February 24, 2003
Media Compilation #117: Precious Time and Billions Wasted While Millions Are Dying
Dear journalist
Following a week of exhilarating hopes after more than 11 million people took to the streets last February 15 in more than 600 cities around the world to demonstrate their common resolve that peace prevail in Iraq and around the world, the preparations for war in Iraq by the U.S. and UK military have reached a fevered pitch as a new resolution is to be presented this coming week at the UN Security Council in a last ditch attempt to legitimize the invasion of Iraq and the takeover of some of the richest oil fields in the world. But while everyone's attention is focused on this gathering storm, several other critical crisis have failed to make the headlines thus showing once again how little attention is paid to some of the most urgent and global life-threatening situations humanity is facing right now and how little resources are invested to support the existing solutions to these crisis.
The sharp contrast between the gigantic sums of money, to the tune of $1.2 billion a day in the U.S. only, wasted in military spending and poured into mounting an attack aimed at perpetuating our global dependency upon oil, a fossil fuel partly to blame for global warming, and the ridiculously low amounts dedicated to combat the AIDS pandemic, tuberculosis and malaria, the three big diseases of poverty which kill an estimated 10 people per minute, or 15,000 per day, speaks volume about the skewed priorities adopted by the few men holding tight the purse strings of global finance.
In its 20 years' duration, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has already wiped out more than 50 years of development gains in the hardest-hit countries by cutting short life expectancy, in some cases by more than 20 years. Saving people is a humanitarian imperative. And yet a paltry $1.5 billion has been allocated this year to a new Global Fund on AIDS, TB, Malaria, while an additional $6.3 billion will be needed over the next two years to continue fighting the spread of these diseases affecting millions of people. Likewise, the growing famine engulfing several African countries is not getting the urgent attention it requires to help avert the death of tens of millions of men, women and children.
You'll find more on this and other related issues below. Thanks for your attention to these urgent matters ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation117.htm
CONTENTS
1. War Is Good Business
2. Gulf War Veterans Association Questions Who Started the Oil Well Fires in Kuwait
3. Unions Around World Agree on Joint Anti-War Appeal
4. Weapons That Disable Circuitry May Get First Use in Iraq
5. Invasion Hiroshima Style
See also:
HIV/AIDS-a double humanitarian challenge
http://www.unaids.org/security/FahlenOCHA.html
Q&A: Aids in Africa (Feb 20)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2783229.stm
UNAIDS - The Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS
http://www.unaids.org/
Global Fund on AIDS, TB, Malaria approves massive grants
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030206/ap_wo_en_ge/un_gen_aids_fund_1
Women's Health Groups Assail Conditions on Bush AIDS Plan
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/oneworld/20030220/wl_oneworld/1032_1045765389&e=5
Aids ravages Swazi society (MUST READ!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2785067.stm
BBC News has harrowing new evidence of the extent of the Aids catastrophe in southern Africa. According to the United Nations, several countries could be near collapse.
Human race is killing planet, says Meacher (Feb 14)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,895090,00.html
Los Angeles Adopts Resolution Opposing U.S. Invasion of Iraq (Feb 22)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-council22feb22,1,3214668.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines
(...) Mayor James K. Hahn signed the antiwar resolution late in the day, making Los Angeles the biggest city to take a stand against a unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq. About 100 other cities, including Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia, have approved similar measures.
MARCH 5 - National Moratorium to Stop the War on Iraq
http://www.notinourname.net/call_for_the_moratorium.html
The Next Phase of Conscience and Resistance To Stop the War before it Starts - No School, No Work, No Business as Usual. (...) If you had known about Hiroshima in advance, what would you have done to stop it? Today’s war-makers are telling us what they plan to do, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. This war will visit unspeakable terror and suffering on the people of Iraq, in the name of “liberating” them. It will put people all over the planet at risk, in the name of protecting them. CLIP
Index of pictures: Worldwide Anti-War Protest
http://www.swt.org/events/world0203/
For Peace and Hope
http://www.codepink-alert.org/about.htm
Australian Women Protest in the Nude
White House Advisors Looking for a "Way Out" of War With Iraq (Feb 20)
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1796.shtml
War out of compassion (Feb 17)
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/english/0,1518,236692,00.html
(...) The more imminent the war with Iraq becomes, the more often does the president talk about his faith and his values. He believes that his actions are greatly affected by his faith. In the United States, it almost goes without saying that in times of national crisis, the president becomes a preacher, one who dispenses comfort and strength. However, this pastoral tone is gradually being used to justify policy. George W. Bush is convinced that it is God alone who has allowed him to occupy this office at this historic moment.
Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage (Feb 20)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/18/iraq/main537096.shtml
Iraq War Would Cost World $1 Trillion (Feb 20)
http://truthout.org/docs_02/022103F.htm
Enron: Under Cover of Dark and the War (Feb 20)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_20-2-2003_pg4_11
There's not much doubt left today that the California energy crisis was an Enron esque game. (...) With no one watching, it's back to business as usual and the Bush administration is eager to do the bidding of the oligarchy sorry, wrong country, of its favourite "campaign contributors.'' So those Reliant traders who thought themselves so "cool'' earned their company a playful wrist slap: Their $13.8 million fine equals 0.03 percent of Reliant's (rape-of-California) 2001 revenues of $40.8 billion. If Reliant had jacked a Mercedes, this would be equivalent to a judge ordering it to keep the car but return any change found behind the seat.
'Bird flu' deaths in Hong Kong spark fears of global epidemic (Feb 20)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=379888
Ten days ago a boy in Hong Kong, aged nine, fell ill with flu. Normally such an event would not rate a passing mention. But this was no ordinary flu. Yesterday the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed the strain as A (H5N1), also known as "bird flu". They fear it could become a global killer. CLIP
Rumsfeld Refuses To Rule Out Unleashing Nuclear Weapons (!!!)
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html
War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq. The Bush Administration is seeking large increases in funding to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. And the Los Angeles Times is reporting that the White House has considerably lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. A first strike nuclear attack by the U.S. is now a possibility.
1.
From: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2851
War Is Good Business
by Conn Hallinan
January 11, 2003
War, the expression goes, is a bad business. It's certainly not a good idea if you're a soldier or civilian caught in the middle of one, and it tends to raise havoc with things like domestic spending. But if you are Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, Admiral (ret.) William Crowe Jr., these are salad days.
For those who make its instruments, war is very good business indeed, and, while the rest of the economy may be tanking, things that go "bang" and kill people are on a roll.
Boeing, for instance, recently doubled its production of JDAM kits ($25,000 a pop), which make dumb bombs smart. Raytheon added a shift to produce its Paveway laser guided bombs ($55,600 apiece), while Alliant Techsystems is churning out 265 million rounds of small arms ammunition ( $92 million).
This is the era of high tech war, which is good news for General Atomics Aeronauticals Systems and its unmanned surveillance and attack craft, the Predator. The going rate is $25 million for four. So, too, for Northrop Grumman, with its $20 million Global Hawk, the Cadillac of robot aircraft. Northrop, which recently swallowed TRW for $7.8 billion, is projected to earn $26 billion in revenues this year.
To keep all these machines talking to their operators, Boeing is pitching its Wideband Gap satellite ($1.3 billion per unit) and Lockheed Martin, Hughes and TRW are pushing their EHF Advanced Wideband satellites for $2.7 billion a shot.
And if you're Admiral Crowe Jr., you are cashing in on a real smart investment. Back in 1998 the state of Michigan sold the vaccine company, Bioport, to a group of private investors. At the time, the company was under fire from the Federal Drug Administration for poor quality control of its smallpox vaccine. Crowe Jr. and company brought the place for a song and, shortly thereafter, landed a $60 million contract from the Department of Defense.
You don't have to kill people to make money. Take Kellogg Brown & Root, owned by Vice-President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton. The construction company has been building bases since World War II and had a virtual lock on military construction during the Vietnam War. It made $2.5 billion from the DOD during the '90s and is presently building bases in Afghanistan (the costs are classified).
Other bases are being constructed in Yemen, Pakistan, Turkey, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kyregyszstan, India and the Philippines. No need to go to uncomfortable places to make money from all this, however. The Homeland Security budget is $37.7 billion, and the military industrial types are already thundering toward the trough.
Boeing wants to fit commercial airplanes with its missile-tracking device, the same one that keeps missing its targets in the Administration's billion-dollar missile defense boondoggle.
Lockheed Martin wants to sell its military simulators to train emergency fire and medical teams.
