 1000 mile
radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by
radiation poisoning , that includes the Capital, New
Delhi, where the ruling elite lives.  The reported
coming of an AIDS epidemic last year in India , down
wind, may have a relationship to DU bombing in
Afghanistan.  If we think cancer is a problem now wait
until more DU is released in wars against terror and
for regime change, on mistaken Intelligence
reports.

           More than 500 tons of DU munitions have
been dispensed in Afghanistan.  Professor Yagasaki
calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity
equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper
presented at the "World Uranium Weapons Conference" in
Hamburg in October 2003 ( 5 months ago ).  The amount
of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent to nearly
250,000 Nagasaki bombs  ( Busby and Leuren Moret have
calculated that 1900 tons of DU is equivalent to 60
TBq of Alfa and Beta particulate activity).

           We need not ennumerate the DU munition
types used in Iraq 199, Kosovo  1999, Afghanistan
2001-04 and Iraq 2003.  They have been dispensed by
all air / ground and sea systems on innocent
civilians.  DU burns intensely and is very hard.  It
releases Uranium Oxide.  The aerosol contains
particles of 0.5-5 microns in size, once they are in
the air or dust they are inhaled or ingested,
including from contaminated soil.  Once in the lungs
one such particle is equivalent to having one XRay
per hour, for life.  Because it is impossible to
remove, the victim is gradually irradiated.  Still
births, birth defects, leukemia, damaged central
nervous systems and other cancers have been common in
children born since 1991. Child leukemia has risen 600
% in areas of Iraq as  reported by the Netherland
Visie Foundation.  Beyond just the health
consequences, DU munitions are in fact, weapons of
Silent Mass Destruction in so far as the
consequences of their usage are vast, indiscriminate
and violate all Human Rights Conventions . Tora Bora ,
Kabu , Paktia , Karises or underwater supply tunnels
have been contaminated forever. All this has been
documented in a comprehensive paper  Uranium wars :
The Pentagon steps up its use of Radio-active
Munitions, by Marc W. Herold to whom this paper owes
sincere acknowledgement.

             In another paper Dr Mohammed Daud Miraki,
Director Afghan DU Recovery Fund, quotes George W
Bush , we will smoke them out, condemning the
unborn, the living and the future generations of
Afghans and the neighbouring people to a
pre-determined, death sentence. After the destruction
of our village, I realised that the Americans had
sentenced us all to death. When I saw my deformed
grandson I realised my hopes for the future have
vanished   This time we are part of the invisible
genocide brought on by America a silent death from
which we will not escape ( Jooma Khan of Laghman
province..March 2003.)  Similar stories are repeated
from Paktita province of  Jelly Babies. Pregnant
women are afraid of  giving birthThis is the legacy
of US ushered liberation, freedom and democracy.  DU
is cheap for the US, utilising nuclear waste, cheaper
than titanium and tungsten, not for the liberated (
non-DU is still cheaper as it is the uranium
feedstock, pre-enrichment).

            The Uranium Medical Research Center
(UMRC), Washington DC, and the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists (1991) - Steve Fetter and Frank Von Hippel
have reported on extensive research by Field teams
of the UMRC in Afghanistan.  Testimonies of fathers
and mothers are horrifying   What else do the
Americans want ? They killed us , they turned our
new-borns into horrific deformations, and they turned
our farm lands into grave-yards, and destroyed our
homes.   On top of all this their planes fly over and
spray us with bullets.. we have nothing to lose ..we
will fight them the same way we fought the previous
invaders (Sayed Gharib at Tora Bora).

           Radiological dispensing devices or warfare
is the latest of the weapons of the new millenium, but
it singes even those who use it , as shown in the
after effects of the tests at home ground in the US,
where evidence of cognitive damage during early
infancy have been compiled.  For us in Eurasia,
Pakistan and India we have a new health epidemic to
drain  our scarce resources.

            As world citizens we need to focus on a
new scourge, the reality of the PNAC - Rebuilding
Americas Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for
a New Century.

               The  Report notes that ,  Much has
been written in recent years about the need to
transform the conventional armed forces of the United
States to take advantage of the Revolution in
Military Affairs. Our military requires a dramatic
transformation , lest we lose our ability to fight the
future unconventional wars .. some may be fought in
cyberspace, others under water or in outer space . And
some even within our bodies.

            Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and others
are some of the men representing contemporary power
centers, who define US policy. History indicates that
the men who define US military policy from the shadows
, are worthy of our attention.

GENETIC BOMBS

           When creating genetic-bombs or weapons to
target specific groups; genetic profiles are subtler
and more accurate than the coarse pseudo category
called race.  The group with ADHD ( the Edison Gene)
uniquely share common inherited variations in their
dopamine regulating genes regardless of  race,
geography or ethnicity.  Thus anybody whos part of a
group with a shared genetic profile may be at risk in
the future.

            A virus or bacteria may attack only a
particular type of person, killing, disabling  or
sterilising only those of a particular gene profile.
Threatening a particular type would be sufficient
political black-mail.

           Wolfowitz, Kristol and their colleagues
suggested that the Pentagon should be thinking about
not just germ warfare of which they have plenty of
capabilities,  but gene warfare.

            Genetic terra-forming could replace
diplomacy, or it could change the face of politics if
an organism got loose that killed all the people of a
particular minority community who tend to vote for a
particular political party.

            According to the PNAC,  Genetically
targeted weapons could change world politics for ever,
and the report notes, advanced forms of biological
warfare that can target specific geno-types may
transform biological warfare from the realm of terror
to a politically useful tool

            To conclude 4th generation micro-nukes,
with their war-head composition, were deliberated upon
and decided at the US Airforce Strategic Command
Headquarters at the Offutt Airforce Base, Nebraska,
between the top  Corporates /weapon manufacturers and
the US military brass.  The former not only have prior
knowledge of numbers and types of all types of nuclear
weapons, but the locations of the planned and approved
targets, globally.

          This meeting took place on Hiroshima Day,
6th August, 2003, and to reiterate, the aim was to
define a new generation of nuclear weapons to be used
on a pre-emptive basis against rogue enemies and
terrorist organisations.  (mini-nukes have an
explosive capacity between one-third and six times a
Hiroshima bomb).

