MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH

November 23, 2002

Defeating the U.S. War Plans Series #7: Blocking the Spread of More Pentagon-Bred Horrors


Hello everyone

Here is a last one for you this week. Please make sure to get the latest Meditation Focus to be issued this Saturday evening as usual.

Feel free to share all of this with others...

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com

This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2002/DefeatingUSWar7.htm


P.S. Check also my latest Media Compilation #98: The World Is Taking a Dangerous Course Under U.S. Leadership -- archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2002/MediaCompilation98.htm


An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too." The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replies, "The one you feed."

- Sent by "Biannca Pace" <biannca@crystalgallery.com.au>


"DU is the stuff of nightmares."

- Taken from #4 below.


CONTENTS

1. MASS DEMONSTRATION: NO WAR ON IRAQ!
2. Bush aide: Inspections or not, we'll attack Iraq
3. Iraqi Cancers, Birth Defects Blamed on U.S. Depleted Uranium
4 4. Global Music Festival 2003 - One World Beat


See also:

THE HOMELAND SECURITY MONSTROSITY (by Ron Paul, Antiwar.com)
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14582
Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) lays out some of the reasons to be afraid of the new Homeland Security Department.

Welcome to the American Gestapo (Nov 20)
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1108.shtml
Wonder if any of the vast sums of money approved Tuesday for the new Department of Homeland Security are set aside for black uniforms with knee-length boots and black leather trench coats? Should be. Since we’ve gone to all this trouble to create the new American Gestapo we might as well let them look the part.

They spy: How law enforcement is keeping tabs on the new peace movement.
http://www.sfbg.com/37/08/cover_spy.html

Getting the Most Out of Homeland Security (Nov 21)
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14604
The new Homeland Security Bill is a lavish gift-wrapped present to corporations and special interests. In a final burst of shameless opportunism for the legislative year 2002, the President and his party pushed their "homeland security" bill through Congress. The bill was laden with pork and gifts to special interests.

Congress took care of its buddies in Homeland Security bill
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1103.shtml

Space Supremacy, Torture, Nukes in Iraq
http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume6/v6n36.html
Continuing its pattern of obstructing international norms and treaties, the Bush administration tried to derail a new Protocol to the Convention against Torture

STUMBLING BLINDLY INTO WAR
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0211iraq.html

Pentagon to Track American Consumer Purchases
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C70992%2C00.html
A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the war on terror, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Developing the capability to build dossiers on all Americans (Nov 21)
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_1109.shtml

MISINTERPRETING OSAMA'S MESSAGE
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14600
Bin Laden's messages are mistaken for unconditional threats and vows to attack. They are really conditional warnings that whatever we do, they will respond in kind.

Israel Eyes Up to $10B in U.S. Aid (Nov 21)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20021122/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_us_aid&e=2
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel will ask the United States for loan guarantees aimed at jump-strating its economy which has been damaged by two years of violence and the request will total between $8 billion and $10 billion, a senior government official said Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the Finance and Defense ministries are finalizing the request and would forward it to the United States in the coming days. The request for guarantees on foreign bank loans would be in addition to the $2.9 billion in direct loans and grants that Israel receives annually from the United States, the official said. Israel, which receives the largest U.S. aid package of any country, relies on the loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates. CLIP

Efforts to Save Endangered Tigers Are Working (Nov 21)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/oneworld/20021122/wl_oneworld/1032_1037930195&e=2
Wild tigers still face serious threats from habitat loss and poaching, but international efforts to protect the endangered species from extinction in the wild are succeeding, according to a new report from the Save the Tiger Fund. The report, issued Thursday by the Fund at a press briefing at the National Press Club, details how the group's investments have helped stabilized some tiger populations and paved the way for further success. It was less than 10 years ago when media reports predicted that tigers would be extinct by 2000. Although many of the experts who spoke today believe that prediction was overblown, no one disputes that wild tiger populations were, and still are, in grave danger. At the beginning of the 20th century, more than 100,000 tigers roamed free, but today less than 7,500 tigers remain in the wild. (...) In 2002, the Fund awarded 38 grants totaling some $1.3 million. It has provided some $10 million since its inception to support 196 conservation projects throughout 13 of the 14 countries in Asia where tigers survive in the wild. CLIP



1.