General Dynamics is pushing armored vehicles to local police (a bargain at $200,000 plus) and also wants the military to use its Gulfstream Executive jets as early warning radar systems. Smart move. With the economy a disaster, and the Iraq War likely to worsen things, Executive jets are a slow sell these days. Northrop Grumman, builder of the $2 billion B-2 Stealth Bomber, and co-contractor with Lockheed Martin on the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is pushing its telecommunication systems as a way to fight bioterrorism.
All of this, of course, is done in the spirit of patriotism. "The attacks on Sept. 11 are a very personal things for us," says Boeing Vice-President John Stammreich. He did not, on the other hand, offer any of his company's whiz-bangs at cost.
If one adds up all the supplementary costs of war beyond the $355.5 billion military budget--Homeland Security, $30 billion in supplementary funds, $25.5 billion for foreign military assistance, $16 billion for nuclear weapons, etc--the U.S. spends in excess of $465 billion each year, or $1.2 billion a day.
A month of military spending would wipe out California's catastrophic budget deficit. Instead, Californians are going to cough up $10.1 billion in income taxes just to pay for the upcoming $100 billion plus Gulf War. U.S. military spending not only dwarfs the combined military budgets of the "Evil Axis" ($11.4 billion), all potential enemies ($116.4 billion), but every single nation in the world, from Russia to Luxembourg ($423 billion). War is a bad business? Not for everyone.
2.
From the American Gulf War Veterans Association
Joyce Riley vonKleist, RN, BSN spokesperson
P.O.Box 85, Versailles, Missouri 65084
(573) 378-6049 voice, (573) 378-5998 fax
http://www.gulfwarvets.com/
gulfwar@dam.net
February 19, 2003
Contact Person: Gary Treece
GULF WAR VETERANS ASSOCIATION QUESTIONS WHO STARTED THE OIL WELL FIRES IN KUWAIT
For the past six years, the American Gulf War Veterans Association have received numerous reports from veterans stating that US forces were responsible for the setting of the oil well fires at the end of the Gulf War These testimonies are now being taken very seriously in light of recent revelations of the events that occurred during the first Gulf War.
Joyce Riley, spokesperson for The American Gulf War Veterans Association is quoted as saying: "There was intentional misinformation given to the American people to generate support for Desert Storm often created by advertising agencies such as Hill and Knowlton."
* Revelations regarding the "Incubator story," in which Republican Guard were reported to have thrown babies out of their incubators onto the cold floor turned out to be false and a "fraud on the American People." (S.R. 103-900).
* The St. Petersburg Times disproved the report of satellite photos showing a thousand Iraqi tanks amassing on the Saudi border.
* April Glaspie, US Ambassador, gave tacit approval to Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait by saying, "We have no opinion on your border dispute with Kuwait."
* John Shalikashvilli, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and William Perry, Secretary of Defense wrote in a memo (obtained by the AGWVA) on May 25, 1994, "There is no information, classified or unclassified that indicates that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Persian Gulf." General Norman Schwartzkopf's NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) logs (also obtained by the AGWVA) dated Feb. 27, 1991, and March 3, 1991, clearly disprove the above statement.
One veteran has now stepped forward and given a detailed account of how he and others in special teams, moved forward of the front, (behind enemy lines ahead of US forces) and then set charges on the well heads. "We were mustered into the briefing tent at which point a gentleman whom I first had thought to be an American began to brief us on the operation. I was concerned because he was not wearing a US uniform and insignias."
The information provided over a series of meetings with this veteran corroborates reports from other veterans who are totally unconnected with this individual. This testimony brings into serious question the integrity of the US government, as it provided information to the American public and military during the last Gulf War.
The American Gulf War Veterans Association is presently dissenting on the war and has been joined by The British Gulf War Veterans and Families Association. Riley states that: "Not only is it our opinion that the Department of Defense has not been forthcoming about the severity of our military's illnesses, significant concern is now being raised over the causation as well."
3.
From: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portside/message/3785
Feb 21, 2003
Unions Around World Agree on Joint Anti-War Appeal
GLOBAL LABOR REJECTS AN IRAQ WAR
By David Bacon posted to Portside
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (2/19/03) -- After a weekend of demonstrations involving over 10 million people worldwide, protesting an impending US war on Iraq, opposition to the Bush plan in many countries is hardly a question. But US military action may have political costs that go far beyond rising unpopularity. Particularly among unions in many countries, opposition may take a much more concrete form.
