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Hard Weapons for Soft Targets
by Joanne Baker
"We cannot under any circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilization of any
weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which
prevails on the frontier." -- Winston Churchill
On March 28, 2003, a U.S. A-10 aircraft fired into a convoy of five British vehicles
near Basrah in a "friendly fire" incident. It was reported by the Guardian
newspaper that the British troops who retrieved the bodies wore "chemical warfare
suits, because of the threat from the depleted uranium used in American weapons."
Two days later, on the morning of March 30, 2003, an Iraqi troop carrier passing
through Kibla, a residential suburb of Basrah, broke down and signaled to a second
troop carrier to come to its assistance. As the Iraqi soldiers were trying to sort
out the mechanical problem, an A-10 fired rounds of depleted uranium ammunition into
both vehicles causing instant inferno.
At the same time, two young men were entering a nearby house. Thinking they too were
soldiers, the pilot targeted the house. The soldiers were incinerated, as were the
two boys in the house, Jelaal and Nasir, ages 21 and 18 respectively. A young cousin
sustained severe burns on his leg. The explosive blasts created a plume of uranium
oxide dust, some of it so fine that it entered the atmosphere as a gas. The heavier
particles landed close to the vehicles and inside the building. Neighbors and family
buried the dead; the grieving parents and remaining eight children continued to live
in what was left of their home, and dozens of local children played daily in and
around the burnt out vehicles. No one warned them of the nature of the bullets that
had and would continue to cause so much death and destruction.
In July 2004, an Iraqi environmental scientist, who was researching depleted uranium,
happened to be driving through Kibla with his fiancé. They were on the way
to church to arrange their wedding. His fiancé mentioned to him that she always
got a headache after passing some burnt out vehicles in the area, so a few days later,
he went to investigate. His Geiger counter immediately told him that the area was
radioactive and later, equipped with full radioactive gear, he cleaned the troop
carriers and damaged area of the house to the best of his ability. He then went straight
to the British military in Basrah, explained the situation and asked for their help.
Apart from some sympathy from an environmental adviser, who has subsequently returned
to the UK, the response was very dismissive and no action has been taken. The scientist
also notified the World Health Organization, but has had no response at all.
A few weeks later, photographer Jenny Matthews, Dr. Al-Ani and myself happened to
be in Basrah and were taken to visit the family in Kibla. We walked around the burnt
troop carriers and watched the rising dial of the Geiger counter, as wind whipped
up the dust around us. Children were playing all around and were very excited to
see us. In the house, we spoke to the mother and daughters, two of whom, Ibtehal
and Delaal, are suffering from breathing problems and skin rashes. A younger boy,
Kemal, 13, is losing his night vision, and the burns sustained by their cousin Sa'd
are still not healing properly.
Our own enquiries through the British Embassy in Basrah resulted in the following
response: "The clean up of depleted uranium is the responsibility of the civil
administration, with assistance from the international community, after any armed
conflict." In this instance, the civil administration is the Iraqi Interim Government.
And, we wonder, who is the international community? Apparently not the U.S. or U.K.
After the Gulf War in 1991, 24 U.S. vehicles caught in depleted uranium friendly
fire were returned to the United States, and it took three years to fully decontaminate
them. The clean-up of the environment itself is, of course, not possible. Nature
excels at recycling. Radioactive particles have already entered Iraq's air, water,
soil and vegetation and are working their way through the food chain. Nor do such
particles respect "borders" -- the wind, sun and rain will move them endlessly.
During the Gulf War of 1991, the U.S. and Britain used up to 350 tons of depleted
uranium shells in southern Iraq. They were used mainly on the tanks and trucks returning
from Kuwait. Despite the fact that they were used mainly in a desert area, the health
problems in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have escalated. In Basrah, childhood leukemia
has increased sevenfold, overall cancers tenfold and birth deformities twentyfold.
Many allied troops returning from the Gulf and the Balkans have suffered similarly.
A German doctor, Dr. Siegfried Horst Guenther, who studied the rare health effects
in Iraq after 1991, also noted severe immunodeficiencies, AIDS-like syndromes, and
kidney and liver dysfunction. Other noted symptoms are reactive airway disease, neurological
problems, rashes, vision degradation and night-vision losses, gum-tissue problems,
sexual dysfunction and neuro-psychological disorders.
Depleted uranium (DU) is both radioactive and chemically toxic, and many doctors
and scientists like Dr. Guenther are convinced that the inhalation or ingestion of
microscopic DU particles does have an adverse effect at a cellular level. Children,
because of their fast cell growth, are particularly vulnerable.
Dr. Alexandra Miller from the U.S. Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute concludes
that "DU compounds can transform cells into a state that appears to be able
to induce tumors, based on the changes in the physical appearance of the cell, and
based on the chemical changes induced in the cells by it, and other tumor-favoring
changes." She also states that the radioactive and toxic properties of DU seem
to reinforce each other, thus causing more extensive damage.