Forwarded by Judy Kenny <judyayishakenny@yahoo.com> on Nov 22

ACTIONS

NO WAR ON IRAQ!
Tens of thousands will converge
in San Francisco & Washington DC
January 18, 2003
for a MASS DEMONSTRATION
and in Washington on Jan. 19 for the Convening of the GRASSROOTS PEACE CONGRESS

As momentum builds for the upcoming January 18-19 mass demonstration and People's Peace Congress to oppose a new U.S. war on Iraq, the urgency to take massive action has never been greater. Today (Nov. 21), the Financial Times quoted former Secretary of State George Shultz as saying "there will be military action. I would be surprised if we have not acted by the end of January." Yesterday (Nov. 20), top Bush security advisor Richard Perle told a meeting of Labour Party MPs in England that the administration was determined to go to war. MP Peter Kilfoyle, based on Perle's comments, reported: "President Bush intends to go to war even if inspectors find nothing" (Mirror/UK, 11/21).

We do not accept the logic of these war-mongerers that a war against Iraq must happen. In fact, the people of the world oppose this war. Each and every person must take action now to prevent this catastrophe. We will not be passive observers while the Bush administration attempts to carry out a war for Big Oil and the domination over the people, land and resources of the Middle East.

Join the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Ramsey Clark, Cynthia McKinney, New York City Labor Against the War, Dr. Hans Christof von Sponeck, Rev. Graylan Hagler, the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Rev. Herbert Daughtry, Global Exchange, Rev. John Dear, Patti Smith, Charles Barron, and almost 1,500 more who have endorsed the January 18-19 Call to Action. There are now buses being organized from 100+ cities to be in Washington DC or San Francisco on those days. Please read the following email to find out how you can get involved!

---

To ENDORSE the January 18-19 Mass Actions in DC, fill out the easy-to-use form at:
http://internationalanswer.org/campaigns/j18/j18endorse.html#endo

To download FLYERS & OTHER ORGANIZING MATERIALS, go to:
http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/resources/

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.InternationalANSWER.org
http://www.VoteNoWar.org
Email: answer@actionsf.org



2.

From: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12377231&method=full&siteid=50143

The Mirror (London) Thursday 21 November 2002

Bush aide: Inspections or not, we'll attack Iraq

GEORGE Bush's top security adviser last night admitted the US would attack Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find weapons. Dr Richard Perle stunned MPs by insisting a "clean bill of health" from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not halt America's war machine.

Evidence from ONE witness on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme will be enough to trigger a fresh military onslaught, he told an all-party meeting on global security.

Former defence minister and Labour backbencher Peter Kilfoyle said: "America is duping the world into believing it supports these inspections. President Bush intends to go to war even if inspectors find nothing.

"This make a mockery of the whole process and exposes America's real determination to bomb Iraq."

Dr Perle told MPs: "I cannot see how Hans Blix can state more than he can know. All he can know is the results of his own investigations. And that does not prove Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction."

The chairman of America's defence policy board said: "Suppose we are able to find someone who has been involved in the development of weapons and he says there are stores of nerve agents. But you cannot find them because they are so well hidden.

"Do you actually have to take possession of the nerve agents to convince? We are not dealing with a situation where you can expect co-operation."

Mr Kilfoyle said MPs would be horrified at the admission. He added: "Because Saddam is so hated in Iraq, it would be easy to find someone to say they witnessed weapons building.

"Perle says the Americans would be satisfied with such claims even if no real evidence was produced.

"That's a terrifying prospect."

---

See also:

Bush threatens attack over Iraqi 'lies' (November 21)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4551093,00.html
George Bush has threatened to unleash a military assault on Iraq if Saddam Hussein continues to deny possessing banned weapons of mass destruction. Speaking on the eve of today's Nato summit, the US president said that the Iraqi leader had a very short time to declare completely and truthfully his arsenal.