On Wednesday, over 200 unions, on all five continents, representing over 130 million members, agreed on a joint statement rejecting a war in Iraq. That declaration questions the US rationale, saying no convincing link exists between the terrorist attacks of September 11 and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, nor evidence for immediate threats from weapons of mass destruction. Unions signing the statement point out that such a war would be fought overwhelmingly by the sons and daughters of workers, and they assert that war hysteria is being used as a pretext for attacks on labor, and to mask the effects of a sinking economy worldwide. The appeal ends by calling on labor to organize opposition in every country.
Such an appeal is unprecedented. During the Vietnam War, the majority of US unions supported involvement until it was almost over. While unions in other countries voiced opposition, there was no common front, much less one organized at the initiative of US labor. The appeal made Wednesday was initiated by US Labor Against the War, a growing coalition including at least five major national unions, three state labor federations, and many locals and labor councils.
That appeal is not simply a flowery statement, but groups together unions who have already taken action. In Britain, where opposition is sharpest, unions have squared off against the support of the Labor government of Tony Blair for an Iraq invasion. On January 9, two train engineers refused to climb into the cab of a locomotive and pull a train from Glasgow to the Glen Douglas military base on Scotland's west coast, the largest weapons store in NATO.
The incident electrified British workers. Not only were the two supported by their union, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, but the union's general secretary warned Wednesday that those actions would multiply in the event of war. "We do expect more refusals," predicted Mick Rix. He added that the bylaws of the British Trade Union Congress call for an immediate meeting in the event of war, a provision dating from 1918, when many unions sought to prevent the entry of European countries into World War One. "The TUC must be convened, so that industrial action can be considered," Rix warned.
This isn't an idle threat. Already five of Britain's largest and most strategically placed unions have openly defied Blair, and some call for his ouster, even at the cost of the Labour Party's grip on power. It is just one sign of the growing gulf that now divides British unions, not just from the prime minister, but from the party they created decades ago.
In Italy, where unions organized a turnout of over three million people in the streets of Rome over the weekend (the largest demonstration since the end of World War Two), the leftwing General Confederation of Italian Workers (CGIL) made a similar threat. On Tuesday the union's executive council declared its intention of calling a general strike in the event of hostilities.
Italy's unions are locked in bitter conflict with the rightwing government of media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who has strongly supported the Bush war policy. Enzo Bernardo, director of CGIL's International Department, explained Wednesday that "the big majority of Italians, not just workers, are against the war. We know terrorism in our country," he added, "and this war has nothing to do with resolving it. Our government does not speak for the Italian people."
Pakistani trade union leader Rubina Jamil, President of the All-Pakistan Trade Union Federation joined the call Wednesday. Her federation represents over 5 million Pakistani workers who, she emphasized, are already familiar with the cost of US military action in Afghanistan, which they oppose. "This war is only for oil," she declared, and threatened that her federation would organize mass demonstrations, including hunger strikes, in front of the US embassy and consulates when any invasion begins. In Pakistan the US depends on the increasingly unpopular regime of President Pervez Musharraf to support its continuing hunt for Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, and mass labor demonstrations against an Iraq war would create huge political problems. Joining in the declaration of international labor opposition was Djeman Hacene, general secretary of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, who agreed with Jamil that the objective of intervention in Iraq was the pursuit of oil.
Among supporters of the international labor declaration, sentiment is sharpest in those countries where governments have aligned themselves with the Bush administration. The trade union federation of Australia, where Prime Minister Ron Howard has been one of Bush's most vociferous supporters, declared it was "ashamed" of his actions. "He has no mandate from our people," declared Sharron Burrows, the federation's president. She also threatened industrial action in the event of war.
Many rejectionist labor federations represent a much greater percentage of workers in their countries than unions do in the US, and can exact a price for political support. In the German elections, unions supported Gerhard Schroeder in his successful reelection bid, when he campaigned against Bush's military policy. Schroeder's victory indicates that other governments also may survive or fall based on their support for war. The political map of many countries could easily be redrawn by bitter labor battles breaking out in factories, ports and railway terminals at the start of an Iraq invasion. In some of those countries, like Britain and Italy, industrial battles may provoke a political realignment, and support for Bush may cost those governments their hold on power.
4.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/technology/circuits/20warr.html
Weapons That Disable Circuitry May Get First Use in Iraq
February 20, 2003
As the United States readies for a possible conflict in Iraq, many of the star weapons from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 are back and deadlier than ever. The smart bombs are smarter. The stealth planes are sneakier. Even the ground troops are better equipped than they were a dozen years ago.
