-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Copies to: 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: "John F. Winston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: IUFO: Why Do Dad Things Happen To Good Guys Like Us? Date sent: Sat, 12 Apr 2003 17:45:02 -0700 (PDT) Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good Guys Like Us? April 12, 2003. Do you ever get the feeling that a lot of bad things are happening to Us Good Ole Boys and Girls and wonder why? ..................................................................... From: l Subject: Multi-D News Congressman McDermott Depleted Uranium Bill HR 1483 McDERMOTT INTRODUCES DEPLETED URANIUM BILL March 27, 2003 http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr030327.html Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) today introduced legislation requiring studies on the health and environmental impact of depleted uranium (DU) munitions, as well as cleanup and mitigation of depleted uranium contamination at sites within the Uni-ed States where DU has been used or produced. McDermott, a medical doctor, has been concerned about this issue since veterans of the Gulf War started experiencing unexplained illnesses. His concern deepened, he said, after visiting Iraq, where Iraqi pediatricians told him that the incidence of severely deformed infants and childhood can-ers has skyrocketed. "Depleted uranium is toxic and carcinogenic and it may well be associated with elevated rates of birth defects in babies born to those exposed to it," said McDermott. "We had troops coming home sick after the Gulf War, and depleted uranium may be one of the factors responsible for that." Because of its density, the military uses depleted uranium as a protective shield around tanks. It is also part of munitions like armor-piercing bullets. Because it tends to spontaneously ignite upon impact, it is used to cause explosions. But depleted uranium, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, is also linked to grave health concerns because of its chemical toxicity and low-level radioactivity. When depleted uranium explodes, soldiers are exposed to DU in the form of alpha-emitting airborne particles that are inhaled and shrapnel that gets embedded in the body. They are also exposed through unprotected contact with equipment. About 300 metric tons of depleted uranium was used in the Iraq during the Gulf War, and many citizens of Iraq as well as veterans of the Gulf War have experienced terrible health problems-many say as a consequence of depleted uranium. Increased rates of c-ncers, leukemia, and birth malformations are among the health problems that may be linked to DU. The Pent-gon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, at times claiming DU is not a health hazard, and at other times acknowledging the need for sophisticated protective gear and safety training regarding exposure to DU. "The need for these studies is imperative and immediate," said McDermott. "We cannot knowingly put the men and women of our armed forces in harm's way." The Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2003 has several original co-sponsors, including Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). Congressman Jim McDermott Contact Information: http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/contact.html ------------ Related Articles: THE WAR AGAINST OURSELVES An interview with Dr. Doug Rokke http://www.futurenet.org/25environmentandhealth/rokke.htm DEPLETED URANIUM: THE AMERICAN LEGACY By Sarah DeHart and Louis Farshee http://www.americaheldhostile.com/ed031503.shtml IT'S TIME FOR ANSWERS By Scott Taylor http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/091200-02.html [EMAIL PROTECTED] John Winston. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ........... From: C Subject: Depleted Uranium Weapons in W-r Dear John, I recently had a personal, face-to-face conversation on a dark night in Arizona with a rough-and-tumble man who claimed to be a former U.S. Spec-al Forces soldier in Viet Nam -- and a former C-A contract ope-ative. In response to my concern and question about uranium-depleted warheads, he explained that they were mostly used for armor-piercing ordinance against enemy tanks. The reason uranium was used is that it's extremely hard -- allowing U.S. shells to pierce enemy tanks. John Winston continued: Let me state that I'm proud of our military people who are in the fight against Iraq. I'm a veteran myself and served in the US Navy. They are doing the best that they know how. C commented: Yes -- and all our American soldiers want to go home as soon as possible. However, as long as bad people shoot at us, we are going to stay in Iraq so the nice Iraqi people will have a better life. Warfare is very brutal, but sometimes, after many chances, it's the only way to free people from a dictator like Saddam. C ............. From: P Subject: News Gulf War Syndrome, The Sequel- 'People Are Sick Over There Already' Gulf War Syndrome, The Sequel 'People Are Sick Over There Already' Steven Rosenfeld is a commentary editor and audio producer for TomPaine.com. Soldiers now fighting in Iraq are being exposed to battlefield hazards that have been associated with the Gulf War Syndrome that afflicts a quarter-million veterans of the 1991 war, said a former Central Command Army officer in Operation Desert Storm. Part of the threat today includes greater exposure to battlefield byproducts of depleted uranium munitions used in combat, said the former officer and other Desert Storm veterans trained in battlefield health and safety. Their concern comes as troops are engaged in the most intensive fighting of the Iraq War. Complicating efforts to understand any potential health impacts is the Pen-agon's failure, acknowleged in House hearings on March 25, to follow a 1997 law requiring baseline medical screening of troops before and after deployment. "People are sick over there already," said Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of the Army's depleted uranium (DU) project. "It's not just uranium. You've got all the complex organics and inorganics [compounds] that are released in those fires and detonations. And they're sucking this in.... You've got the whole toxic wasteland." In 1991, Desert Storm Commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf asked Rokke to oversee the environmental clean up and medical care of