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Impact of DU munitions

Akira Tashiro

 

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and conquered neighboring Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War.

     Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, insists that Kuwait, one of the world's major oil producing countries, is actually Iraqi territory.  Taking the move as a grab for oil fields and a more dominant role among the Arab states, the US and other Western nations reacted ferociously.  US President Bush, obtaining assent from the former Soviet Union and China, created a multinational force of troops from 28 nations endorsed by the UN and led by the US, Air attacks began on January 17, 1991, the ground war on February 24.

     With an overwhelming show of power, the multinational force freed Kuwait on the 26th.  The fighting ended on the 28th.  On March 3, Iraq accepted and signed a cease-fire designed by the UN Security Council.  That cease-fire agreement prohibited Iraq from researching, developing, or possessing nuclear weapons, and required it to accept a survey team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

 

Of the 696,000 American soldiers who participated in the Gulf War, about 436,000 entered areas contaminated by DU shells.  Dan Fahey (31;photo) is a member of the Military Toxicity Project, a civilian watchdog group investigating the environmental and health impacts of the use and dismantling of US weapons.  After studying material obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Fahey announced in March 1998 that, "About 400,000 soldiers may have been exposed to depleted uranium."

     The US Defense Department (Pentagon) attacked this estimate, claiming that his figures were utterly groundless.  About eight months later, under pressure from the National Gulf War resource Center (NGWRC: Washington, DC) created by Gulf War veterans, their families and supporters, the Pentagon published a map of the areas in which DU shells were used.  At that point, they admitted that about 436,000 ground soldiers had entered areas where DU munitions were used in Kuwait and Iraq.

     The hazards of DU were known before the Gulf War.  A military report in 1974 evaluating the medical and environmental effects of depleted uranium noted. "In combat situations involving the widespread  use of DU munitions, the potential for inhalation, ingestion, or implantation of DU compounds may be locally significant."

     Another report issued in July 1990 by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a company under contract to the military, identified the hazards even more clearly.  Because depleted uranium is a "a low-level alpha radiation emitter,"  It could be "linked to cancer when exposures are internal." It further warned, "Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant, with potential radiological and toxicological effects."

     Thus, the Pentagon knew the dangers of DU well in advance, yet did nothing to inform or educate its soldiers about that danger and took no protective measures.

     In 1993, a report compiled by the General Accounting Office (GAO) stated.  "The Army was not adequately prepared to deal with depleted uranium contamination."

     The reason given would be hard to defend to those who became casualties of this decision. "Army officials believe that DU protective methods can be ignored during battle and other life-threatening situations because DU-related health risks are greatly outweighed by the risks of combat."

     Long after the war, this attitude is costing thousands of young men and women in their twenties and thirties their health, and even their lives.

 

Notes:

 

Waianae is the place for people that have chronic illnesses.  Tonight I heard the Mayor and Debbie Kim talk about the Compact Agreement of Micronesians that were in need of funding to take care of their chronic illnesses due to the military contaminations of their islands.  We have many veterans living in Waianae with chronic illnesses.  Add the already isotopes in Waianae, we are doomed should the Akaka Bill pass.