------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 31, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
VETERANS STILL SUFFERING: U.S. WEAPONS FIRE BOTH WAYS By Sara Flounders As the Pentagon moves forward with plans for a new war against Iraq, tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel are wondering what they will face. The lesson of past wars is to trust no one from the Pentagon on this matter. The Defense Department claims to look after the health and safety of U.S. troops. President George W. Bush argues that the Pentagon must forcibly disarm Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." But on Oct. 9, the New York Times reported that 16 newly declassified documents show that the Defense Department used chemical weapons and live biological weapons against its own soldiers. The documents detail secret tests involving Sarin and VX gas, as well as biolo g ical toxins, conducted between 1962 and 1971. This is hardly the first exposé of the government's use of its own soldiers as guinea pigs. The is just the tip of the iceberg. >From 1945 to 1963 the Pentagon deliberately exposed more than 250,000 U.S. military personnel to radiation during nuclear tests in order to study the impact on humans. These tests also callously exposed thousands of Marshall Islanders who were being secretly studied. Any soldier who spoke out on this faced court martial and imprisonment for violating "national security." Finally, after veterans and their families mobilized and demanded treatment for their unusually high rates of cancer and many other diseases, a special 1984 congressional bill acknowledged this vast secret program and promised compensation to the surviving "Atomic Veterans." Fewer than 500 veterans received compensation, however. Then there was the 1991 Gulf War. U.S. soldiers protected by an enormous shield of high-tech weaponry seemed invulnerable. The Pentagon reported 148 U.S. deaths, half from "friendly fire." Not one armored vehicle belonging to the allied forces was reported lost. In comparison, the United States and its allies dropped 88,500 tons of explosives on a country whose air defenses had been obliterated by the third day. In 42 days of bombs and cruise missile attacks, they killed over 100,000 Iraqis. Now it is clear that the U.S. casualties were back-loaded. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans now in their mid-30s who should be in the prime of health are wasting away from "Gulf War Syndrome." The mass inoculations with untested vaccines, the bombing of industrial and chemical plants, and the smoke of burning oil wells, along with radioactive depleted uranium weapons, have all had an impact. The people of the Gulf region will have to face the effects of this poisoning for years to come, and so will the Pentagon's own soldiers. The fact that the U.S. government's own studies had warned of the dangers of using radioactive weapons confirms that when the conquests of markets and great profits are at stake, even their own troops are expendable. WHY THE PENTAGON USES DU Uranium is 1.7 times as dense as lead. Shells with depleted uranium casings penetrate steel like a hot knife through butter. DU is also pyrophoric--that is, it burns fiercely on impact and turns into tiny particles of uranium oxide dust. This dust can drift dozens of miles on the wind. It can be small enough to lodge in the lungs when inhaled, and then enter the bloodstream or other organs. Since DU oxide is both toxic and radioactive, its presence in the body can cause serious ailments. DU is a waste by-product of the uranium enrichment process. The U.S. government gives it away free to weapons manufacturers, making the production of these weapons quite profitable. Yet U.S. government studies have warned of the health risks from DU exposure. A 1990 report before the Gulf War warned: "Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer. ... Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects." Nevertheless, during the 1991 U.S. war against Iraq, the Pentagon fired over 940,000 of 30-millimeter uranium-tipped bullets and more than 14,000 large DU rounds. More than 600,000 pounds of radioactive material were left in Iraq's soil, water and air. Seven years after the bombing, Iraq's southern provinces showed an 11-fold increase in skin cancer, a six-fold increase in breast cancer and a 16-fold increase in ovarian cancer. THE WAR COMES HOME By 1996, the number of chronically ill U.S. veterans became a national scandal. Over 100,000 veterans were sick, with a wide range of mysterious medical problems and unexplained illnesses that were lumped together under the name "Gulf War Syndrome." The list of chronic ailments included unusually high rates of tumors and cancers of all types, hemorrhaging, bleeding gums, memory loss, overwhelming fatigue, persistent rashes and eczema, and severe muscle and joint pain--among people who should have been in the prime of health. Children of the soldiers suffered above-average rates of birth defects and auto-immune problems. For years the Pentagon denied that the sickness existed-- until Gulf veterans organized themselves to demand disability pay and medical care. Congress held hearings. A presidential commission was established. The Pentagon continued using these radioactive weapons in the 1995 bombing of Bosnia, the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the bombing of Afghanistan. Anti-DU activists have called for a moratorium on DU weapons, a demand that is now backed by the European Union and the parliaments of Germany, Italy and Norway. Angry mass movements have denounced the test firing of these radioactive weapons at U.S. bases in Okinawa, Japan; Vieques, Puerto Rico; and south Korea. DU USE ACCELERATES IN AFGHANISTAN Despite the dangers, the Pentagon has expanded its use of DU. The 120-mm antitank round used in 1991 in Iraq had a maximum weight of 12 pounds. Raytheon's "bunker buster" GBU-28 used in Afghanistan can weigh up to one-and-a-half metric tons. A March 3 report in Le Monde Diplomatique headlined "America's Big Dirty Secret" charged that depleted uranium was the heavy metal used in enormous bunker bombs that burrowed through mountains of rock or many feet of reinforced concrete to destroy cave complexes in Afghanistan. The issue of Gulf War Syndrome receded from the headlines in the United States. But the number of chronically ill veterans has continued to climb. According to the Veterans Benefits Administration, out of 504,047 eligible Gulf War veterans, 185,780 have filed claims for service-related medical disabilities. That is 36 percent. Of this number, 149,094 claims have been approved. This means that 29 percent of all Gulf War vets have recognized service-related disabilities. Thousands of claims are still pending. These veterans can die before they are compensated. All the reports over the past six years confirm that the Gulf War resulted in a huge number of soldiers wounded by long-term sickness, disease and disability. With similar weapons set for use in Iraq, what will the health consequences in the region and for U.S. soldiers be? [Flounders is an editor of the book "Metal of Dishonor-How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians with DU Weapons," published by the International Action Center in 1997 and 1999. It includes reports from scientists, doctors and veterans themselves, along with government documents, and has been translated into Arabic, Japanese, Italian and Greek. A video of the same name was made by the late videographer Ellen Andors.] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
