[Peace-discuss] Olean NY Times Herald

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

“I must recommend that the world ban DU ammunition
forever.” 


http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=386&dept_id=444919&newsid=6891370&PAG=4

61&rfi=9

The Times Herald (Olean, N.Y.)
January 31, 2003  

Unsafe for friend and foe? 
By JOHN T. EBERTH 

-Maj. Rokke blames depleted-uranium ammunition with
causing many of the 206,861 cases of Gulf War Syndrome
reported by Persian Gulf War veterans. He said more
than 8,000 veterans have died from causes related to
the ammunition. 
-It’s a crime against God and humanity” to continue to
use the ammunition....
-Maj. Rokke said since the Persian Gulf War, the
military has developed new, lighter weapons to fire
the ammunition, including machine guns used by ground
forces. As a result, depleted-uranium ammunition will
be everywhere on the battlefield.
-Maj. Rokke said when fired in gun barrels, the
ammunition sheds radioactive dust, filling the air and
infecting troops. The effect is worse when the
ammunition strikes a metal target. The round melts,
shooting geysers of radioactive flame and smoke into
the air, saturating the battlefield.
Tests have found that one round of depleted uranium
ammunition can spread radioactive material over a
437-yard radius.  
 
 
ST. BONAVENTURE — Maj. Douglas Rokke loves his
country, but he hates its use of armor-piercing
depleted-uranium ammunition.
The ammunition cuts through tank armor as easily as
you can push a pencil through paper. Maj. Rokke said
it does a great job killing the enemy.
“Depleted uranium is without a doubt an exceptional
weapon,” he said.
The problem is, it also kills U.S. troops who use it
and civilians living near battlefields peppered with
the rounds, he said. 
Maj. Rokke spoke out against the use of
depleted-uranium ammunition Thursday at St.
Bonaventure University. A crowd of more than 130
people gathered for his lecture in the John J. Murphy
Professional Building.
Depleted uranium is a dense, hard metal. It also
catches fire and turns molten when it strikes other
metals at high speed. Those qualities make it ideal
for busting tanks and armored vehicles. According to
the Pentagon, the ammunition is safe in its solid
state.
Maj. Rokke said the Pentagon is ignoring and even
covering up evidence of the danger to soldiers and
civilians because the weapon has proven so effective.
A Vietnam veteran, he’s been in and out of uniform
since 1967 and now serves with the U.S. Army Reserves.
Maj. Rokke is also a nuclear health physicist and the
Army’s expert on the health effects of
depleted-uranium ammunition. He wrote the Army’s field
manual for responding to chemical and biological
warfare and has trained U.S. soldiers in radiation
safety techniques.
Maj. Rokke blames depleted-uranium ammunition with
causing many of the 206,861 cases of Gulf War Syndrome
reported by Persian Gulf War veterans. He said more
than 8,000 veterans have died from causes related to
the ammunition. 
The Pentagon denies the ammunition is harmful to those
who use it. Maj. Rokke said that denial has cost
veterans medical care.
He charged the Pentagon of “willful neglect and
dereliction of duty” toward U.S. troops, breaking a
sacred covenant between soldiers and the country they
volunteered to protect.
“It’s a crime against God and humanity” to continue to
use the ammunition and deny the danger it poses to
troops, he said. 
Maj. Rokke said since the Persian Gulf War, the
military has developed new, lighter weapons to fire
the ammunition, including machine guns used by ground
forces. As a result, depleted-uranium ammunition will
be everywhere on the battlefield.
The ammunition was first used in combat during the
Gulf War. Maj. Rokke was theater senior health
physicist with the 330th Army Medical Brigade during
the war. He was part of a team directed to clean up
U.S. tanks and armored personnel carriers struck by
friendly fire with depleted-uranium ammunition during
the war.
“I took us three months to clean up 24 vehicles for
shipment back to the United States,” he said.
The team had to decontaminate the vehicles and recover
the remains of U.S. soldiers inside them.
“There was only one thing I could say when I saw the
depleted uranium mess, ‘Oh my God,’” Maj. Rooke said.
“We started finding stuff and it scared us
completely.”
The team had to bury three Bradley Fighting Vehicles
because they couldn’t be decontaminated enough to be
sent back to the United States, he said.
The ammunition is used in rapid-fire cannons mounted
on jets, such as the A-10 Warthog, helicopters and
armored vehicles. Maj. Rokke said when fired in gun
barrels, the ammunition sheds radioactive dust,
filling the air and infecting troops. The effect is
worse when the ammunition strikes a metal target. The
round melts, shooting geysers of radioactive flame and
smoke into the air, saturating the battlefield.
Tests have found that one round of depleted uranium
ammunition can spread radioactive material over a
437-yard radius. Maj. Rokke said most vehicles hit
with the ammunition were struck three and four times.
He said Gulf War soldiers, including himself, weren’t
warned the ammunition posed a danger.
“Nobody told them that when you blow up a tank with
this stuff, you have a toxicological nightmare,” he
said. 
Maj. Rokke said tests have proven that the radioactive
particles emitted by the ammunition are so small, they
pass through the gas mask filters issued to U.S.
troops. 
After the Gulf War, he conducted live-fire studies on
the ammunition for the Army and the General Accounting
Office, Congress’ investigative arm.
According to a 1993 report compiled by the General
Accounting Office, “the Army was not adequately
prepared to deal with depleted-uranium contamination”
prior to using it during the Gulf War.
Maj. Rokke asked everyone in the audience to speak out
against use of depleted-uranium ammunition by writing
local newspapers and contacting their Congressional
representatives.
“I must recommend that the world ban DU ammunition
forever,” he said.
Maj. Rokke’s lecture was sponsored by the St.
Bonaventure University Visiting Scholars Program, the
department of political science, the Center for
Nonviolence and the Olean Area Coalition for Peace and
Justice.
His lecture will appear on BOCE’s Cable Channel 6, at
a time to be announced.