Kapur Surya Foundation

Depleted UraniumAuthor(s): LEUREN MORET

Source: World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues , Vol. 8, No. 2 (APRIL-JUNE
2004), pp. 101-118
Published by: Kapur Surya Foundation

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR
FOCUS

DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE

OF NUCLEAR WAR

The use of depleted uranium weaponry, defying all international

treaties, will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the
human species, and yet the United States continues to do so with full
knowledge of its destructive potential.

LEUREN MORET

S
ince 1991, the United States has staged four wars using depleted
uranium weaponry, illegal under all international treaties, conventions
and agreements, as well as under the US military law. The continued use
of this illegal radioactive weaponry, which has already contaminated vast regions
with low-level radiation and will contaminate other parts of the world over
time, is indeed a world affair and an international issue. The deeper purpose
is revealed by comparing regions now contaminated with depleted uranium —
from Egypt, the Middle East, Central Asia and the northern half of India —
to the US geostrategic imperatives described in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997
book The Grand Chessboard.
The fact is that the United States and its military partners have staged four
nuclear wars, “slipping nukes under the wire” by using dirty bombs and dirty
weapons in countries the US needs to control. Depleted
uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy
the genetic future of populations living in those regions, where there are

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 LEUREN MORET

SOUTH REGION: “This huge region, torn by volatile hatreds and surrounded by
competing powerful neighbors, is likely to be a major battlefield, both for wars among
nation-states and, more likely, for protracted ethnic and religious violence. Whether
India acts as a restraint or whether it takes advantage of some opportunity to impose
its will on Pakistan will greatly affect the regional scope of the likely conflicts. The
internal strains within Turkey and Iran are likely not only to get worse but to greatly
reduce the stabilizing role these states are capable of playing within this volcanic
region. Such developments will in turn make it more difficult to assimilate the new
Central Asian states into the international community, while also adversely affecting
the American-dominated security of the Persian Gulf region. In any case, both
America and the international community may be faced here with a challenge that
will dwarf the recent crisis in the former Yugslavia.” Z Brzezinski, The Grand
Chessboard
resources which the US must control, in order to establish and maintain
American primacy.
Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, depleted uranium is the
weapon that keeps killing. The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years,
the age of the earth. And, as Uranium-238 decays into daughter radioactive
products, in four steps before turning into lead, it continues to release more
radiation at each step. There is no way to turn it off, and there is no way to
clean it up. It meets the US government’s own definition of weapons of mass
destruction.
After forming microscopic and submicroscopic insoluble uranium oxide
particles on the battlefield, they remain suspended in air and travel around the

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust, contaminating the

environment, indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing disease in all living
things where rain, snow and moisture remove it from the atmosphere. Global
radioactive contamination from atmospheric testing was the equivalent of 40,000
Hiroshima bombs, and still contaminates the atmosphere and lower orbital
space today. The amount of low-level radioactive pollution from depleted
uranium released since 1991 is many times more (deposited internally in the
body) than was released from the atmospheric testing fallout.
A 2003 independent report for the European Parliament by the European
Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), reports that based on Chernobyl studies,
low-level radiation risk is 100 to 1000 times greater than the International
Committee for Radiation Protection models estimate which are based on the
flawed Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Studies conducted by the US government.
Refering to the extreme killing effects of radiation on biological systems, Dr
Rosalie Bertell, one of the 46 international radiation expert authors of the
ECRR report, describes it as:
The concept of species annihilation means a relatively swift, deliberately
induced end to history, culture, science, biological reproduction and
memory. It is the ultimate human rejection of the gift of life, an act which
requires a new word to describe it: omnicide.

1943 MANHATTAN PROJECT BLUEPRINT FOR DEPLETED URANIUM

I n a declassified memo to General Leslie R Groves, dated October 30,

1943, three of the top physicists in the Manhattan Project, Dr James B
Conant, A H Compton and H C Urey, made their recommendation, as
members of the subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee, on the “Use
of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon”:
As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of
microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired
projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled
by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling
the material is extremely small … There are no known methods of
treatment for such a casualty … it will permeate a standard gas mask
filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging.

