-Caveat Lector-
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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.
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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
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