Re: An Arab-American Priest, DU and Iraq

In article <1133116493.3316249736.2556637700@xxxxxxxxxx>,
NY-Transfer-News@xxxxxxxxxx () wrote:

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> An Arab-American Priest, DU and Iraq
>
> Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
>
> sent by mart
>
> Washington Report On Middle East Affairs - Nov, 2005
> http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2005/0511029.html
>
> Special Report
>
> An Arab-American Priest, Depleted Uranium, and Iraq
>
> By Robert Hirschfield
>
> TRAVELING around southern Iraq in the late 1990s to investigate the effects
> of U.N. economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, Jesuit Father Simon Harak
> stopped at a hospital in Basra. Meeting with him and his colleagues from the
> anti-sanction group Voices in the Wilderness, Dr. Jenan Hassan briefed them
> about the medical horrors she and other doctors were confronting as a result
> of the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons by the U.S. Army in southern
> Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war. There was a fivefold increase in cancer,
> especially leukemia, she said, and a five- to eightfold increase in children
> born with genetic defects.
>
> Dr. Hassan showed the Voices group some of the newborns.
>
> "We saw a baby with a head growing out of his head," recalled Harak. "We saw
> babies with intestines growing outside their bodies."
>
> Sitting in his spartan cubicle in Lower Manhattan, where he works as the
> anti-militarism coordinator for the War Resisters League, Harak, a
> 57-year-old Arab-American whose parents are from Lebanon, emphasized that,
> in comparison to the 300 tons of DU weaponry used against Iraq in the first
> Gulf war, U.S. forces deployed more than 1,000 tons during the 2003
> invasion.
>
> "Given the fact that there is an incubation period involved here," he
> pointed out, "we shall soon be seeing the second wave of cancer and birth
> defects as a result of that war."
>
> >From his computer, a crucial weapon of 21st century dissent, the Jesuit
> dispatches the results of his DU research to hundreds of people throughout
> the country. He maintains close contact with the Manhattan Project, the only
> group that devotes itself exclusively to DU. Their collaboration is still
> mainly on the level of information gathering. Harak's goal is for
> information to translate into social action.
>
> "Depleted uranium," he explained in his methodical, professorial way (having
> once taught ethics at Fairfield College), "is 60 percent radioactive. It is
> also heavy metal toxic. It is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process
> of nuclear weapons production from which uranium's most radioactive isotope,
> U235, is recovered for re-use in new fuel rods."
>
> The DU weapons used in Iraq were far more deadly, he explained, far more
> enduring-Japanese scientist Katsuma Yagasaki estimates that DU's radiation
> has a half-life of 4.5 billion years-and far less publicized than car bombs
> and roadside bombs. The DU was present in missiles, tank shells, and
> rocket-propelled grenades. Formidable at armor piercing, these weapons were
> known to aerosolize on impact into tiny particles that could be inhaled or
> ingested.
>
> Harak used the case of Basra to illustrate how the damage was done.
>
> "Basra is on a river," he noted. "A DU shell poisons the water in a river.
> It poisons the grasses and the grains. It sinks into the ground and poisons
> the water table. When it gets into the body, it does incredible damage. The
> combination of radioactivity and heavy metal toxicity is such that it
> affects the DNA in such a way that you get genetic alterations."
>
> Harak recalled being told by doctors in Basra that the deformed children
> they were delivering reminded them of the pictures they had seen of
> Chernobyl babies. When a baby is born in Basra, the doctors said, the first
> question the mother asks her obstetrician is: "Is it all right?"
>
> Lacking in the late '90s, when he was in Iraq, and needed now, he said, were
> scientific studies, longitudinal and cause-and-effect studies, that would
> prove conclusively that there was uranium in the blood of deformed children
> and cancer victims.
>
> "The tests cost $1,000 each," Harak bemoaned. "And when the sanctions were
> in effect, the equipment doctors would have had to bring in to run the tests
> were banned. The sanctions forbade pencils, for the love of God!"
>
> As an Arab-American, Harak was powerfully moved by the suffering of Iraqis,
> and said he would like to go back. But he doesn't want his Iraqi friends to
> run the risk of being seen with an American, even an Arab-American-in his
> case, an Arab-American who speaks no Arabic. Lamented the Christian Arab:
> "Catholics always took so seriously the words of Jesus when he said, 'This
> is my body.' But Jesus also said, 'Love your enemies.' That, unfortunately,
> was never taken so seriously."
>
> Harak reflected on the underpublicized issue of the exposure of U.S.
> veterans to DU.
>
> "How much of what was called Gulf War Syndrome was due to exposure to DU?"
> he asked. "It's hard to say. But some of the symptoms are similar to those
> Iraqis suffered from: fatigue, blood disorders, heart conditions, the
> damaging of the genetic code. You see parallel defects in children of
> American veterans and Iraqi children: the little flipper hands growing out
> of the children's shoulders without any arms attached."
>
> Soldiers worried about exposure to uranium and wanting to be tested found
> that their veteran's medical insurance refused to cover the cost. Harak
> recalled one case in which The New York Daily News agreed to pay to have
> nine Gulf war veterans tested. Four of them were found to have uranium in
> their bloodstream.
>
> Last year, Harak helped organize a small rally in New York's Washington
> Square Park at which speakers and singers alerted people to the dangers of
> DU. On the question of why this issue has failed to make more of an impact,
> Harak speculated, "Maybe it's because a lot of the damage is not immediate.
> There is an incubation period involved. You don't see hands being blown off,
> or people being cluster-bombed," he noted. "It's much more insidious."
>
> [Robert Hirschfield is a New York-based free-lance journalist.]
>
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I keep telling them that Bush has effectively removed an entire generation of
American military personnel from the gene-pool, but they won't listen until the
deformed American babies start being born too.

http://www.nukewatch.com/du/index.html

Depleted Uranium: Weapon of Mass Destruction

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, U.S. forces used depleted uranium as both armor
piercing bullets and as tank armor for the first time. These weapons are both
radioactive and toxic. Uranium Oxide particles formed during production,
testing, and battlefield use pose a long term threat to human health and the
environment.