soldiers injured in friendly fire incidents involving DU weapons. Rokke later wrote the DU safety rules adopted by the Army, but was relieved of subsequent duties after he criticized commanders for not following those rules and not treating exposed troops from NATO's war in Yugoslavia. Rokke said today's troops have been fighting on land polluted with chemical, biological and radioactive weapon residue from the first Gulf War and its aftermath. In this setting, troops have been exposed not only to sandstorms, which degrade the lungs, but to oil fires and waste created by the use of uranium projectiles in tanks, aircraft, machine guns and missiles. "That's why people started getting sick right away, when they started going in months ago with respiratory, diarrhea and rashes - horrible skin conditions," Rokke said. "That's coming back on and they have been treating them at various medical facilities. And one of the doctors at one of the major Army medical facilities -- he and I talk almost every day -- and he is madder than h--l." DU, or Uranium-238, is a byproduct of making nuclear reactor fuel. It is denser and more penetrating than lead, burns as it flies, and breaks up and vaporizes on impact -- which makes it very deadly. Each round fired by a tank shoots one 10-pound uranium dart that, in addition to destroying targets, scatters into burning fragments and creates a cloud of uranium particles as small as one micron. Particles that small can enter lung tissue and remain embedded. Efforts to contact Pen-agon officials for comment at the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses and officials at the Veterans Administration who deal with DU-related illness were not returned. What Rokke and other outspoken Desert Storm veterans fear is today's troops are being exposed to many of the same battlefield conditions that they believe are responsible for Gulf War Syndrome. These illnesses have left 221,000 veterans on medical disability and another 51,000 seeking that status from the Veterans Administration as of May 2002. "Yeah, I do fear that," said Denise Nichols, a retired Air Force Major and nurse, who served in Desert Storm and is now vice-chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition. "We're sitting here watching it happen again and wondering if the soldiers are going to be taken care of any better [than after the 1991 wa-]." Nichols' lobbying sparked Congress to pass a 1997 law requiring the P-ntagon to conduct a physical and take blood samples of all soldiers before and after deployment. In a House hearing on March 25 on that requirement, Public Law 105-85, Pent-gon officials said the mili-ary had not conducted those baseline tests for Iraq War soldiers, saying they asked troops to fill out a questionnaire instead. "Their actions not to fully implement PL 105-85 and go beyond the words of the law, show their lack of caring for the human beings that do the work and place their lives in jeopardy for this nation," Nichols said in testimony submitted to the Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) the Go-ernment Reform-National Sec-ity Subcommittee chairman, who held the hearing and told military officials they were "not meeting" the letter or spirit of the law. "I hope that when the soldiers return that the standard tactic of blaming PTSD [Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder] or stress will never be allowed to block soldiers from getting fast answers to what is happening to their health," Nichols testified. "If you don't look, you don't find," Rokke said, commenting on the Penta-on's failure to assess soldiers' health. "If you don't find, there is no correlation. If there's no correlation, there's no liability." Both Rokke and Nichols says health problems associated with DU exposure are likely to be more widespread in the current war than in 1991. That's because the military relies more heavily on DU munitions today and there's more fighting in this war. When Rokke sees images of soldiers and civilians driving past burning Iraqi trucks that have been destroyed by tank fire, or soldiers or civilians inspecting buildings destroyed by missiles, and these people are not wearing respirators, he says they all risk radiation poisoning, which can have lifelong consequences. "He's going to be sick," Rokke said. "He's supposed to have full respiratory protection on. That's required by his Common Task [training manual]. And when he comes by and he's downwind, he supposed to have a radio-bio-assay. That's urine, feces and nasal swabs within 24 hours." When asked why those protocols -- part of the DU rules he wrote for the Army -- apparently aren't being followed, Rokke said the mi-itary doesn't want to lose the use of DU weapons. He said as early as 1991 the mi-itary issued memos saying DU ammo could become "politically unacceptable and thus be deleted" if health and environmental impacts were emphasized. Outside the m-litary, medical journals say the jury is still out on DU's potential health impacts. Although the gove-nment says it is safe, medical researchers say not enough is understood about DU's acute and long-term effects, wrote Brian Vastag in the April 2 edition of the Journal of the American Me-ical Association. Veterans disagree, however, saying the m-litary has known about low-level radiation poisoning since the development of atomic weapons in the 1940s. They say the mili-ary will not disclose its DU test results and that it's almost impossible to do medical research while combat rages. Meanwhile, in political circles, the White House has dismissed DU issues. On March 18, it issued "Apparatus of Lies," a report which, among other things, attacked claims that DU fallout from Operation Desert Storm has caused higher disease rates among Iraqi citizens. Those claims were part of "Saddam's disinformation and propaganda" campaign, the White House said. Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never distribute your information to any other entity. Published: Apr 08 2003 John Winston. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------- End of forwarded message ------- ------ "I think they thought we wouldn't shoot kids. But we showed them we don't care. We are going to do what we have to do to stay alive and keep ourselves safe." -- US Army Private Nick Boggs <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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