          In this Strangelovian logic, nuclear weapons
are now viewed as a means to ensuring peace and
security against non-existent WMDs.

AT A GLANCE

1. In the 2003 war, the IraqiS were subjected to the
Pentagons radioactive arsenal, mainly in the urban
centers, unlike in the deserts in 1991.  The aggregate
effects of illnesses and long term disabilities and
genetic birth defects will be apparent only 2008
onwards.

2. By now, half of all the 697,000 US soldiers
involved in the 1991 war have reported serious
illnesses.  According the American Gulf War Veterans
Association, more than 30% of these soldiers are
chronically ill, and receiving disability benefits
from the Veterans Administration.
 

3. The number of disabled veterans is shockingly high
. They are in their mid-thirties and should have been
in the prime of health.

4. Near the Republican Palace where US troops stood
guard and over 1000 employees walked in and out, the
radiation readings were the hottest  in Iraq, at
nearly 1900 times background radiation levels.

5. At a roadside stand, selling fresh bunches of
parsley, mint, and onions, children played on a burnt
out Iraqi tank  just outside Baghdad, the Geiger
counter registered 1000 times normal background
radiation.

6. The Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that
the US and Britain used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor
piercing shells made of DU during attacks in
March-April 2003, far more than the 1991 Gulf War (
this does not include air dispensed DU munitions and
missiles), wrote the Post Intelligencer.

7. An otherwise useless by-product of  the uranium
enrichment process, DU is attractive to military
contractors because it is so cheap and often offered
for free by the Government.

8. The long term effects, as Dr Asaf Durakovic
elaborates, after the early neurological symptoms are
cancer, and related radiation illnesses such as
chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain,
neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances,
auto-immuno deficiciencies, lung and kidney damage,
vision problems, skin rupture, increase in
miscarriages, maternal mortality and genetic birth
defects/deformation.

9. For years the US government described the Gulf War
Syndrome as a post traumatic stress disorder.  It was
labelled as a psychological problem or simply as
mysterious unrelated ailments much in the same way as
health problems of Vietnam veterans suffering from
Agent Orange poisoning.
(With acknowledgements to Sara Flounders,for 1-9 above, 
Coordinator of the DU education program)

             I  also gratefully acknowledge the facts
learnt  from evidence led by scientists/papers
presented and accepted by  the International Criminal
Tribunal on  Afghanistan, at Tokyo on 13-16 December,
2003 and earlier at the World Depleted Uranium
Weapons Conference, Hamburg 16-19 October, 2003, by
Leuren Moret, whose continuing contribution to this
cause against "Silent Wepons of Mass Destruction" (SWMD),
in defense of humanity, deserves our support.
 

Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat may be contacted at 
<vbhagwat@bom7.vsnl.net.in>



For Immediate Release
Contact: Bob Nichols
405-749-5888
bobnichols@cox.net 

There are no words ... 

Radiation in Iraq Equals 250,000 Nagasaki Bombs

by Bob Nichols

(Oklahoma City) - Last summer (2003) one of my neighbors had just returned 
from Iraq. I wanted to ask him about the summer conditions in Iraq. The brutal summer in Iraq is coming up again, the same way it has since the last
Ice Age.

The neighbor said it routinely got to 142 Degrees F.in Baghdad and the rest 
of Iraq during the summer months. 

As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe what 142 Degrees in the 
shade is like. I've seen 120 D. in Phoenix and 110 D in the spa's sauna I use. 
One hundred forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try to imagine 142 D 
temperature while wearing a helmet, long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bullet 
proof vest, boots, and carrying a 70 pound pack.

By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada have thirty-seven words to 
precisely talk about different kinds of snow. 

So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq it seemed like a good time to 
float this story to different Internet sites and news publications. There
was one story in 2003 of one 19 year old British soldier whose military job was 
to work in a British tank. In Iraq. In the summer. Word is, from London,
that he forgot to drink enough water and he literally cooked in his tank.

But, this story is not about the temperature in Iraq.
You can bet, though, the weather will be really important for those Americans 
unfortunate enough to still be in Iraq this summer. 

This story is about American weapons built with Uranium components for the 
business end of things.Just about all American bullets, 120 mm tank shells,
missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and 2,000 pound bombs, cruise 
missiles, and anything else engineered to help our side in the war of us against 
them has Uranium in it. Lots of Uranium. 

In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800 pounds of the stuff. This article is about how much radioactive uranium our guys, representing us, the citizens of the 
United States, let fly in Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the 
stuff, give or take. That is a bunch.

Now, most people have no idea how much Four Million Pounds of anything is, 
much less of Uranium Dust (UD), which this stuff turns into when it is shot or
exploded. Suffice it to say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh three 
thousand pounds per car. That is a lot of cars; but, we can imagine what a 
parking lot with one thousand three hundred and thirty three cars is like. The 
point is: this was and is an industrial strength operation. It is still going on, 
too.

No sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive Uranium Dust (RUD) on 
the ground in Iraq was a definitely "on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not 
"just an accident." We, the citizens of the United States, through our kids in 
the Army, did this on purpose. 

When the uranium bullets, missiles, or bombs hit something or explode most of 
the radioactive uranium turns instantly to very, very small dust particles,
too fine to even see. When US Troopers or Iraqis breathe even a tiny amount 
into their lungs, as little as One Gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every
hour for the rest of their shortened life. 

The uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment, there is no cure. 
The uranium will long outlast the Veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for, 
you see, it lasts virtually forever.

But, it gets worse. Seems an Admiral who is the former Chief of the Naval Staff 
of India wanted to know how much radiation this represented. He also wanted 
to express the amount in a figure that the world, especially the non American 
world, could easily understand. 

The Admiral decided to figure out how many Nagasaki Atom Bombs it would take 
to deliver the equivalent of the total amount of radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003
in Four Million Pounds of uranium.

The Admiral also wanted to figure out how much radiation the United States
Military Forces have deployed in the last Five American Wars, the so-called
Five Nuclear Wars.