Depleted uranium has been found in the urine and tissue of sick veterans and civilians
many years after the initial exposure, and chromosome testing by Dr. Schott in Germany
shows not only chromosomal damage to veterans exposed to DU, but the same genetic
damage in their children. DU is known to enter the sperm and the ovary and can cross
the placenta. This not only accounts for the high rise in congenital deformities,
but it indicates that such deformities could be intergenerational. Young women like
Ibtehal and Delaal must not only fear for their own health, but that of any children
they may bear.
To compound the health problem, some of the DU used in munitions comes from the other
end of the nuclear fuel cycle and is contaminated with artificial isotopes such as
U-236 and plutonium and neptunium. As depleted uranium isotopes decay, they become
increasingly radioactive. Moreover, according to Dr. Dan Bishop, if Neptunium 235
is present, its short half life will spike the radioactivity and will triple "the
alpha radiation over natural uranium and double the total alpha, beta and gamma radiation
over natural radiation."
The environmental and health effect of DU munitions could be far greater than is
generally assumed. Samples taken from civilians in Afghanistan by the Uranium Medical
Research Centre also showed excessive levels of non-depleted uranium and one tissue
sample from Basrah has shown the presence of enriched uranium.
The British have admitted to the use of nine tons of uranium in the 2003 war -- nine
times more than in 1991, but the U.S. refuses to be specific. The estimates range
between 200 to 2,000 tons. While the U.S. and U.K. only admit to the use of depleted
uranium in anti-tank penetrators, there is growing evidence that it is being used
in a variety of other weapons. High levels of radioactivity have been found in large
bomb craters, such as the Ma'moon telephone exchange in Baghdad that was hit by several
bunker-busting bombs. The missiles cut through six layers of steel before exploding
below ground level. This supports the contention that uranium is being used in some
guided missiles to enhance the penetration of hard structures and to incinerate them.
These large bombs could release significant amounts of uranium oxide into the atmosphere.
The difference between the war of 2003 and previous conflicts is that the use of
uranium has been almost exclusively in urban, residential areas. The U.K. and U.S.
military justify this by saying that there are no known health effects from depleted
uranium, yet are they really convinced? In fact, the military and governments have
known the health risks of depleted uranium for decades:
• In 1991, a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority report stated, "The DU will
be spread around the battlefield and target vehicles in varying sizes and quantities,
from dust particles to full-size penetrators. Localized contamination of vehicles
and soil may exceed permissible limits and these could be hazardous to both clean-up
teams and the local population."
• In 1995, the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute wrote, "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."
All military personnel working with DU in the U.K. are classified radiation workers
and subject to constant monitoring. Hard-target testing, which took place in Eskmeals,
Cumbria, on the northwest coast of England until 1995, was done under very strict
conditions and it still costs the British tax payers £360,000 a year to maintain
and protect the site. Rounds of depleted uranium were fired at a hard target in a
concrete bunker, known as the VJ Butt, and in July 2000, the Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee made the following report, "A well-defined protocol is in
place for workers required to enter the VJ Butt after test firing. Before they can
do so, allowance is made for a cooling period, during which cooling fans with three
levels of air filtration are in operation. Members of the butt entry party are required
to wear full protective clothing with pureflow hoods and carry personal air samplers."
All well and good, but how can the use of the same material be justified if it is
targeting houses, buses and people in Iraq? While there is acknowledged military
advantage in using uranium against hard targets, it is very difficult to understand
why it is also being used so liberally on "soft" targets. In this last
war on Iraq, these have included military personnel, cars, trucks, buses and houses.
Even the Iraqi troop carriers hardly merited extreme penetrative force. And where
in places like Kibla are the air filters and pureflow hoods to be found? When Abdul
Zahra Misbal Shindi buried his dead sons, he was not, like the British soldiers,
provided with a chemical suit.
Kibla is not alone. The same Iraqi scientist has discovered 26 radioactive sites
in just one area of Basrah. In parts of Baghdad, radiation has been monitored as
1,000 and 1,900 times greater than normal background level, and high recordings have
been made in towns such as Samawah and Negev.
Our mission to Iraq in August was not to measure radiation, but to assess the needs
of Iraqi children for our charity Child Victims of War. Basrah Children's Hospital
is crying out for even the most basic equipment to treat its ever-growing numbers
of young leukemia and cancer patients. Despairing doctors said that this was not
really a cancer ward where children were treated, just a place where they came to
die. Basrah is in desperate need of an oncology center. If even a few of the young
children we met are dying from the allied use of radiological weapons, then the lack
of medicine and pain relief created by the long years of sanctions and now occupation
compounds a most terrible crime.
Joanne Baker, Msc, is coordinator of Child Victims of War, which supports the
right of the Iraqi child to a healthy and happy childhood by working with local communities
to monitor children's rights, research the environmental effects of war, support
advocacy campaigns, and to help build and equip children's medical and rehabilitation
centers. For more information, visit www.childvictimsofwar.org
Copyright © 2004 Joanne Baker |
| Dec 2004 |
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