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"There is not really any danger, at least that we know about, for the people of Iraq," said Lt. Col. Michael Sigmon, deputy surgeon for the US Army's V Corps, told journalists in Baghdad last week. He asserted that children playing with expended tank shells would have to eat and then practically suffocate on DU residue to cause harm.
Scott Ritter, anti-DU activist (and former UN weapons inspector, as a Marine, served as a ballistic missile advisor to Norman Schwartzkopf)
"I love DU!"
"You put me in charge of a couple hundred marines, and we’re dug in and a T80 battle tank comes over. I don’t want to fight an equal fight. I don’t want him anywhere close to me. I’m going to open up a 120 millimeter battletank gun with continued depleted uranium rounds that will carve up that tank like a hot knife through butter and kill everyone inside before they can even come close to me. ...I love DU!"
From: http://www.lonestaricon.com/2006/Archives/09/news15.htm
This Webmaster's blog entry on the Ritter line: http://www.gnn.tv/B22060
"As a medical doctor, I know the difference between a cursory and a comprehensive study, We don't have the kind of credible, independent, scientific evidence on which to judge DU harmful or not. U.S. soldiers deserve better than 'trust us,' which is what the Pentagon is saying. They said that before during the Vietnam War when concerns were raised about the use of Agent Orange. Decades later, the Pentagon finally admitted Agent Orange was harmful. I have the same concerns about DU."
AND
"If DU poses no danger, we need to prove it with statistically valid, and independent scientific studies. If DU harms our soldiers, we all need to know it, and act quickly as any doctor would, to use all of our power to heal the sick. We owe our soldiers a full measure of the truth, wherever that leads us."
-Jim McDermot, US House Representative (WA-D), May 9, 2006
From: http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=2335&blz=2
Or: http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr060511b.shtml
Story lead sentence by Kristine Kubat, Big Island Weekly
"While weapons made with depleted uranium can penetrate any substance known to man, the issues surrounding the use of this radioactive, heavy metal are having a much harder time sinking in."
link: http://www.gnn.tv/H13385
"The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides."
Deborah Hastings, AP National Writer | August 12, 2006 in Sickened Iraq vets cite depleted uranium
"The lies by senior Defense Department officials are designed to sustain use of uranium munitions and avoid liability for adverse health and environmental effects."
from: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_syndrome.html
"General Powell, General Schwarzkopf, General Horner, and Secretary Cheney . . . made a conscience decision . . . to blow up Iraq’s chemical-biological stockpiles in place. [They] also decided to blow up their nuclear reactors in place. This is all confirmed in Schwarzkopf’s autobiography . . . We warned everybody that these exposures — downwind exposures – were going to have a disastrous effect on U.S. military personnel, on coalition personnel, on Iraqi personnel, and on the civilians and non-combatants in the region. That warning was ignored."
from: From: http://www.notinkansas.us/
"Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers - one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney--he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer.
"Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common."
"Depleted uranium is harmful in three ways, according to Fulk: "Chemical toxicity, radiological toxicity, and particle toxicity."
From: Nano-particles pinpointed by Christopher Bollyn – American Free Press January 7, 2005
Jimmy Carter, "Saving nonproliferation," The Washington Post, 28 March 2005
"The United States is the major culprit in the erosion of the NPT. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea ... they also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states."
From: Environment News Service A Day to Prevent Environmental Causes and Results of War (2004 article)
John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the DU story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY.
From: http://vitaltruths.blogsource.com/ and http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/du_syndrome.html
Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization’s chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust was also deliberately suppressed.
"The [US government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body."
At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada.
"That's exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way."
According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. “The larger the bang” the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the “micron size” or smaller, he said.
When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific:
"I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people." (second source link)
Leuren Moret to Berkely City Council:
November 15, 2004 On the day I took custody of a recently declassified document in Nevada my car was towed in Berkeley. The declassified document disclosed the existence of a secret EPA dairy at the Nevada Test Site during atmospheric testing, where radiation levels were measured in milk and tissues of dead cattle. The US government knowingly exposed the entire US population to internal radiation damage, then the University of California/Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab studied them and watched them die while they covered up the terrible truth. The day after I gave the declassified document to Manhattan Project and former Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab scientist, Marion Fulk, the Fulk family dog was killed. The towed car was parked in the vicinity of a car that sat parked on the street without an engine in it for two years and it was never moved or towed. Other cars belonging to a man named Rich were only moved once a month for street sweeping, but they were never towed. After returning from Nevada with the declassified document, Rich's father repeated parts of a phone conversation to me that I had with the woman who got the document declassified. I had never spoken to the man before. When I gave the declassified document to Marion Fulk, and Dr. Ernest Sternglass (who helped to convince the Senate to sign the Partial Test Ban treaty in 1963) they both said "I've been waiting 50 years for this…"
From: http://www.raven1.net/moret2citycouncil.htm
See also:
"Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia."
"The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas."
This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers). So, it’s 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!!
Tom Flocco consulted Dr. Garth Nicolson of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California who said, Just one microscopic particl— let alone thousands trapped in a soldier’s pulmonary system for one year can result in 272 times the annual whole body radiation dose permitted U.S. radiation workers.”
Geologist Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and internationally recognized expert on radiation, DU, and public health. She estimates that “one millionth of a gram [of depleted uranium] accumulating in a person’s body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment.”
from: From: http://www.notinkansas.us/
Personally I don't see any need for a 'debate'. DU was (is) used
because it is cheap and plentiful, given that it is a by-product of the
nuclear power industry, and is a substance that literally no-one else
wants.
There
are other, inert, metals with equal penetrative capacities in the
anti-armour role. They just happen to be more expensive.
We
just have to put DU in the category of someone's bright idea that had
unfortunate side-effects. Like chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas.
And stop using it. Tomorrow.
- User Tony50 on Guardian's Depleted uranium weapons: debate the issue with our experts, Thursday, 11 Jan, 1.30pm, 2001
from: talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee7dbf0 or tinyurl.com/2o9pzaThe NukeWatch fact sheet on dupleted uranium lists many quotes and sources, mostly from mainstream media.
The chief Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor speaks knowingly and directly across more than 50 years to resolutely instruct American citizens on exactly what our duty is today, right now: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience … therefore have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring."
"On the other hand, the very essence of the Charter is that individuals
have international duties which transcend the national obligations of
obedience imposed by the individual state. He who violates the laws of
war cannot obtain immunity while acting in pursuance of the authority
of the state, if the state, in authorizing action, moves outside its competence
under international law."
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-005.html
also: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/judlawch.htm
http://www.tomjoad.org/nuremberg.htm