Weapon of Mass Deception What the Pentagon doesn't want us to know
about DU


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Weapon of Mass Deception
What the Pentagon doesn't want us to know about depleted
uranium.
By Frida Berrigan
In These Times

Friday 20 June 2003

In the weeks leading up to the war on Iraq, TV screens across
America were crowded with images of U.S. soldiers readying for
upcoming battles with a crazed dictator who would stop at nothing.
One clip after another showed U.S. soldiers racing to don $211 suits
designed to protect them from the chemical and biological attacks
they would surely suffer on the road to ousting Saddam Hussein.

But these grim forecasts were wrong. Despite the advance hype,
Hussein's dreaded arsenal was not the biggest threat to Americans on
the battlefield in Iraq. In fact, it was no threat at all.

The real threat—not only to U.S. troops but to Iraqis as well—may
prove to be a weapon scarcely mentioned before, during or after the
war: depleted uranium.

A toxic and radioactive substance, depleted uranium (DU)—
otherwise known as Uranium 238—was widely used by U.S. troops as
their Abrams battle tanks and A-10 Warthogs thundered through Iraq
this spring.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of enriched uranium, the fissile
material in nuclear weapons. It is pyrophoric, burning spontaneously
on impact. That, along with its extreme density, makes depleted
uranium munitions the Pentagon's ideal choice for penetrating an
enemy's tank armor or reinforced bunkers.

When a DU shell hits its target, it burns, losing anywhere from
40 to 70 percent of its mass and dispersing a fine dust that can be
carried long distances by winds or absorbed directly into the soil
and groundwater.

Depleted uranium's radioactive and toxic residue has been linked
to birth defects, cancers, the Gulf War Syndrome, and environmental
damage.

But the Pentagon insists depleted uranium is both safe and
necessary, saying it is a "superior armor [and] a superior munition
that we will continue to use." Pentagon officials say that the health
and environmental risks of DU use are outweighed by its military
advantages. But to retain the right to use and manufacture DU
weaponry and armor, the Pentagon has to actively ignore and deny the
risks that depleted uranium poses to human health and environment.

To keep depleted uranium at the top of its weapons list, the
Pentagon has distorted research that demonstrates how DU dust can
work its way into the human body, potentially posing a grave health
risk. According to a 1998 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry, the inhalation of DU particles can lead to
symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, lymphatic problems,
bronchial complaints, weight loss, and an unsteady gait—symptoms that
match those of sick veterans of the Gulf and Balkan wars. Dr. Rosalie
Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist, released a study in 1999
revealing that depleted uranium can stay in the lungs for up to two
years. "When the dust is breathed in, it passes through the walls of
the lung and into the blood, circulating through the whole body," she
wrote. Bertell concluded that exposure to depleted uranium,
especially when inhaled, "represents a serious risk of damaged immune
systems and fatal cancers."

The Pentagon has to cloak this dangerous weapon in deceptive and
innocuous language. The adjective "depleted," with its connotation
that the substance is non-threatening or diminished in strength, is
misleading. While depleted uranium is not as radioactive and
dangerous as U235—a person would not get sick merely from brief DU
exposure—depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years (as
long as the solar system has existed) and may pose serious health
risks and environmental contamination.

Don't Believe the Hype: Propaganda Wars

As the U.S. military prepared to launch a new offensive against
Iraq early this year, the Pentagon and White House embarked on a
parallel effort to promote depleted uranium as a highly effective
weapon that would protect the lives of innocent Iraqis. At the same
time, the Iraqi government sought to exploit the use of depleted
uranium and the serious public health concerns about its use in its
propaganda war against the United States.

At a March 14 Pentagon briefing, Col. James Naughton of the U.S.
Army announced that U.S. forces had decided to employ DU munitions in
the looming war on Iraq. When asked about depleted uranium's possible
effects on civilians, Naughton characterized opposition to the use of
DU weapons as a product of propaganda and cowardice. "Why do [the
Iraqis] want [depleted uranium] to go away?" he asked. "They want it
to go away because we kicked the crap out of them [in the first Gulf
War]."

The White House echoed Naughton's sentiment, rejecting reports
linking depleted uranium to birth defects and cancers in Iraq. Early
this year the White House released a report titled Apparatus of Lies:
Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003, which includes a
section on "The Depleted Uranium Scare." In it, the White House
accuses the Iraqi government of launching a "disinformation campaign"
that uses "horrifying pictures of children with birth defects" as a
tool to "take advantage of an established international network of
antinuclear activists." Iraq's aim, the report charged, was to
promote the "false claim that the depleted uranium rounds fired by
coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq."