That is a simple enough task for somebody like the Naval Chief of Staff for a 
country that is a member of the Nuclear Club. Using the Nagasaki bomb for the
measuring stick is a particularly gruesome twist,
though. For those of you in the States who do not know it, the United States 
Military Forces dropped two nuclear Bombs on Japan at the close of World 
War II. The whole world remembers that.

One Atom Bomb was dropped by Americans on the city of Hiroshima, the other 
on the city of Nagasaki three days later. About 170,000 people were incinerated
immediately. It was a really big deal. 

It is a measuring stick that plays very well in the rest of the world; but, not very 
well on Fox News (Fair & Balanced)(c) or the rest of the Fox-like American 
media. The Department of Energy still lists the Hiroshima and Nagasaki 
detonations as "tests." The admiral released the data months ago at a scientific
conference in India. This article is the first report of the data in the United States. 
It will first be released on the Internet.

The admiral in India calculated the number of radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki
bomb and compared it with the number in the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium
left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now, believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; 
but, that is essentially what the experts in India did. 

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000 Nuclear Bombs.

How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the Radiation loosed in the last Five 
American Nuclear Wars? Answer: About 400,000 Nuclear Bombs.

Who would do something like this? 
We would. The only people in the history of the world to engage in Nuclear Wars 
are Americans, citizens of the United States. Allegedly, the Germans and 
Japanese of WWII also wanted to engage in nuclear wars, except the American 
Military beat them to the draw, so to speak. 

Respected academic scholars could debate forever whether or not Herr Hitler, 
Fuhrer of Germany, would have deployed uranium munitions in the Sudetenland
if the weapons had been available. Certainly the Germans knew just as much 
about uranium wars as we did at the time. It seems doubtful that Adolph Hitler 
would have ordered the use of uranium munitions there because the
Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi Germany.

An American General named Leslie Groves was in charge of the bomb making 
operation called The Manhattan Project. In 1943 The War Department knew 
exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were good for. 

If the nuclear weapons did not detonate in Japan, the use of uranium bullets and 
bombs were the fall back position. It was not till Ronald Reagan was President
in 1980 did the re-named Defense Department resurrect the deadly radioactive 
uranium bullets, bombs, and missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was 
Ronnie Ray-Guns.

The American Military knew the symptoms of radiation poisoning in 1943 too; 
starting with the irritated sore throat through to an agonizing death from being
cooked from the inside out. 

President Bush promised to invade twelve countries in the 2003 State of the Union 
speech. I believe the man. For some reason, some misguided Americans do not
believe him, or think he was "exaggerating." The rest of the world has every reason 
to believe him, though. 

Not to worry, the President has plenty of raw material for radioactive uranium 
munitions left. There are more than 77,000 Tons stored at the 103 nuclear 
waste plants and the several Nuclear Weapons Labs in the US.
Each one makes another 250 pounds of radioactive material a day for radioactive 
bullets, bombs, and missiles. Not to put too fine a point on it; but, that
is enough for 40.5 more gloriously successful campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear War in Iraq.

Every year about this time the Southern winds leave a fine desert sand on the 
windshields of cars parked outside in Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this
sand dust will carry a surprise. Thanks to the Americans. Thanks to us. We did this 
to the world. And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.

These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing effect gives a whole new meaning to 
the age old term: cannon fodder. In Iraq, what goes around, comes around. If
not the uranium munitions themselves, the uranium dust will be in the bodies of our 
returning armed forces, time bombs slowly ticking away the lives of the
gullible and the ignorant with their very own internal radiation source, the cannon 
fodder of the 21st Century American Nuclear Wars.

Put your ending to this article next. 
A lot of people have done everything we can  think of to stop these nuclear wars. Even more specifically to stop the use of uranium as a munition and shut down
the nuclear power plants. We have tried and failed for years. Why don't you give it 
a try? Can't hurt anything! Write what steps you would take to turn this situation 
around.

Copyright 2004, Bob Nichols. All rights reserved.
Permission for reposting is allowed provided the
complete text and attribution are kept intact. Bob
Nichols writes in Oklahoma City and is the Editorial
writer for DemoOkie.com. Bob Nichols is a contributing
writer for LiberalSlant, Democratic Underground,
OnlineJournal, AmericaHeldHostage, and other online
dot com publications. Mr. Nichols is a frequent
contributor The Oklahoma Observer and other print
publications, and an editorial writer for
DemoOkie.com. He lives and works in Oklahoma. He is a 
member of CASE - Citizens' Action for Safe Energy, and
President of the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. CASE has
successfully killed two serious, well funded attempts
to build Nuclear Power Plants in Oklahoma and several
attempts to site what is now known as the "Yucca
Mountain Reactor Dump" in Oklahoma. All these efforts
to build nuclear facilities have failed. 



US troops test positive for DU contamination

Subject: - Army to test N.Y. Guard unit
Date:  Mon, 05 Apr 2004 15:11:13 -0500
From: Dave Kraft <neis@neis.org>
Organization:  NEIS
To: neis@neis.org
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/v-pfriendly/story/180644p-156921c.html

 New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
 Army to test N.Y. Guard unit 

 Monday, April 5th, 2004 

 Army officials at Fort Dix and Walter Reed Army Medical Center are rushing to 
test all returning members of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York 
Army National Guard for depleted uranium contamination.

 Army brass acted after learning that four of nine soldiers from the 
company tested by the Daily News showed signs of radiation exposure.

 The soldiers, who returned from Iraq late last year, say they and other members of 
their company have been suffering from unexplained illnesses since last summer, 
when they were stationed in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

 Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a former Army doctor and nuclear medicine expert 
who examined and tested the nine men at The News' request, concluded four of them 
"almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded depleted uranium shells fired 
by U.S. troops.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), after learning of The News' investigation, blasted 
Pentagon officials yesterday for not properly screening soldiers returning from Iraq.

"We can't have people coming back with undiagnosed illnesses," Clinton said. "We 
have to have a before-and-after testing program for our soldiers."

Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she will write to 
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demanding answers and soon will introduce 
legislation to require health screenings for all returning troops.

 During meetings with Pentagon officials last year, Clinton said "one of the issues 
we raised was exposure to the depleted uranium that was in the weapons, and how 
they were going to handle it."