Yet according to military experts, the biggest technical revelation of another war in the region may not be improvements to old systems but rather a new category of firepower known as directed-energy weapons.
Think invisible lasers, using high-powered microwaves and other sorts of radiation rather than the pulses of visible light common in science fiction. These new systems, which have been under development in countries including Britain, China, Russia and the United States for at least a decade, are not designed to kill people. Conventional bombs, guns and artillery can take care of that.
Rather, most of the directed-energy systems are meant to kill electronics, to disrupt or destroy the digital devices that control the information lifeblood of modern societies and modern military forces. By contrast, traditional jamming equipment blocks communications gear from functioning but does not actually damage the device.
"If there is a war in Iraq, there is no question in my mind that we will see the use of both directed-energy and radio-frequency weaponry,'' said John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., referring to both the new sorts of weapons and traditional jamming technology. "Over the last several years, a great deal of research has been undertaken in this area both by the United States but also by other countries, not all of them allied with us."
That is why, like the genie escaping its bottle, directed energy may harbor danger for the United States itself, not just for its adversaries. With its increasing reliance on digital communications and information systems, the United States is perhaps the most vulnerable potential target for directed-energy devices, military experts say.
CLIP - Read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/technology/circuits/20warr.html
THE USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM-TIPPED AMMUNITION IN IRAQ (in Kosovo and Afghanistan as well) IS CERTAINLY ONE OF THE MOST ABJECT AND VILE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY - AND ENDLESS GENERATIONS TO COME! - EVER COMMITTED. BY KEEPING A TIGHT LID ON THIS KIND OF INFORMATION, THE WORLD MEDIA ARE CONTRIBUTING TO ITS PERPETUATION - SOON AGAIN IN IRAQ
5.
From: http://iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=GR0302-1856
The World Health Organization estimates that "as many as 500,000 people could require treatment as a result of direct and indirect injuries" from this unprecedented onslaught or radioactive high-explosives.
Invasion Hiroshima Style
2/15/2003
By: William Thomas
American and British troops entering Iraq should bandage all cuts, keep their overheated rubber suits zipped tight, and stop breathing. It is dust, not bullets, that will likely pose the most lethal consequences to their invasion of Iraq.
American military strategist Harlan Ullman will not be accompanying them. But Ullman is excited about seeing his plan for mass murder enacted. Only weeks away from a "live-fire" demonstration over the streets of Iraq's biggest cities. Ullman compares hundreds of cruise missiles hitting Baghdad to moments of total devastation directed at another war-ravaged population half a century before.
"You have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but minutes," Ullman boasts. [The Sun-Herald Jan. 26 2003]
Intended as a lesson for a worldwide audience, the Pentagon says its plan is intended to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people in two days more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of Desert Storm. The World Health Organization estimates that "as many as 500,000 people could require treatment as a result of direct and indirect injuries" from this unprecedented onslaught or radioactive high-explosives. [The Mirror Jan 29, 2003]
Extensive experimentation against urban centers in Bosnia, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq have shown cruise missiles to be wildly inaccurate. Military insider Al Martin recalls a U.S. general laughing during Desert Storm at the inaccuracy of American cruise missiles. "The defense contractors will get paid as long as the things go off and hit the right country," the general said. [All Fall Down: The Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion]
It will take up to 800 missiles to ensure complete demolition of Iraq's remaining defenses and infrastructure, including sporadically-functioning power stations, sewage and water purification plants. Repeatedly blasted in 1991 ‹ then denied spare parts under U.S. and British embargoes ‹ these key city facilities are located in crowded neighborhoods.
"The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before," a Pentagon official boasted to CBS News. "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad."
It's not safe now! Much of Iraq remains radiologically "hot" following undeclared nuclear attacks that have randomly distributed lethal air and food-borne radiation from Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions - without any mushroom clouds.
With a postwar toll of perhaps 650,000 deaths from lingering wounds, illness and DU exposure, Iraq has already suffered more radiation deaths than the 130,000 corpses produced at Hiroshima through American know-how and acute radiation exposure. [UN and Japanese figures]
The same type of uranium-tipped cruise missiles that carried cancer into Bosnia and Afghanistan will only add fresh "rems" to the radioactive dust of this distant desert land.
