http:www.mindfully.org Entire document worth reading -- its long so I've clipped it. The congress and branches of government all know they are committing genocide on the Iraqi people.
Marta
21feb03
"If you can't clean it up, don't use it." Doug Rokke The Invisible War: Depleted Uranium and the Politics of Radiation 2000
February 21, 2003
The Honorable Jim McDermott, Congressman Washington State 7th Congressional District 1809 7th Avenue Suite 1212 Seattle, WA 98101-1399 (206) 553-7170 (206) 553-7175 FAX
RE: Declassified 1943 memo to General L.R. Groves - a blueprint for depleted uranium
Dear Congressman McDermott,
Mr. Joe Pemberton, a lawyer in Bellingham, Washington, has asked me to provide you with scientific information on the critical and overlooked issues of particle size, penetration of gas masks, and mobility of depleted uranium formed under battleground conditions. It is also powerful scientific information to counter false statements recently made by the White House1 and the DOD2.
I am writing this letter out of concern for the military personnel who may now be serving on or near the Gulf War battlefields in Iraq and may be quartered in areas already contaminated by depleted uranium munitions. But they are not my only concern. The Gulf War Veterans who are now suffering severe health consequences have also been exposed to depleted uranium, chemicals and biological materials including vaccines while serving in Iraq and Kuwait.
The children and people of Iraq have been the greatest victims from exposure to depleted uranium15 used in the Gulf War and will continue to be. Over time, they cannot escape the chronic, low level exposure to internal radiation from depleted uranium and its decay products (see Attach. 7) as it cycles and recycles through their environment3 in water, air and food products.
Depleted uranium dust will continue to be an extreme hazard to soldiers, civilians, populations in countries downwind6,8, and the environment as a radiological contaminant to all living systems for ten half-lives or 45 BILLION years.
I am a former Lawrence Berkeley Lab and Lawrence Livermore Lab scientist, and now work with a group of independent scientists called the Radiation and Public Health Project4. Together this group has written ten books on the health effects of low level radiation. Presently I am writing a science report on depleted uranium for the United Nations Human Rights Subcommission, now investigating the illegality and use of depleted uranium munitions. I have written the Foreword (Attach.1) to Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Akira Tashiro5.
Attached (Attach. 2) is a declassified memo to General L. R. Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, dated October 30, 1943. Major Doug Rokke provided me with this memo. It summarizes a report written by Manhattan Project physicists Drs. James B. Conant, A. H. Compton and H.C. Urey on the dissemination of very fine radioactive material as a method of warfare. It is a "blueprint" for depleted uranium as it has been used in Iraq, Kuwait, Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan during the past decade. The memo details the use of very fine and superfine particles of radioactive materials as a military weapon. Depleted uranium, produces very fine and superfine particles in large amounts as it burns. The 1943 memo outlines what was known in 1943 and below are my comments:
snip
In November of 1991, Richard Berta, the Western Regional Inspector for the Department of Energy who was based at the Lawrence Livermore Lab where I worked, told me: "The Pentagon exists for the oil companiesŠ"
The use of depleted uranium by the Department of Defense has created a slow Chernobyl in the Middle East.
With my best wishes and hopes that this radiation nightmare will finally come to an end, and with thanks for your efforts to move the issue into the light,
Leuren Moret President, Scientists for Indigenous People City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner Past President, Association for Women Geoscientists 2233 Grant Street Apt. 1 Berkeley, CA 94703 Phone/FAX (510) 845-3139 <leurenmoret at yahoo.com>
REFERENCES:
1.
White House statement on "depleted uranium scare". http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/index.html 2.
DOD Colonel Bob Cherry - Letter to Editor, February 2003, Olean Times Herald. 3.
Letter from Dr. Ernest Sternglass August 23, 2001, RE: "Radiation and Dust Particles" 4.
Radiation and Public Health Project http://www.radiation.org 5.
Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Akira Tashiro, Chugoku Shimbun 2001. http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html 6.
"Estimating the Concentration of Uranium in Some Environmental Samples in Kuwait After the 1991 Gulf War" by F. Bou-Rabee, Appl. Radiat. Isol., Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 217-220, 1995. 7.
Research Report Summaries on Depleted Uranium from 1974-1999, conducted at National Laboratories and military labs. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TAB%20L_Research%20Report%20Summaries 8.