She was assured then that troops would be properly screened.

But the soldiers from the 442nd contacted The News after becoming frustrated with 
how the Army was handling their illnesses.

Six of them say they repeatedly sought testing for depleted uranium from Army doctors 
but were denied.

Three who were tested in early November for DU said they had been waiting months 
for the results. Two of those finally got their results last week - both negative.

Testing for uranium isotopes in 24 hours' worth of urine samples can cost as much 
as $1,000 each.

But late last week, after learning of The News' results, the Army reversed course 
and ordered immediate testing for more than a dozen members of the 442nd who are 
back in the U.S.

 The rest of the company, comprising mostly New York City cops, firefighters 
and correction officers, is not due to return from Iraq until later this month.

"They ordered all of us who are here at Fort Dix to provide 24-hour urine samples 
by 1 p.m. today," one soldier from the company said Friday.

Late Friday, Pentagon spokesman Austin Camacho said he could not confirm or deny 
that new tests had been ordered for the soldiers of the 442nd.

"It's hard to imagine, theoretically, that these men could have harmful exposures," 
Camacho said, because none of them had been inside tanks during direct combat.

Army studies of depleted uranium have concluded that only soldiers who suffer 
shrapnel wounds from DU shells or who were inside tanks hit by DU shells and 
immediately breathe radioactive dust are at risk.

Even then, Camacho said, studies of about 70 such cases from the first Gulf War 
have shown no long-term health problems.

But medical experts critical of the use of DU weapons, as well as some of the Army's 
own early studies of depleted uranium, say exposure to it can cause kidney damage. 
Some studies have shown that it causes cancer and chromosome damage in mice, 
according to the experts.

Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used 
by the U.S. and British militaries for more than 15 years in some artillery shells and 
as armor-plating for tanks. It is valued for its extreme density - it is twice as heavy as lead.

Amid growing controversy in Europe and Japan, the European Parliament called last 
year for a moratorium on its use.

 'Every time I ran I felt my throat burning and my chest tightening.'

Sgt. Agustin Matos, a member of the 442nd Military Police of the New York 
National Guard and a city correction officer in civilian life, has all-too-vivid memories 
of his stay in Samawah, Iraq.

"The place was filthy; most of the windows were broken; dirt, grease and bird 
droppings were everywhere," he said. "I wouldn't house a city prisoner in that place."

He recalled a mandated morning run of about 3 miles on a sandy track near a train depot.

"Every time I ran I felt my throat burning and my chest tightening," he said.

Now, Matos, 37, believes his symptoms may be the result of radioactive dust he 
inhaled from spent American shells made from depleted uranium.

The Long Island man is one of four Iraq war veterans who tested positive for DU 
contamination, according to a Daily News investigation.

 The soldiers and other members of the 442nd say they are suffering from physical 
ailments that began last summer while they were stationed in Samawah.

Matos, who was assigned to the 4th platoon's 2nd squad, arrived in Samawah last June, 
two weeks ahead of the rest of the company.

His advance team had orders from Capt. Sean O'Donnell, their commander, to ready a 
huge depot in a train repair yard on the outskirts of downtown Samawah as a barracks 
for the unit.

Once the entire company arrived, each platoon was assigned its own space inside the 
depot, which was bigger than a football field.

A locomotive that straddled a repair pit and an empty train car sat in the middle of the 
sleeping area, with two platoons assigned to bed down along one side of the train and 
two others along the other side.

Just outside the depot, two Iraqi tanks, one of them shot up, had been hauled onto 
flatbed railroad cars.

The company was so short-handed, according to the soldiers, that the commander would 
evacuate a G.I. only if he could no longer physically function.

Matos was sent home last year for surgery for a shoulder injury suffered in a jeep 
accident.

Since his return, he has had constant headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, 
dizziness, joint pain and excessive urination. 
After he recently discovered blood in his urine, doctors at Walter Reed Army 
Medical Center gave him a CAT scan and discovered a small lesion on his liver.

A 1990 Army study linked DU to "chemical toxicity causing kidney damage."

"Before I left for Iraq, they tested my eyes and I was fine," Matos said. "Now my 
eyesight's gotten bad, on top of everything else."

Another member of the company who tested positive for DU is 2nd platoon Sgt. 
Hector Vega, 48, a retired postal worker from the Bronx who has been in the National
Guard for 27 years.

Since being evacuated to Fort Dix for treatment for foot surgery, Vega said he has 
endured insomnia and constant headaches. And like many of the sick soldiers, 
Vega said, "I have uncontrollable urine, every half hour."

One day, during a trip a few hours south of Samawah, he and another soldier stopped
on the side of the road to photograph and check out two shot-up Iraqi tanks.

"We didn't think anything of walking right up to those tanks and touching them," he said. 
"I didn't know anything about depleted uranium."

 As for the railroad depot where they slept, Vega recalls it as "disgusting. Oil, dirt and 
bird droppings everywhere, insects crawling all around us."

And then there were the frequent dust storms.

"They would blow all that dust inside the depot all over us when we were sleeping or 
eating. It was so thick, you could see it." 

Kraft, David A.   Director  NEIS   <neis@neis.org
NEW NEIS E-MAIL ADDRESS:  NEIS has changed its e-mail address. 
Effective IMMEDIATELY, please use our new address: neis@neis.org
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address book today.  Thanks.


Inside camp of troubles 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/180342p-156689c.html
 
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
 Inside camp of troubles 
 By JUAN GONZALEZ
 DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER 
 Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 

The soldiers of the 442nd Military Police never heard of depleted 
uranium before they went to Iraq.


They pitched camp at a huge, dusty, vermin-infested train depot on the
 outskirts of town.

                  The soldiers of the 442nd Military Police
                     never heard of depleted uranium before
                     they went to Iraq.

                     They know only that inexplicable
                     ailments have befallen them.

                     Last year, more than a dozen of the
                     company's soldiers were transferred back
                     to Fort Dix for treatment of a variety of
                     maladies. Frustrated with how the
                     military was handling their concerns,
                     they gave extensive interviews to the
                     Daily News about their experiences, and
                     nine of them eventually volunteered to be tested by a team of experts
                     headed by Dr. Asaf Duracovic.