But few anti-DU activists say that depleted uranium is the sole
cause of cancer and birth defects. Rather, they contend there is an
obvious link between depleted uranium and other toxins released into
the environment during the 1991 Gulf War, that independent study is
now required, and, in the meantime, that the United States should
declare a moratorium on any future use of depleted uranium.

Depleted Uranium Use Increasing

Over the past 15 years, the Pentagon has become increasingly
dependent on DU weapons and armor. The 1991 Gulf War was the first
major conflict in which DU weaponry and armor was used. Almost 320
tons—an amount equal to the weight of five Abrams battle tanks—were
fired in the Iraqi desert. About 10 tons of DU munitions were used in
Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia in the '90s. DU weaponry was
reportedly used in Afghanistan in 2001 as well, but reliable
estimates are not yet available.

Depleted uranium was used extensively in this year's war on Iraq,
but if Pentagon officials have an accurate accounting of total DU
use, they are keeping that number to themselves. In a May 15 article
in the Christian Science Monitor, reporter Scott Peterson wrote that
after the war, the Pentagon, when pressed by reporters, announced
that about 75 tons of DU munitions were fired from A-10 Warthogs.
However, the Pentagon has stalled on releasing additional relevant
data on how much depleted uranium was fired from Abrams battle tanks—
the other system that uses only DU munitions. More importantly, it
has not addressed concerns that DU weaponry was used much more
extensively in Iraq's urban and densely populated areas in the 2003
war than in 1991.

The use of DU weapons in urban areas and against civilian targets
in Iraq gives the lie to the Pentagon's insistence that it needed the
DU advantage in order to win the recent war quickly. To illustrate
the power of this wonder weapon, a March Pentagon press conference
prominently featured pictures from the first Gulf War of an Abrams
tank firing a DU munition through a sand dune to destroy an Iraqi
tank hidden behind. While this makes good TV, did depleted uranium
really provide a critical advantage to the U.S. military in Iraq? The
answer is no. The U.S. military did not need a wonder weapon in Iraq
because the crippled country was not a wonder opponent. Its arsenal
was antiquated and had been poorly maintained since the first Gulf
War. Suffering under more than 12 years of U.N. economic sanctions,
moreover, Iraq had not been able to develop or purchase comparable
high-tech armored weaponry.

In his May 15 article, Peterson describes video footage from the
last days of the recent war showing an A-10 Warthog strafing the
Iraqi Ministry of Planning in downtown Baghdad. This was not an
armored target; it was a building in a heavily populated
neighborhood. Peterson visited the area and found "dozens of spent
radioactive DU rounds, and distinctive aluminum casings with two
white bands, that drilled into the tile and concrete rear of the
building."

The indiscriminate use of DU munitions in densely populated areas
throughout Iraq, which put large numbers of civilians in jeopardy of
radioactive and toxic exposure, violates the Geneva Convention's
protocol prohibiting the use of weapons that do not distinguish
between soldiers and civilians during wartime.

So why did the Pentagon insist on using DU weapons in Iraq?
Tungsten alloys would have worked as well. Depleted uranium, it turns
out, has one tremendous advantage over tungsten. It is provided to
weapons manufacturers nearly free of charge by the U.S. government—an
ingenious method of radioactive waste disposal. Essentially, depleted
uranium is the waste left over from decades of nuclear weapons
development. In fact, the United States has stockpiles of depleted
uranium scattered at sites throughout the country—728,000 metric tons
to be exact—a tiny fraction of which is used in the manufacture of
depleted uranium warheads.

Lies and Silence

In an April 14 video address, President Bush spoke directly to
military personnel and their families, thanking them for their role
in the Iraq war. The monuments to Hussein had been toppled in
Baghdad, and the first troops were beginning to return home
triumphant. The message, broadcast on armed services networks around
the country and beamed to troops on the Iraq battlefield, included
Bush's promise that veterans of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" would
receive "the full support of our government. We will keep our
commitment to improving the quality of life for our military
families."

The same day, the Defense Department and the Centers for Disease
Control released the results of their four-year study on birth
defects in the children of Gulf War Veterans. Although the study did
not mention depleted uranium specifically, it found "significantly
higher prevalences" of heart and kidney birth defects in veterans'
children. Unfortunately, the study's disturbing findings were not
reported by any U.S. media outlets until June.

The Pentagon and White House propaganda on depleted uranium was
never challenged by the mainstream media this past spring. If members
of the national press corps had done their homework, they would have
found ample evidence that the Pentagon is fully aware of the dangers
posed by DU weaponry and is actively ignoring its own research and
warnings.

A 1974 military report evaluated the medical and environmental
effects of depleted uranium, noting that "in combat situations
involving the widespread use of DU munitions, the potential for
inhalation, ingestion, or implantation of DU compounds may be locally
significant." This contradicts recent Pentagon claims that depleted
uranium does not pose a threat and demonstrates the military's
understanding of how depleted uranium is absorbed into the human
body, posing risks to organs.