"Did NATO Attacks in Yugoslavia Cause a Detectable Environmental Effect in Hungary?" by A. Kerekes et. al, Health Physics, Vol. 80 (2), February 2001, pp.177-178. 9.
"Birds Bring Radioactivity Ashore" by Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, January 4, 2003, p.5. 10.
2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk: Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses for Radiation Protection Purposes Regulators' Edition: Brussels, 2003. http://www.euradcom.org 11.
The Petkau Effect - The Devastating Effect of Nuclear Radiation on Human Health and the Environment by R. Graeub, 2nd Edition, Four Walls Eight Windows, New York (1994). 12.
Personal communication: email March 28, 2002. 13.
"N.Y. air hazards found: EPA assurances contradicted by UCD scientists" by E. Lau and C. Bowman, Sacramento Bee February 12, 2002. SacramentoBee-2-12-02-NYairHazardsFound-EPAassurancesContradictedByUCdavisScientists.pdf[PDF file] 14.
Detection and Evaluation of Long-Range Transport of Aerosols (DELTA) Group http://delta.ucdavis.edu/ 15.
A Different Nuclear War: Children of the Gulf War by Takashi Morizumi http://www.savewarchildren.org 16.
Children of Iraq: The Dream of the Future UNICEF, printed by Express International - Lebanon (1988). 17.
Richard P. Davitt "A Comparison of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloy as Penetrator Materials", Tank Ammo Section Report No. 107, Dover, NJ: US Army Armament Research and Development Command, June 1980. http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TAB%20L_Research%20Report%20Summaries 18.
"Depleted uranium: devastation at home and abroad" by Leuren Moret, San Francisco Bay View, November 7, 2001. http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/02.01/020117moret.htm 19.
"Tödliches Uran-Recycling" by Geseko von Lüpke, NATUR January 2002. http://warp6.dva.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=112520
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1: "Forword" by Leuren Moret to Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Akira Tashiro, Chugoku Shimbun (2001).
Attachment 2: Declassified memo to General L.R. Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project, October 30, 1943. Source - US Army Major Doug Rokke
Attachment 3: TABLE: "Characteristics of Particles and Particle Dispersoids" from the HANDBOOK OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 53rd Edition. This chart provides the particle range which is very wide for metallurgical dusts and fumes, a range from 100 microns to 0.001 microns (10 Angstroms). Particles smaller than 0.1 microns will coagulate and form larger particles, but the greatest number or population of particles will be in the 0.1 micron range (see Chart "Natural Aerosols"). This particle range is smaller than blood cells, bacteria, pollens, spores and other typical air contaminants. Very fine particles are extremely hazardous to health because they are carried by the blood throughout the body. The rate of radiation exposure from one very small particle can be more than is allowed for a whole body exposure in one year (see photo "Hot particle in lung tissue").
Attachment 4: CHART: "Penetration of a HEPA filter as a function of particle size" from 18TH DOE NUCLEAR AIRBORNE WASTE MANAGEMENT AND AIR CLEANING CONFERENCE, Baltimore 1984. Experimental penetration of particles through a HEPA filter - determination that approximately 0.1% in the 0.1 micron particle range will pass through the filter. If there are 100,000 particles 0.1 micron in diameter per cubic centimeter of air, then 120 per cubic centimeter of air will pass through a HEPA filter. In one day an average man will inhale 28 million particles in the 0.1 micron range through a HEPA filter.
Attachment 5: CHART: "Natural Aerosols" from ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 7th Edition (1992), McGraw Hill. This chart provides the average size distribution for natural aerosols in atmospheric dusts. The largest population or number of particles in an aerosol dust is in the 0.1-0.01 micron range. Depleted uranium particles in this size range will be incorporated in atmospheric dusts and will travel indefinitely, transported by winds.
Attachment 6: PHOTO: "Hot" or radioactive particle in lung tissue" photo by Del Tredici, Burdens of Proof by Tim Connor, Energy Research Foundation (1997). This is a photo of a "hot particle", in this case a 1 micron particle of plutonium, and shows the alpha tracks emitted from that particle in one year.
Attachment 7: Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia 5th Edition (1976) Decay paths for natural uranium - Table 1 The Uranium Series, and Table 3 The Actinium Series. The decay paths for uranium are very complex but decay through a number of steps before they become stable and are no longer radioactive. Each of these steps produces a radioactive daughter product which will be more radioactive than the original uranium atom. To send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click here The home page of this website is www.mindfully.org Please see our Fair Use Notice -- -- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.martarussell.com/