                     According to the soldiers, most of them became sick last summer while
                     stationed in ­Samawah, a town 150 miles south of Baghdad that was the
                     scene of heavy combat in the first weeks of the war.

                     Their unit entered the town in June, following short stays in Diwaniyah,
                     Karbala and ­Najaf. They pitched camp at a huge, dusty,
                     vermin-infested train depot on the outskirts of town.

                     That's where, they claim, their problems began.

                     "One night, I had 10 or 15 people with temperatures over 103,
                     unexplained night chills, all kinds of things," said Sgt. Juan Vega, the
                     company's principal medic. About a dozen of the 160 soldiers in the
                     company suddenly developed kidney stones, he said.

                     A 1990 Army study linked DU, to "chemical toxicity causing kidney
                     damage."

                     "I told our commander, 'We need to get the hell out of this place, there's
                     something wrong with it,'" said Vega, 34, an FDNY paramedic.

                     The soldiers recall that two Iraqi tanks, one all shot up, had been
                     hauled onto flatbed railroad cars less than 100 yards from where the
                     company slept. 

                     Pentagon officials have confirmed that tanks hit by DU shells are the
                     biggest potential sources of battlefield radioactivity because when DU
                     penetrators hit a target and explode, a fine aerosol of uranium oxide,
                     or radioactive dust, is formed. The closer the tanks are to people, the
                     greater the danger of inhaling the dust.

                     In addition, a UN environmental report on Iraq warned last year of a
                     "high risk of inhaling DU dust" within 150 meters of any target hit by DU
                     shells "unless high-quality dust masks are worn." The soldiers never
                     received dust masks. 

                     Originally published on April 3, 2004 



New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
 Poisoned? 
 By JUAN GONZALEZ
 DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER 
 Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 

 Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by
 U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found. 

 They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer
 in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

 "I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands
 and rashes on my stomach." 

 A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American
 shells manufactured with depleted uranium.

 Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

 If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure
 from the current Iraq conflict.

 The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq last Easter, the
 unit's members have been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.

 "These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and
 performed the testing that was funded by The News.

 "Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991
 Persian Gulf War.

 While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading
 critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare.

 Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used by the U.S. and British military for more than 15 years in some artillery shells and
 as armor plating for tanks. It is twice as heavy as lead.

 Because of its density, "It is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said.

 The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of depleted uranium shells in Iraq last year, Kilpatrick said. No figures have yet been released for how much the Marines
 fired.

 Kilpatrick said about 1,000 G.I.s back from the war have been tested by the Pentagon for depleted uranium and only three have come up positive - all as a result of
 shrapnel from DU shells.

 But the test results for the New York guardsmen - four of nine positives for DU - suggest the potential for more extensive radiation exposure among coalition troops and
 Iraqi civilians.

 Several Army studies in recent years have concluded that the low-level radiation emitted when shells containing DU explode poses no significant dangers. But some
 independent scientists and a few of the ­Army's own reports indicate otherwise.

 As a result, depleted uranium weapons have sparked increasing controversy around the world. In January 2003, the ­European Parliament called for a moratorium on their
 use after reports of an unusual number of leukemia deaths among Italian soldiers who served in Kosovo, where DU weapons were used.

 I keep getting weaker. What is happening to me?

 The Army says that only soldiers wounded by depleted uranium shrapnel or who are inside tanks during an explosion face measurable radiation exposure.

 But as far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory upstate, discovered that DU-contaminated dust could travel for long distances.

 Dietz, who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting had collected radioactive dust
 from a National Lead Industries Plant that was producing DU 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the plant.

 "The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 52 properties around the plant," Dietz said.

 All humans have at least tiny amounts of natural uranium in their bodies because it is found in water and in the food supply, Dietz said. But natural uranium is quickly and
 harmlessly excreted by the body.

 Uranium oxide dust, which lodges in the lungs once inhaled and is not very soluble, can emit radiation to the body for years. 

 "Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said Dietz, who retired in 1983
 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the long run ... veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem."

 Critics of DU have noted that the Army's view of its dangers has changed over time.

 Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a 1990 Army report noted that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing
 kidney damage."

 It was during the Gulf War that U.S. A-10 Warthog "tank buster" planes and Abrams tanks first used DU artillery on a mass scale. The Pentagon says it fired about 320
 tons of DU in that war and that smaller amounts were also used in the Serbian province of Kosovo. 

 In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by shrapnel, inhalation or
 handling battlefield debris.

 Some veterans groups blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of vets from that war.

 Under pressure from veterans groups, the Pentagon commissioned several new studies. One of those, published in 2000, concluded that DU, as a heavy metal, "could
 pose a chemical hazard" but that Gulf War veterans "did not experience intakes high enough to affect their health."

 Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said Army followup studies of 70 DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans have not shown serious health effects.

 "For any heavy metal, there is no such thing as safe," Kilpatrick said. "There is an issue of chemical toxicity, and for DU it is raised as radiological toxicity as well."

 But he said "the overwhelming conclusion" from studies of those who work with uranium "show it has not produced any increase in cancers."

 Several European studies, however, have linked DU to chromosome damage and birth defects in mice. Many scientists say we still don't know enough about the
 long-range effects of low-level radiation on the body to say any amount is safe.

 Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, has called for identifying where DU was used and is urging a cleanup of all contaminated areas.

 "A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had significant exposure to uranium oxide dust," said Dr. Thomas Fasey, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical
 Center and an expert on depleted uranium. "And the health impact is worrisome for the future."

 As for the soldiers of the 442nd, they're sick, frustrated and confused. They say when they arrived in Iraq no one warned them about depleted uranium and no one gave
 them dust masks.

 Experts behind News probe

 As part of the investigation by the Daily News, Dr. Asaf Duracovic, a nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted uranium, examined the
 nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police in late December and collected urine specimens from each.

 Another member of his team, Prof. Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt who specializes in analyzing uranium isotopes, performed repeated tests on
 the samples over a week-long ­period. He used a state-of-the art procedure called multiple collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry.