Former Weapons Inspector Says War With Iraq Inevitable
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.18C.ritter.war.htm
(...) "The U.S. has a policy regarding Iraq of regime removal. The last thing Bush wants is a weapons inspection regime that works. That would mean lifting economic sanctions and Iraq coming back into the fold with Saddam Hussein still at the helm," Ritter said. He said the U.N. resolution carries a hidden trigger allowing Bush to attack after the Dec. 8 deadline for a weapons declaration from Iraq, and noted that there will be four U.S. aircraft carriers in the region in December. If Iraq does not declare any weapons on Dec. 8, it will constitute the false declaration described in the resolution. Ritter said this would trigger a Security Council meeting to consider serious consequences. CLIP



THE HAUNTING, HORRIFIC LEGACY OF THE LAST GULF WAR

3.

From: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

Iraqi Cancers, Birth Defects Blamed on U.S. Depleted Uranium

By Larry Johnson Seattle Post-Intelligencer - Foreign Desk Editor

Tuesday, 12 November, 2002

Southern Demilitarized Zone, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.

They also are radiating nuclear energy.

In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.

Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.

Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.

With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.

THE DANGERS

Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.

Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.

DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.

The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.

But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.

A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.

Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.

The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."

Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat.

Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.

The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions.

But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."

The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation."

In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality against armor and other hard targets."

It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.

In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.

Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.

Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."

She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law regarding weapons:

Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.

Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates this criterion.

Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.

Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.

"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.

On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."

More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.

THE STUDIES

Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides, pesticides, vaccinations and DU.

Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.

There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU, conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress, weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.

The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU.

The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.

That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.

THE ACTIVIST

Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.

Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.

"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.

Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.

Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.

"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."

Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."

Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.

"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.

"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.

"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."

BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ

At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares.

The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer patients.

Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths.

On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their treatment.

There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to buy the expensive drugs on the black market.

Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with children in southern Iraq.

"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we can't get the equipment we need."

---

This is also available at http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/11.15B.depleted.uranium.htm

For more information:

The National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc.
http://www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/du_link.htm
This page is intended to provide information to Gulf War veterans concerned with exposure to DU during our service in the Gulf War. This is a very comprehensive resource.

Uranium Medical Research Centre
http://www.umrc.net/

Pictures and news article of deformities in children in Iraq related to DU exposure http://www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/children_and_war.htm

---

The article below mentions some of the health problems in southern Iraq. The link to the photos is directly below. PLEASE use discretion in viewing these very graphic photos.

Editors Note. Pictures of these deformities are posted on DULINK at www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/du_link.htm "Pentagon Experts" state there is no proof of these deformities caused by DU exposure, yet they block any medical research to determine the problem.

---

BASRA, Iraq -- It is a heart-breaking catalog of horrors.

Babies with grotesquely big heads. Or a single Cyclopean eye. Or no face at all, just a gaping hole where the nose should be.

"This family near Kuwait had three children -- all the same, no genitalia," says Dr. Janan Hassan, flipping over page after page of stomach-turning photos. "You could not even tell the sex."

In the past nine years, Hassan and other doctors in this southern Iraqi city have seen what they say is an ever-growing number of babies with hideous birth defects. Last year alone, at least 137 were born with congenital malformities, five times as many as reported in 1991.

And that is not the only frightening trend. Iraqi authorities say the number of children and adults stricken with leukemia, lymphoma and other types of cancer has also soared since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

To the Iraqis, there is a simple explanation. They blame the increases on exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive substance used in weapons fired during the war by U.S.-led forces.

But many outside experts say the claim is premature. There have been no scientific studies in Iraq itself. The few conducted elsewhere have found that depleted uranium causes little risk of cancer and none at all of birth defects. Other hazards could be at fault, the experts say.

Thus continues a major medical mystery -- one of concern not only to Iraq but also the thousands of Gulf War veterans from the United States, Canada and other nations who have long complained of apparent war-related health problems.

There is worry, too, in Kosovo, where NATO forces used munitions containing depleted uranium to attack Serbian troops last year.

"The issue has become polarized," says Dan Fahey, a U.S. Navy veteran who has spent years trying to prod the Pentagon into acknowledging the potential risks from depleted uranium.

"The danger with DU is mainly localized contamination in the immediate area, say within 150 feet of a tank that's hit. Some people make it sound like if you're 100 miles away you're breathing in the dust. In my opinion they are inflating the hazards, but it is a serious hazard and in terms of how this has impacted the health of vets and civilians it definitely needs more study."