Even if resistance collapses following an urban bombardment unprecedented in scale, timing and ferocity, allied forces face the specter of severe casualties from the lethal legacy of their last munitions testing on the people of Iraq.
"If your son or daughter is in the military today, opposition from the hapless Iraqi army is not the greatest threat," warns Depleted Uranium (DU) investigator John Kaminski. "In southern Iraq, American soldiers will be sent into battle with inadequate protections against a proven health hazard that will almost certainly doom them to lives diminished by a variety of cancers caused by uranium 238, which means they may transmit these illnesses to their family and friends - and birth defects to their children - when and if they return home."
JUST A DAB WILL DU YOU
DU shells retain 60% of the radioactivity of unspent "hot" uranium. Radiobiologist Dr. Rosalie Bertell warns that "it can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, a pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick."
A speck of Uranium-238 can cause cancer. The Pentagon admits to firing 320 tons of DU into Iraq's farms and neighborhoods during Desert Storm. Greenpeace puts the figure at more than 800 tons.
Foremost expert on radiation sickness, Dr. Helen Caldicott explains that DU dust is a potent radioactive carcinogen, emitting a heavy alpha particle that can lodge in open wounds, the lungs or the stomach depending on its pathways of ingestion. The result: cancers in the lungs, bones, blood or kidneys.
These devastating diseases are already surfacing in Afghanistan and Bosnia, while continuing to decimate the survivors of what the City Council of Detroit condemns as "genocide" in Iraq. With a half-life of 4.5 million years, Caldicott says that contaminated areas "will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time." [San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 10, 2002]
Former Basra Dean of Medicine Dr. Alim Abdul-Hamid says he has "plenty of first-hand experience with Iraq's unprecedented plague of cancers and birth defects." The Iraqi physician is seeing breast cancer among women in their 20s. "In their 20s!" he repeats. "There are increased incidences of colon cancer, thyroid cancer - in addition to, of course, leukemia and lymphomas." [Counterpunch Dec. 28, 2001]
TARGETING CHILDREN
Children are 10 to 20 times more sensitive to the effects of radiation than adults. Today more than half of all cancers in Iraq are occurring among children under the age of five.
Helpless pediatricians in Basra have watched childhood leukemia and cancer increase up to 12-times peacetime rates. Hospitals throughout Iraq have reported as much as a 10-fold increase in birth defects since cities and countryside were strafed with radioactive munitions. [Counterpunch Dec. 28, 2001]
Pointing to a map of Basra, Dr. Abdul-Hamid demonstrated the dose-response relationship between DU and cancers, saying, "Areas which have got the higher level of background radiation have higher levels of cancers."
American and British military doctors insist that eating and breathing radioactive uranium is perfectly safe. So, they say, is being injected with mycoplasma-spiked anthrax vaccine. Believing these assurances, an estimated 250,000 disposable Desert Storm veterans in Canada, the United States and Great Britain currently suffer from debilitating "Gulf War Illness". [Bringing The War Home]
But because Depleted Uranium is unmatched as a shield and a weapon, international efforts to ban DU continue to be ignored by the U.S., Canada and Britain. Radioactive warfare is also a convenient way to redistribute mountains of mutagenic debris from atomic warfare factories to distant "colored" neighborhoods.
ROKKE'S RADIATION
Dr. Doug Rokke knows these dangers internally. The American physician in charge of dealing with post-war contamination in Iraqi communities saw his medical records confiscated by the U.S. Army after long-delayed examination results showed radiation in his body at 5,000 times maximum "safe" levels.
Rokke, who headed the army's Depleted Uranium program after the Gulf Massacre, told reporters after returning from Iraq, "'Oh my God' is the only way to describe it. Contamination was all over."
CLIP
READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT http://iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=GR0302-1856
See also:
Rumsfeld Refuses To Rule Out Unleashing Nuclear Weapons
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow.html
WAR SECRETARY RUMSFELD REFUSES TO RULE OUT UNLEASHING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON IRAQ, THE CIA WARNS OF A NUCLEAR ARMS RACE & THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LOWERS THE THRESHOLD FOR NUCLEAR ATTACKS.
The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex http://www.noradiation.org/caldicott/book-02.html
Dr. Helen Caldicott
http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/
Nuclear Policy Research Institute
http://www.nuclearpolicy.org/
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