 Only about 100 laboratories worldwide have the same capability to identify and measure various uranium isotopes in minute quantities, Gerdes said. 

 Gerdes concluded that four of the men had depleted uranium in their bodies. Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a waste product of uranium
 enrichment when some of the highly radioactive isotopes in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted.

 Several of the men, according to Duracovic, also had minute traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that is produced only in a nuclear reaction process.

 "These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the battlefield," Duracovic said.

 He and Gerdes plan to issue a scientific paper on their study of the soldiers at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine in Finland this year.

 When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and the area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity. 


New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Army to test N.Y. Guard unit 

 Monday, April 5th, 2004 

 Army officials at Fort Dix and Walter Reed Army Medical Center are rushing to test all returning members of the 442nd Military Police Company of the New York Army
 National Guard for depleted uranium contamination.

 Army brass acted after learning that four of nine soldiers from the company tested by the Daily News showed signs of radiation exposure.

 The soldiers, who returned from Iraq late last year, say they and other members of their company have been suffering from unexplained illnesses since last summer,
 when they were stationed in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

 Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a former Army doctor and nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested the nine men at The News' request, concluded four of them "almost
 certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops.

 Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), after learning of The News' investigation, blasted Pentagon officials yesterday for not properly screening soldiers returning from Iraq.

 "We can't have people coming back with undiagnosed illnesses," Clinton said. "We have to have a before-and-after testing program for our soldiers."

 Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said she will write to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld demanding answers and soon will introduce
 legislation to require health screenings for all returning troops.

 During meetings with Pentagon officials last year, Clinton said "one of the issues we raised was exposure to the depleted uranium that was in the weapons, and how they
 were going to handle it."

 She was assured then that troops would be properly screened.

 But the soldiers from the 442nd contacted The News after becoming frustrated with how the Army was handling their illnesses.

 Six of them say they repeatedly sought testing for depleted uranium from Army doctors but were denied.

 Three who were tested in early November for DU said they had been waiting months for the results. Two of those finally got their results last week - both negative.

 Testing for uranium isotopes in 24 hours' worth of urine samples can cost as much as $1,000 each.

 But late last week, after learning of The News' results, the Army reversed course and ordered immediate testing for more than a dozen members of the 442nd who are
 back in the U.S.

 The rest of the company, comprising mostly New York City cops, firefighters and correction officers, is not due to return from Iraq until later this month.

 "They ordered all of us who are here at Fort Dix to provide 24-hour urine samples by 1 p.m. today," one soldier from the company said Friday.

 Late Friday, Pentagon spokesman Austin Camacho said he could not confirm or deny that new tests had been ordered for the soldiers of the 442nd.

 "It's hard to imagine, theoretically, that these men could have harmful exposures," Camacho said, because none of them had been inside tanks during direct combat.

 Army studies of depleted uranium have concluded that only soldiers who suffer shrapnel wounds from DU shells or who were inside tanks hit by DU shells and
 immediately breathe radioactive dust are at risk.

 Even then, Camacho said, studies of about 70 such cases from the first Gulf War have shown no long-term health problems.

 But medical experts critical of the use of DU weapons, as well as some of the Army's own early studies of depleted uranium, say exposure to it can cause kidney
 damage. Some studies have shown that it causes cancer and chromosome damage in mice, according to the experts.

 Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used by the U.S. and British militaries for more than 15 years in some artillery shells
 and as armor-plating for tanks. It is valued for its extreme density - it is twice as heavy as lead.

 Amid growing controversy in Europe and Japan, the European Parliament called last year for a moratorium on its use.

 'Every time I ran I felt my throat
 burning and my chest tightening.'

 Sgt. Agustin Matos, a member of the 442nd Military Police of the New York National Guard and a city correction officer in civilian life, has all-too-vivid memories of his
 stay in Samawah, Iraq.

 "The place was filthy; most of the windows were broken; dirt, grease and bird droppings were everywhere," he said. "I wouldn't house a city prisoner in that place."

 He recalled a mandated morning run of about 3 miles on a sandy track near a train depot.

 "Every time I ran I felt my throat burning and my chest tightening," he said.

 Now, Matos, 37, believes his symptoms may be the result of radioactive dust he inhaled from spent American shells made from depleted uranium.

 The Long Island man is one of four Iraq war veterans who tested positive for DU contamination, according to a Daily News investigation.

 The soldiers and other members of the 442nd say they are suffering from physical ailments that began last summer while they were stationed in Samawah.

 Matos, who was assigned to the 4th platoon's 2nd squad, arrived in Samawah last June, two weeks ahead of the rest of the company.

 His advance team had orders from Capt. Sean O'Donnell, their commander, to ready a huge depot in a train repair yard on the outskirts of downtown Samawah as a
 barracks for the unit.

 Once the entire company arrived, each platoon was assigned its own space inside the depot, which was bigger than a football field.

 A locomotive that straddled a repair pit and an empty train car sat in the middle of the sleeping area, with two platoons assigned to bed down along one side of the train
 and two others along the other side.

 Just outside the depot, two Iraqi tanks, one of them shot up, had been hauled onto flatbed railroad cars.

 The company was so short-handed, according to the soldiers, that the commander would evacuate a G.I. only if he could no longer physically function.

 Matos was sent home last year for surgery for a shoulder injury suffered in a jeep accident.

 Since his return, he has had constant headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, joint pain and excessive urination. After he recently discovered blood in
 his urine, doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center gave him a CAT scan and discovered a small lesion on his liver.

 A 1990 Army study linked DU to "chemical toxicity causing kidney damage."

 "Before I left for Iraq, they tested my eyes and I was fine," Matos said. "Now my eyesight's gotten bad, on top of everything else."

 Another member of the company who tested positive for DU is 2nd platoon Sgt. Hector Vega, 48, a retired postal worker from the Bronx who has been in the National
 Guard for 27 years.

 Since being evacuated to Fort Dix for treatment for foot surgery, Vega said he has endured insomnia and constant headaches. And like many of the sick soldiers, Vega
 said, "I have uncontrollable urine, every half hour."

 One day, during a trip a few hours south of Samawah, he and another soldier stopped on the side of the road to photograph and check out two shot-up Iraqi tanks.

