 |
GuvWurld.org |
US FORCES' USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IS 'ILLEGAL'
By Neil Mackay
The Sunday Herald
March 30, 2003
British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells
in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations
resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass
destruction.
DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using
the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects
in children.
Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project
-- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University
and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defence
with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of
DU was a 'war crime'.
Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq
possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons
of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such double-standards are
repellent.'
The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when an American
A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British soldier and
injuring three others in a 'friendly fire' incident.
According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are
breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the
Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the
Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899
and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and
'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'.
All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering
in armed conflicts.
DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war syndrome -- typified by
chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and memory loss -- among 200,000 US
soldiers after the 1991 conflict.
It is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number of birth
deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war.
'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and deformities
between four and six times,' according to the UN subcommission.
The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the
battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts say
1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.
In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped
bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people
would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in
the desert.
The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied
veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of
anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50
million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight
cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American
DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born
without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.
A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe
illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused
fingers.
Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel cannot wilfully
contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and
then ignore the consequences of their actions.
'To do so is a crime against humanity.
'We must do what is right for the citizens of the world -- ban DU.'
He called on the US and UK to 'recognise the immoral consequences of their
actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough
environmental remediation'.
He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic wasteland behind
them and kill indiscriminately.
'It is equivalent to a war crime.'
Rokke said that coalition troops were currently fighting in the Gulf without
adequate respiratory protection against DU contamination.
The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the Ministry of Defence had
test-fired some 6350 DU rounds into the Solway Firth over more than a
decade, from 1989 to 1999.
------------
PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:
U.S. TO USE DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IN IRAQ (3/16/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4762
U.S. STOCKING URANIUM-RICH BOMBS? (3/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4687
URANIUM MUNITIONS: THE WAR AGAINST OURSELVES (2/18/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4493
DEPLETED URANIUM TOXICITY IN AFGHANISTAN (& IRAQ) (12/11/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2385