ecoglobe
Part transcript of: "Features" in the Guardian Weekly of
10 January 1999, page 21:
Can we imagine what lies ahead if radioactive Depleted Uranium gets
in the food chain in Europe because of the present Balkan war?
31 March 1999
![[yinyang]](../images/yinyan12.gif){kind=small}
news (31 March 1999)
"Victims of a war they never saw - Since the Gulf war in 1991,
the number of Iraqi children born with debilitating congenital
deformities has soared."
"... Britain imported 500 tons [DU} from the US in 1981.
Its attraction is
that bullets tipped with DU are so tough that they can slice through tanks
like a knife through butter. The problem is that when DU-tipped bullets hit a
target they explode, sending millions of radioactive particles into the
atmosphere.
'This is when it becomes most dangerous,' says Arjun Makihani, the
president of the US Istitute for Energy and Environmental Research. 'Once
released, the particles can be directly inhaled, can pollute the water
table and enter the food chain, spreading radioactive pollution over
thousands of square miles. Exposure to this kind of radiation, as well as
to chemical pollution, can cause genetic damage because of the ease with
which uranium can cross the placenta to the foetus.'
According to the US Department of Defence, at least 40 tonnes of DU were
left on the battlefields of southern Iraq.
[...]
"Their daughter Kimberley has a congenital deformity that affects her
chromosomes. She is almost six, but the size of a three-year-old.
[...]
"For the past three months Dr Zenad has been monitoring the birth defects
in their delivery room, where twenty to 30 babies are born daily. She
keeps her findings in a hard-backed grey notebook. She has divided the page
into columns, in which she writes the sexes, dates of birth and weights of
the babies. In a fourth column, she logs their deformities.
She begins: 'August - we had three babies born with no head. Four had
abnormally large heads. September we had six with no heads, none with large
heads and two with short limbs. In October one with no head, four with big
heads and four with deformed limbs and other forms of deformities.'
[...]
"Darren and his unit [the Queens Royal Irish Hussars] reached the road
after the dead had been looted but before their bodies had been removed.
'We were on the road for about ten hours. It was after the ceasefire, and
with a couple of guys we went wandering through the wreckage. We had never
heard of depleted uranium and hadn't been warned about taking any precautions.'
"The concern in Iraq is that the radiation from DU, which has a
radioactive half-life of at least 4,000 years, is spreading around the
country.
'It's in the food chain now,' says Professor Al-Taha. 'Dates are being sent
from the south - oranges, tomatoes, there isn't any way to control the
spread.'
"The price of cleaning up the radioactive mess in the Gulf would be
enormous. It would cost 'billions' even if it were feasible, says Leonard
Dietz, an atomic scientist who wrote a report for the US Energy Department.
[End of part transcript.]
Our decision to feature 'old news' was sparked by the following
message received from PMA:
Kia ora,
Since yesterday's announcement that US A10 tank-busting warplanes were
being deployed to take part in the bombing of Yugoslavia, we have been
trying to find out if this means Depleted Uranium (DU) shells will be used.
We are waiting to hear from England (where the planes are usually based)
and the US to see if this can be confirmed, but DU shells do comprise the
standard armour-piercing ammunition used by the A10s, and we know they were
used extensively in the Gulf War.
[...]
[ Peace Movement Aotearoa,
PO Box 9314, Wellington, Aotearoa / New Zealand,
tel +64 4 382 8129, fax +64 4 382 8173, pma@xtra.co.nz,
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/ -
the national networking group for peace people]
Views expressed are not necessarily those of ecoglobe.
See: Depleted uranium and
radioactivity in the food chain and ecoNews 22 April 1999
news
(31 March 1999)
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