 "We didn't think anything of walking right up to those tanks and touching them," he said. "I didn't know anything about depleted uranium."

 As for the railroad depot where they slept, Vega recalls it as "disgusting. Oil, dirt and bird droppings everywhere, insects crawling all around us."

 And then there were the frequent dust storms.

 "They would blow all that dust inside the depot all over us when we were sleeping or eating. It was so thick, you could see it." 


VISIE Foundation

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Soldiers demand to know health risks 
 By JUAN GONZALEZ
 DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER 
 Saturday, April 3rd, 2004 

 Doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center recently told Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos that a biopsy revealed his rash comes from leishmaniasis, a disease spread by
 sandflies and contracted by hundreds of G.I.s in Iraq.

 Until last week, however, Army doctors refused requests by Ramos and a few others in the 442nd Military Police to have their urine analyzed for depleted uranium, a
 procedure that can cost up to $1,000.

 Three of the nine tested in the Daily News investigation — Sgt. Herbert Reed, Spec. William Ruiz, and Spec. Anthony Phillip - also were tested by the Army in
 November. But the results were withheld for months despite repeated inquiries.

 Last week, after Army officials received press inquiries about the 442nd and discovered that a group from the company had sought independent testing, an administrator
 at Walter Reed told Reed and Phillip that their tests from November had come back negative for depleted uranium. 

 The News' tests also showed negative results for Reed and Phillip, but Ramos tested positive. The soldiers of the 442nd are not the only ones to raise questions about
 depleted uranium in Samawah.

 In August, a contingent of Dutch soldiers arrived in the town to replace the Americans. Press reports in the Netherlands revealed that Dutch authorities questioned the
 U.S. beforehand about the possible use of DU ammunition in Samawah. According to Sgt. Juan Vega, senior medic for the 442nd, the Dutch swept the area around the
 train depot with Geiger counters and their medics confided to him they had found high radiation levels. The Dutch unit refused to stay in the depot, Vega said, and pitched
 camp in the desert instead.

 And in February, after Japanese troops moved into the same town, a Japanese journalist equipped with a Geiger counter reported finding radiation readings 300 times
 higher than background levels.

 "There'd been a lot of fighting in Samawah before we got there," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, 41. "The place was dusty as hell, and the sandstorms were hitting us pretty
 good."

 Felled at first by what he thought was the sweltering Iraqi heat, Ramos expected to recover quickly.

 "My health just kept getting worse," he said. "I tried to work out each day to get through it but I kept getting weaker. A numbing sensation hit my hands and my face, and
 the migraine headaches became constant. I was afraid I was having a stroke."

 He was sent first to a Baghdad hospital for treatment, but with no neurologist available, he was shipped out to Germany and eventually to the U.S.

 "I had rashes on my stomach for four months," Ramos said. "And now, whenever I [lie] down, my hands fall asleep."

 Doctors at Walter Reed have been stumped. They've given Ramos braces to wear on his arms at night to try to prevent his hands from falling asleep, and they've
 prescribed a host of muscle relaxants and painkillers, but nothing seems to work.

 "I have four kids. What happens to them now if I can't work?" said Ramos, who was looking forward to a transfer from the NYPD Housing Bureau to the robbery unit in
 Brooklyn's 75th Precinct once he returns from active duty. "I need them to investigate what's going on with my body."

 Cpl. Anthony Yonnone, 35, a cop with the Veterans Administration in Fishkill, N.Y., has the highest DU levels of the four soldiers who tested positive, said Dr. Asaf
 Duracovic, who performed the testing funded by The News.

 Yonnone said his nausea, skin rashes and migraines began in Samawah. "The headaches are constant and they don't want to stop," he said. "The rashes seem to come
 and go.

 "We were always passing blownout tanks when we were out doing patrols." 

 He recalled that American units in the town burned trash and waste each night in big drums near the train depot. "The combination of smoke and sand when we lit those
 fires covered everybody," he said.

 Evacuated from Iraq in August for minor surgery, Yonnone was sent first to Germany. 

 "They gave us a questionnaire. I marked that I wasn't exposed to depleted uranium because nobody had even told us what it was back in Iraq," he said.



Some discussion about this issue

Detection of Depleted Uranium in Urine of Veterans from the 1991 Gulf War
— R. H. Gwiazda, K. Squibb, M. McDiarmid, and D. Smith; Heatlh 
Physics Society Journal, January 2004.

Earlier done by Len Dietz, Asaf Durakovic and Pat Horan

The DoD/DVA are panicked. They publish in their mouthpiece Journals 
(RH is a member of this "society" of nuke industry polyannas), out of 
date propaganda, attempting to stem the tide of European, Dutch, 
Bulgarian, German and Japanese troops awakening to the risk of 2000 
metric tonnes of freshly aerosolized uranium dispersed into the Iraqi 
environment. They want badly to redirect the matter away from 
inhalation of ceramic U. Let's see them take a peep into the the 
lungs of their exposed veterans. They are terrified to do this 
because they know that ceramic U is retained for life. 

Can anyone image the DVA's physicians are not suffering deep ethical 
pain. They haven't got the integrity to pursue the most basic 
clinical logic: ceramic U, inhalation, life long incorporation, alpha 
emitters, radiation effects, systemic, mutagenic and congenital 
outcomes. 

M. McDiarmid continues to be a disgusting example of a human being 
posing as a doctor. She has one and only one assignment: blitz the 
literature with anything that will direct attention from U 
inhalation. Hope she sleeps well at night. 

Subject:  [DU-WATCH] Diehl/Fahey are traitors to veteans --- work for nuke sector
 Date:  Thu, 08 Apr 2004 02:48:38 -0000
 From: "Amarie" <amarierosa@yahoo.com>
 Reply-To: du-watch@yahoogroups.com
   To:       du-watch@yahoogroups.com

Fahey is running behind the scenes defamation of character and 
scientific credibility challenge to the New York Daily News reporter 
(Gonzales), the As Samawah vets and the results of the 
UMRC/Frankfurt University findings of DU. He is working with Peter 
Diehl of WISE to discredit the the lab and help US Defense 
Department and Coaliton partners to misrepresent the medical 
consequencs of inhaled battlefield uranium. See the report vrom WISE 
below. "Miniscule" is the term selected to spin a no-consequences to 
exposure postion. Fact is, all uranium in body is a miniscule amount. 
If any ceramic uranium reaches the urine, its a miracle and 
indicates 1000's of times more has been incorporated into organs, 
bones and lungs. Would they like to see hugh quantities of uranium 
in the vets urine ... apparently so. 

