depleted uranium

[Gość: !!!]

Ex-military doctor decries use of depleted uranium weapons

By NAO SHIMOYACHI

The depleted uranium rounds the U.S. and British forces were believed to have
used in the war on Iraq may have subjected parts of the country to heavy
radioactive contamination, a visiting U.S.-based doctor of nuclear medicine
has warned.

Asaf Durakovic, director of the Uranium Medical Research Center, an
independent organization with offices in the United States and Canada, said
his research team conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq last month. It
collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and
the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including
Baghdad, Basra and Najaf.

Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples
contained "hundreds to thousands of times" the normal levels of radiation.
But he must wait another three months before getting the final results, he
said.

Durakovic spent 19 years as a military doctor for the U.S. Defense
Department, and studied the health of veterans after the 1991 Gulf War.

"This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was
used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991," Durakovic told The Japan
Times.

The Pentagon has admitted using some 300 tons of depleted uranium during the
Gulf War. Durakovic puts the amount used in the latest war on Iraq at 1,700
tons.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium-enrichment process in nuclear
reactors. Due to its extreme density, it is used on armor-piercing rounds,
and is also used to enhance tank armor.

Depleted uranium rounds release fine radioactive particles upon impact,
Durakovic said. If the particles are inhaled, they enter the lymph nodes and
bones and can remain within the body for years.

"We analyzed the urine of American war veterans" of the 1991 Gulf War, he
said. "Nine years after (my initial tests), they are still positive."

Depleted uranium was first used during the Gulf War by U.S. and British
forces. It is believed to have also been used in NATO airstrikes on Kosovo in
1999 and the U.S-led antiterror campaign in Afghanistan that began in 2001.

Critics say the number of Iraqi cancer patients and children born with birth
defects is rising, and they blame depleted uranium weapons.

The weapons are also suspected of being a contributing cause of "Gulf War
Syndrome," which is reportedly suffered by tens of thousands of U.S.,
British, Canadian and French veterans who participated in Operation Desert
Shield. Their ills include leukemia, chronic fatigue, swollen joints and
depression.

Durakovic said he was forced to resign from his position at the Pentagon in
1996 because of his studies. The U.S. and British governments deny that
depleted uranium can be harmful to human health, he said.

"They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between depleted uranium
and the illness," Durakovic said. "They do not want to admit that they
committed war crimes" by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are
banned under international law.

He said he suspects that such factors as the huge cost of conducting thorough
research into the effects of depleted uranium, which he said would
take "billions of dollars," and the need to dispose of huge stockpiles of
radioactive waste produced through nuclear power generation are contributing
to the governments' unwillingness.

But Durakovic remains optimistic. "We will soon know more (about depleted
uranium's effects) because the world is learning more and more about the
hiding of the truth," he said.