[Peace-discuss] Fwd: US Use Of Depleted Uranium Weapons Is 'Crime Against Humanity'

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/31/03 3:20:29 AM Central Standard Time, 
r_rozoff at yahoo.com writes:

<< http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
 
 The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
 March 30, 2003
 
 US forces' use of depleted uranium weapons is
 'illegal'
 By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor
 
 -Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here.
 This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of
 mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass
 destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such
 double-standards are repellent.'
 -In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some
 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy
 Authority report said that some 500,000 people would
 die before the end of this century, due to radioactive
 debris left in the desert.
 -Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military
 personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other
 nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and
 then ignore the consequences of their actions.
 'To do so is a crime against humanity.
 
 
  
 
 
 BRITISH and American coalition forces are using
 depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq
 and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution
 which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of
 mass destruction.
  
  
 DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers
 among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they
 target and civilians, leading to birth defects in
 children.
 
 Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's
 depleted uranium project -- a former professor of
 environmental science at Jacksonville University and
 onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US
 department of defence with the post-first Gulf war
 depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was
 a 'war crime'.
 
 Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here.
 This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of
 mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass
 destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such
 double-standards are repellent.'
 
 The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on
 Friday when an American A10 tankbuster plane fired a
 DU shell, killing one British soldier and injuring
 three others in a 'friendly fire' incident. 
 
 According to a August 2002 report by the UN
 subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of
 DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human
 Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the
 Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture;
 the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional
 Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions
 of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing
 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or
 materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'.
 All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from
 unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts.
 
 DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war
 syndrome -- typified by chronic muscle and joint pain,
 fatigue and memory loss -- among 200,000 US soldiers
 after the 1991 conflict.
 
 It is also cited as the most likely cause of the
 'increased number of birth deformities and cancer in
 Iraq' following the first Gulf war.
 
 'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10
 times and deformities between four and six times,'
 according to the UN subcommission.
 
 The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU
 were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war,
 although Russian military experts say 1000 metric tons
 is a more accurate figure.
 
 In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some
 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy
 Authority report said that some 500,000 people would
 die before the end of this century, due to radioactive
 debris left in the desert.
 
 The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the
 children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the
 cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases --
 babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50
 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad
 hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of
 the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank
 rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi
 babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a
 deformity also linked to DU shelling.
 
 A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had
 children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood
 infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers.
 
 Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military
 personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other
 nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and
 then ignore the consequences of their actions.
 
 'To do so is a crime against humanity.
 
 'We must do what is right for the citizens of the
 world -- ban DU.'
 
 He called on the US and UK to 'recognise the immoral
 consequences of their actions and assume
 responsibility for medical care and thorough
 environmental remediation'.
 
 He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a
 toxic wasteland behind them and kill indiscriminately.
 
 'It is equivalent to a war crime.'
 
 Rokke said that coalition troops were currently
 fighting in the Gulf without adequate respiratory
 protection against DU contamination.
 
 The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the
 Ministry of Defence had test-fired some 6350 DU rounds
 into the Solway Firth over more than a decade, from
 1989 to 1999.
 
 
  >>

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Subject: US Use Of Depleted Uranium Weapons Is 'Crime Against Humanity'
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