In a 1998 training manual, the U.S. Army acknowledged the hazards
of depleted uranium, requiring that anyone who comes within 25 meters
of DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin
protection. The manual cautioned: "Contamination will make food and
water unsafe for consumption."

And in November 1999, NATO sent its commanders the following
warning: "Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has
been associated with long-term health effects, including cancers and
birth defects."

They Hid It Well

The fact that these reports are in the public record is the
result of years of hard work, study, and Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) requests by anti-DU activists. The Pentagon and Bush
administration have also been hard at work. In the past two years,
they have clamped down on sources of information that had been
immensely valuable to service personnel and their families over the
past decade.

Dan Fahey served in the United States Navy just months after the
fighting ended in the Gulf War. Seeing the havoc the war wreaked on
his fellow veterans, he set out to become an independent expert on
depleted uranium. He sits on the board of Veterans for Common Sense
and has played a major role in obtaining U.S. government documents
about depleted uranium through FOIA.

Fahey says that, under President Bush, the Department of Defense
is controlling the release of information about depleted uranium so
tightly that if he were starting his research and disclosure efforts
today, he would be unable to get any information through the Freedom
of Information Act. "There is less information and more secrecy," he
says. "There are tighter restrictions on access to information."

Fahey was responsible for publicizing the findings of a July 1990
report by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a
defense contractor commissioned by the Pentagon to study depleted
uranium.

The report revealed that the Pentagon knew that depleted uranium
was harmful before 1991, when they sent 697,000 American troops to
the Gulf, where they could be exposed to DU dust and residue. SAIC
asserted that depleted uranium is "a low-level alpha radiation
emitter" that could be "linked to cancer when exposures are
internal." The report further warned, "DU exposures to soldiers on
the battlefield could be significant, with potential radiological and
toxicological effects." In addition the report found that "short-term
effects of high doses [of depleted uranium] can result in death,
while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."

SAIC says in its report that widespread knowledge of depleted
uranium's harmful properties could lead to public outrage about
the "acceptability of the continued use of DU kinetic energy
penetrators for military applications." That's what worries the
Pentagon.

All the while, as the Pentagon hides behind claims that more
study is needed to prove depleted uranium's connection with the
ailments suffered by Gulf War veterans and Iraqi civilians, their own
research demonstrates that, at best, depleted uranium is radioactive
and toxic—and that at worst, it can lead to incurable diseases and
death.

Veterans Suffer

The Pentagon says more study is needed. But veterans of the Gulf
War, meanwhile, need medical care, information, and benefits, and for
the Pentagon to come clean about depleted uranium. The veterans had
been exposed to a "toxic soup" of smoke from oil and chemical fires,
pesticides, vaccinations, depleted uranium and, most likely,
plutonium.

Two types of depleted uranium exist. One is "clean" depleted
uranium, a byproduct of the processing of uranium ore into uranium-
235 (which is used in nuclear fuel and weapons). The other type is
created at government facilities as a byproduct of reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel (done to extract plutonium for nuclear warheads) and is
known as "dirty" depleted uranium because it contains highly toxic
plutonium.

In November 2000, U.N. researchers examined 11 sites in Kosovo
hit by DU shells and found radioactive contamination at eight of
them. Furthermore, those tests uncovered evidence that at least some
of the DU munitions in the U.S. arsenal used in Kosovo
contained "dirty" depleted uranium. This raises the question: How
much of its plutonium-processing waste did the U.S. government supply
to weapons manufacturers?

If some of the DU shells in the U.S. arsenal have been made from
dirty depleted uranium, that could help explain why about 300 of
5,000 refugees from a Sarajevo suburb heavily bombed by NATO jets in
1995 had died of cancer by early 2001. And it could also help explain
the fact that 28 percent of veterans who served in the first Gulf War
have over the past 12 years sought treatment for illness and disease
resulting from their military service and filed claims with the
Veterans Administration for medical and compensation benefits. In
all, 186,000 veterans of that war have sought treatment for a
collection of maladies including chronic fatigue, joint and muscle
pain, memory loss, reproductive problems, depression, and
gastrointestinal disorders. Together these ailments are known as the
Gulf War Syndrome.

Based on the struggles of Gulf War veterans, Congress passed a
law in 1997 requiring the Pentagon to conduct pre- and postdeployment
medical screenings of troops and military personnel so that medical
professionals would have an accurate base of information if health
problems developed. In the early months of this year, as U.S. troops
were being deployed to Iraq, lawmakers found that the Pentagon was
not complying with the 1997 law: The troops were not being screened
at all.