Fahey and Diehl are traitors to veterans and liars who have 
successfully boondoggled many anti-DU and anti-nuke activists. NPRI, 
NGWRC, MTP and a host of veterans organizations, reporters and 
activists are suckers for Fahey in the US and the same goes for the 
suckers for WISE in Germany.

See WISE Uranium Project - DU section 

Minuscule amounts of DU found in urine of civilians and US soldiers in Iraq

Urine samples of Iraqi civilians and US military personnel in Iraq 
were found to contain total uranium in a range of 1.1 to 65.3 
nanograms per litre, of which 0.2 to approx. 10 percent was depleted 
uranium.
The samples were analyzed by Dr Axel Gerdes at the Institute of 
Mineralogy of the University of Frankfurt am Main (Germany) using 
extremely sensitive multi-collector mass spectrometry. Detailed 
results have not been published yet.
> Download University of Frankfurt am Main release, April 2, 2004 
(PDF, in German)



VISIE Foundation
RISQ | www.risq.org  Review of International Social Questions
info@risq.org   +31 (0)294 458 011  The Netherlands
RISQ is an independent foreign policy think tank.

Dutch military in Iraq delays troop transfer from suspected DU contaminated area

When Dutch marines arrived in a base camp near the town of As Samawah, Iraq, to replace American troops last summer, they measured unacceptably high levels of radioactivity. Yet troop transfer from the area was delayed by three weeks, putting both Dutch and American troops at risk of exposure to depleted uranium (DU).

On July 24th last year, Dutch troops arrived in ‘Camp Smitty’, a base set up by the Americans in an abandoned train depot near the town of As Samawah. Located along the railway track from Basra to Baghdad, and consisting of several concrete buildings big enough to lodge both troops and their vehicles, the location seemed a perfect outpost.

Dutch marine resting on his field bed inside a train depot at Camp Smitty, 28 July 2003Set to replace the 442nd US Military Police Brigade stationed in the depot since early June, the Dutch troops put up their field beds inside, granting them at least some shelter from the ever-present desert heat and sand storms in the area, even though the buildings were dirty, dusty, vermin-infested and most windows were broken. Meals and other collective gatherings were held outside on the yard along the railway tracks amidst abandoned train engines and carriages, wrecked Iraqi tanks, unexploded ordnance, and other remnants of war.

DU-protection gearHOW TO PROTECT AGAINST DU CONTAMINATION?
Settled all right thus by military standards, the Dutch troops could have made Camp Smitty their 'home', just as the Americans had done for months. Yet shortly after their arrival, they made an alarming discovery, which according to Sgt. Juan Vega, senior medic with the US 442nd, led the Dutch “to pitch camp in the desert instead”. As Mr Vega told the New York-based Daily News “the Dutch swept the area around the train depot with Geiger counters and their medics confided to [me] they had found high radiation levels”.

According to Mr Vega and other soldiers interviewed by the paper, the radiation may have come from the remains of DU shells scattering the compound or one of the wrecked Iraqi tanks, which had been hauled onto railroad cars just outside the depot. Yet, since DU can take the form of a very fine, toxic and radiocative dust that easily spreads, a much greater part of the compound may have been contaminated.

As quite a few of the American troops who were based in Camp Smitty, are still suffering from chronic nausea, skin rashes and migraines, they suspect they may have inhaled a toxic dosis of DU dust during their stay. Already, four out of nine veterans who volunteered for a test, were found to have higher than normal levels of uranium in their urine.

While the US Department of Defence has recently announced it will investigate the case of the veterans from Camp Smitty, military personnel representatives in the Netherlands have raised concerns about the health of Dutch troops that have stayed there. Yesterday, a spokesperson of the Dutch Military of Defence merely conceded that “upon arrival, the marines declared part of the compound off-limits”, assuring that “all necessary precautionary measures were taken”. A source in one of the military personnel unions confirmed that they were informed by the Ministry about “certain measurements, which led the troops to close off a building on the compound”. However, the source said, “no reference was made to the possibility of DU contamination there”.

Dutch marines relaxing outside on the railway yard, Camp Smitty, 06 August 2003As the new camp out in the desert was still under construction, the Dutch troops stayed in the train depot at least until mid August. Pictures archived on the website of the Ministry of Defence show marines resting on field beds set up inside one of the buildings and sharing meals on the yard outside as late as 6 August 2003. By that time, they had been on the compound for over two weeks, even as 90 of them fell ill – some so much so that they had to be IV-fed. According to the Ministry they had contracted a virus, “due to the high temperatures, the change in food and lifestyle, and the higher concentration of viruses in the air of hot countries such as Iraq”.


Note: All over Iraq, the remains of spent DU shells and DU-contaminated debris have been found littering the streets in urban areas. Some wrecked vehicles have been towed away, and the most obvious contaminated sites are marked. However, most locations have not even been identified let alone cleaned, even though there is a widely shared consensus that DU contamination can be a potential health hazard.

To minimize the risk of exposure, foreign troops have been instructed to stay away from potentially contaminated areas as much as possible or to wear, at least, respiratory protection and gloves when it is inevitable to enter such sites.

As for Iraqi civilians, there is no indication that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) has properly informed the population about DU contamination. The British Ministry of Defence merely affirms that Iraqi locals have been warned “that they should not go near or touch any debris they find on the battlefield" Perhaps this would have sufficed, were it not for the fact that quite a few battles have been fought in densely populated areas, where it is virtually impossible for residents to avoid all remnants of war.

For earlier RISQ reports on DU and links to external resources, please
refer to our DU Dossier.

Copyright RISQ 2003, 2004. All rights reserved | www.risq.org.
Maarten H.J. van den Berg    http://www.risq.org

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