Of the three types of uranium, two are fissionable and thus key in the making of nuclear bombs. The leftover material, called depleted uranium, is valuable in other types of weapons because it is so dense and heavy.

At high speed, a shell containing 10 pounds of solid DU can slice through tanks like "a hot knife through butter," in one apt description. It burns on impact, releasing particles that are toxic and remain radioactive for billions of years.

During the Gulf War, allied troops fired almost 1-million rounds containing an estimated 300 tons of depleted uranium. Most of those hit Iraqi tanks or fell on Iraqi soil. However, U.S. soldiers were also exposed, either wounded by "friendly fire" or from inhaling contaminated dust as they clambered over Iraqi tanks at war's end.

At the time no one -- neither Iraqis nor Americans -- knew much about the health risks from depleted uranium. But within a year, Iraqi doctors realized that something strange seemed to be happening.

Women who lived near the battlefields or whose husbands had fought in the war began having more and more babies with birth defects. Some survived, usually those with cleft palates or missing limbs. Others were stillborn, including some with tails, two heads, no brains or such terrible malformities they barely appeared human.

"I am a pediatrician but there is nothing even in the books about these kinds of things," says Dr. Hassan, a professor in the medical college of Basra University.

In 1991, her records show, 28 babies in Basra had birth defects, for a rate of 2.84 abnormalities per 1,000 births.

In 1998, the number of infants born with defects grew to 78 and the rate ballooned to 7.76.

"And the numbers will go up more and more," Hassan predicts. "The trend may continue forever. DU is radioactive and Basra is saturated with DU. This is a crime. What crime have our children done to deserve this?"

Along with the increase in birth defects has been a 262 percent percent jump in leukemia and other cancers nationwide, Iraqi authorities say.

In Basra, the hardest hit area, cancer strikes almost seven times as many people as it did in 1988, according to Dr. Jawa Kadhim Al-Alia, an oncologist at Saddam Teaching Hospital. Three of his best friends, two doctors and a pharmacist, have sons with leukemia.

"Everybody is afraid of getting cancer," Al-Alia says. For the first time in his long career, he is also seeing many "clusters" -- cancer striking several members of the same family.

Doctors at Saddam Central Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, where many young leukemia victims go for treatment, used to get only a few cases a year. Now two or three children are diagnosed every week.

"In Jordan and Egypt there is a very low incidence of leukemia," says Dr. Basim Al Abdili, the chief resident. "The cause of this is very clear, It's depleted uranium used during the war."

CLIP - Read the rest at http://www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/du_link.htm

---

Other articles on Iraq by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/iraq2002/



4.

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002
From: John Tibayan <john@globalvisions.org>
Subject: Fwd: Global Music Festival 2003 - One World Beat

Hi Jean,

Hope all is well with you. Thought you might be interested in this project. Reminds me of the one you started years ago.

Best,

John

John Tibayan - P.O. Box 3397, Santa Monica, CA 90408
Email: john@tibayan.org
Websites: http://globalartistvillage.org - http://globalvisions.org

Excerpt from One World Beat Music Festival Director, Andy Treichler: "As you probably read on our website, we are a non-profit organization of musicians and individuals who are organizing the One World Beat Music Festival in 2003. The organization was founded by myself in March 2002 and is based in Switzerland. We have musicians and volunteers in Europe and the US working for the festival on a volunteer basis, communicating over the Internet. We are currently contacting musicians and clubs all over the world to participate in our festival and the feedback so far is very encouraging."

---

From: <festival@oneworldbeat.org>
Subject: Global Music Festival 2003 - One World Beat
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002

Participate in the first One World Beat Music Festival 2003

On the first weekend of spring 2003 (March 21- 23) musicians and bands around the world will participate in the first One World Beat Music Festival and you can be part of it. Musicians, music clubs and venues, and non-profit organisations in Los Angeles, Paris, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, Sydney and many more cities around the planet will play in one giant event that will carry the message:

Music Making a Difference.

If you want to be part of this global project check out:

http://festival.oneworldbeat.org

Thank you for your time and interest - the One World Beat Team




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