According to Steven Robinson, a former Army Ranger who now
directs the National Gulf War Resource Center, it took two
congressional hearings, 30 news interviews, 60 radio interviews, and
a timely New York Times ad courtesy of www.TomPaine.com to pressure
the Pentagon to follow the law. On April 29, the Pentagon announced
it would begin conducting postdeployment examinations. Anti-DU
activists say the military's grudging compliance is too little, too
late.

Activists are struggling for treatment of veterans, for
information about depleted uranium and other toxins that could be
responsible for the Gulf War Syndrome, and for some sort of
government acknowledgement or apology. But they are also battling
against a legacy of lies, secrecy, and official promotion of an ends-
justifies-the-means posture. Veterans with Gulf War Syndrome can be
seen as the latest in a long line of Pentagon guinea pigs that
includes the troops ordered to witness the atomic blasts in the early
days of the Cold War, soldiers exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam,
and the black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were subjected to federal
government-sponsored syphilis experiments.

Keeps on Killing

If the Pentagon and the Federal government can treat American
troops and their families with such casual disregard and use
doublespeak with such abandon, what hope is there for Iraqi civilians
and troops?

The people of Iraq have known nothing but decades of war,
deprivation, and oppression. It is understandable that many cheered
when the statues of dictator Saddam Hussein toppled. At the same
time, how could they greet the United States, their liberators, with
anything other than the deepest skepticism?

In his just-released book The New Rulers of the World, Australian
journalist John Pilger recounts conversations with Iraqi doctors like
Jawad Al-Ali, a cancer specialist in Basra. Before the Gulf War, Dr.
Al-Ali told Pilger, "We had only three or four deaths in a month from
cancer. Now it's 30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's just
in my department. That is a 12-fold increase in cancer mortality. Our
studies indicate that 40 to 48 percent of the population in this area
will get cancer. That's almost half the population."

Not only are Dr. Al-Ali's patients suffering, but his own family
members are ill as well. "Most of my own family now have cancer, and
we have no history of the disease," he told Pilger. "We strongly
suspect depleted uranium."

The public has had to rely on anecdotal evidence like Dr. Al-
Ali's testimony to get a sense of the health crisis in Iraq.
Throughout the '90s, Hussein's government released data on cancer and
birth defects, but it is unlikely that those figures provide an
accurate picture.

Kathy Kelly, director of the Chicago-based Voices in the
Wilderness and three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, has
visited Iraq repeatedly since the first Gulf War and has built strong
relationships with doctors and nurses there. She recounted a day she
spent in a pediatric hospital in November 1998. "Four babies were
born that day with deformities. I was shocked, but the doctors
said, `This is not unusual.'"

"So, I asked them," she continues, "`Did you know where the
mothers were when they conceived? Were their fathers involved in the
war? Were they in an area exposed to depleted uranium?'"

"One of the doctors replied, `All of these questions are very
important, and we need to be collecting this data, but we cannot. Let
me show you something.' And she showed me a prescription for a baby
that was written on the back of a candy wrapper. Because of the
effects of the economic sanctions, they did not even have paper to
write prescriptions on."

There is an overwhelming need for medical research in Iraq, but
it is impossible to initiate within the context of the pressing
health needs and the lack of medical supplies and equipment that
constitute the fallout of war. This situation allows the U.S.
military to continue insisting that there is no proof that DU
exposures lead to cancers. "No proof of harm is not proof of no
harm," Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist at Boston University, told
the San Francisco Chronicle. "The potential for a DU-cancer link
(especially lung cancer in those who breathe depleted uranium through
dust and smoke particles) is still an open question."

Rep. Jim McDermott, a doctor from Washington state, traveled to
Iraq in the fall of 2002. He visited hospitals, speaking with his
peers, and saw the hospital beds crowded with the dying. He returned
to the United States adamantly opposed to a new war in Iraq and
deeply committed to challenging the continued use of depleted
uranium. McDermott drafted legislation requiring studies of the
health and environmental impact of depleted uranium. His bill,
introduced just as the war started this past spring, is co-sponsored
by a number of other Democrats but needs wider support.

Clearly, this legislation, if passed, would be an important first
step in understanding the long-term effects of depleted uranium.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has called for an outright ban
on shells made from depleted uranium. That would indeed be another
sensible place to start.

In addition, anti-DU activists Dan Fahey, Steve Robinson, and
Kathy Kelly should be encouraged and financially supported in their
ongoing efforts to compile data and release their findings to the
public. Next, manufacturers of DU weapons—like the Minnesota-based
Alliant Techsystems, which built 15 million DU shells for the A-10
Warthog—should be held accountable for the long-term effects of
their "products."

Finally, we might take up Yugoslavian President Vojislav
Kostunica's suggestion: "We should be discussing the depleted
conscience of those who used the notorious depleted uranium."

Only then will the cycle of deception and silence about depleted
uranium be broken.

Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade
Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes.)

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