Uranium weapons are effective antitank "penetrators" because they are extremely
dense. A slug of uranium weighs twice as much as a piece of lead the same size.
When alloyed with titanium, uranium is extremely hard. Uranium is also
"pyrophoric", which means it burns upon impact.

The U.S. Military chose to develop uranium weapons not only because they are
promised to be effective, but because the metal itself is very cheap. Depleted
uranium is material that remains when enriched fissionable uranium- that is,
capable of generating a nuclear explosion or nuclear power- is separated from
natural uranium. The U.S. stockpile exceeds a billion pounds. Uranium weapons
production is the nuclear bombmakers' idea of "recycling".

The Agent Orange Of the 90's

Depleted Uranium is not capable of an atomic chain reaction. It is not
considered a high-level radioactive material. As a metal slab, like the armor
plates in the U.S. Army's M1 Abrams tanks, it is a relatively harmless. Though
constant exposure could cause problems. But especially in particulate form, it
can be extremely hazardous.
When uranium weapons burn, when they corrode, and when they are machined,
uranium oxide dust is created. When inhaled, small particles-those less than 5
millionths of a meter-can lodge in a human lung tissue, exposing the host to a
growing dose of alpha radiation. This can cause lung cancer in people of all
ages, and is particularly hazardous to children.

Uranium, like lead and other heavy metals, is a chemical poison. The ingestion
of minute quantities of uranium in food or drinking water can cause irreparable
damage to the kidneys. Some experts consider this is a greater risk than
radiation from depleted uranium.

Uranium weapons may be the "Agent Orange of the 90's" because large numbers of
people, friend and foe are being exposed to uranium oxide dust. We won't know
for 20-30 years the full significance of that exposure, but by then it will be
too late.

Here are a few examples of that exposure:

The U.S. Military, which fired thousands of uranium shells during the Persian
Gulf War, left at least 387 tons of spent uranium munitions in Kuwait and
southern Iraq after the war. The U.S. Government believes, based upon weapons
tests in the U.S. and general knowledge about wind patterns, that there is no
health or environmental hazard, but it has not undertaken any study of
battlefield areas.

After the Persian Gulf War, contaminated U.S. armored vehicles were prepared for
disposal in the United States. The U.S. soldiers--at least 25-- who handled
those vehicles were not warned of DU hazards or wore any protective gear.

Army weapons testers at the Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana fired DU rounds
at soft targets-cloth or plywood- to avoid combustion. Still, only 22,000kg of
the 91,000kg fired there between 1984 and 1992 were recovered in biannual
clearance operations. The Army will have to strip away several feet of soil
during decontamination. This will increase soil erosion and the migration of DU.

The NRC permitted Nellis Air Force Base to receive and process up to 77,000 lbs.
of DU rounds. These rounds were used in testing on the base's Range 63 using
tanks as targets.

In 1980, NL Industries Uranium Weapons factory in Clonie, New York was forced to
close. Uranium particles were found as far as 26 miles downwind.

In 1981, workers at Aerojet's TNS Uranium Weapons Plant in Jonesborough,
Tennessee went on strike because of plant conditions that caused an epidemic of
uranium poisoning.

At Nuclear Metals Inc., which manufactures uranium weapons in Concord,
Massachusetts, radioactive materials have contaminated surface water, ground
water, and land.

Independent testing done by Citizens Research and Environmental Watch(CREW), a
local grassroots organization, found DU 18 times the background level and up to
9/10ths of a mile away. Concord has the second highest level of thyroid cancer
in the state, 2 1/2 times the state average. -- Military Toxics Project


Related Links & Resources
http://www.nukewatch.com/du/links.html

US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Health Consultation, Colonie Site
(aka Colonie Interim Storage Site and formerly National
Lead Industries)
Albany, Albany County, New York
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/PHA/coloniesite/col_p1.html#intro

http://www.epa.gov/region4/waste/npl/nplsc/savrivsc.htm

Programs: http://www.srs.gov/general/sitemap.htm

Scientific and Technical Information
http://sti.srs.gov/fulltext/fulltext-2005.htm

Final National Priorities List (NPL) Sites - by State
1239 Sites as of November 21, 2005
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/query/queryhtm/nplfin.htm

Internet HazDat - Site Activity Query Map
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/haz-usa1.html

Alan

"Can't you see we're still here,
Can't you see we're still here,
Singing loud; Singing clear,
We shall not go under,
We're still here."

Nemesis Peace Centre

http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.co.uk/protector.html

Abuse of Women and Children

http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/

Nemesis News

http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/

Absolute Anarchy

http://lordcerneabbastoo.blogspot.com/

http://www.john-lennon.com/

.

Relevant Pages

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