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 LEUREN MORET

As a Terrain Contaminant:
To be used in this manner, the radioactive materials would be spread on
the ground either from the air or from the ground if in enemy-controlled
territory. In order to deny terrain to either side except at the expense of
exposing personnel to harmful radiations … Areas so contaminated by
radioactive material would be dangerous until the slow natural decay of
the material took place … for average terrain no decontaminating methods
are known. No effective protective clothing for personnel seems possible
of development … Reservoirs or wells would be contaminated or food
poisoned with an effect similar to that resulting from inhalation of dust or
smoke.
Internal Exposure:
… Particles smaller than 1µ [micron] are more likely to be deposited in
the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into
the lymphatics or blood. … could get into the gastrointestinal tract from
polluted water, or food, or air … may be absorbed from the lungs or G-
I tract into the blood and so distributed throughout the body.
Both the fission products and depleted uranium waste from the Atomic
Bomb Project were to be utilised under this plan. The pyrophoric nature of
depleted uranium, which causes it to begin to burn at very low temperatures
from friction in the gun barrel, made it an ideal radioactive gas weapon then
and now. Also, it was more available because the amount of depleted uranium
produced was much greater than the amount of fission products produced in
1943.
Britain had thoughts of using poisoned gas on Iraq long before 1991:
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes.
The moral effect should be good ... and it would spread a lively terror...
(Winston Churchill commenting on the British use of poison gas against
the Iraqis after the First World War)

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

GUIDED WEAPONS SYSTEMS

D epleted uranium weapons were first given by the US to Israel for use
under US supervision in the 1973 Sinai war against the Arabs. Since
then the US has tested, manufactured, and sold depleted uranium weapons
systems to 29 countries. An international taboo prevented their use until
1991, when the US broke the taboo and used them for the first time, on the
battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait.
The US military admitted using depleted uranium projectiles in tanks and
planes, but warheads in missiles and bombs are classified or referred to as a
“dense” or “mystery metal”. Dai Williams, a researcher at the 2003 World
Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, reported finding 11 US patents for
guided weapons systems with the term “depleted uranium” or “dense metal”,
which from the density can only be depleted uranium or tungsten, in order
to fit the dimensions of the warhead.
Extensive carpet bombing, grid bombing, and the frequent use of missiles
and depleted uranium bullets on buildings in densely populated areas has
occurred in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. The discovery that bomb craters
in Yugoslavia in 1999 were
radioactive, and that an unexploded The discovery that bomb craters
missile in 1999 contained a depleted in Yugoslavia in 1999 were
uranium warhead, implies that the radioactive, and that an
total amount of depleted uranium unexploded missile in 1999
used since 1991 has been greatly
contained a depleted uranium
underestimated. Of even greater
concern is that 100 per cent of the warhead, implies that the total
depleted uranium in bombs and amount of depleted uranium used
missiles is aerosolised upon impact since 1991 has been greatly
and immediately released into the underestimated.
atmosphere. This amount can be as
much as 1.5 tons in the large bombs. In bullets and cannon shells, the amount
aerosolised is 40–70 per cent, leaving pieces and unexploded shells in the
environment to provide new sources of radioactive dust and contamination of
the groundwater from dissolved depleted uranium metal long after the battles
are over, as reported in a 2003 report by the UN Environmental Program on
Yugoslavia. Considering that the US has admitted using 34 tons of depleted

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 LEUREN MORET

uranium from bullets and cannon shells in Yugoslavia, and the fact that 35,000
NATO bombing missions occurred there in 1999, potentially the amount of
depleted uranium contaminating
Although restricted to battle-fields Yugoslavia and trans-boundary drift
in Iraq and Kuwait, the 1991 into surrounding countries is
Gulf War was one of the most staggering.
toxic and environ-mentally Because of mysterious illnesses
and post-war birth defects reported
devastating wars in world history. among Gulf War veterans and
Oil well fires, the bombing of oil civilians in southern Iraq, and
tankers and oil wells which radiation-related illnesses in UN
released millions of gallons of oil Peacekeepers serving in Yugoslavia,
into the Gulf of Arabia and desert, growing concerns about radiation
and the devastation from tanks effects and environmental damage
have stirred up international outrage
and heavy equipment dest-royed about the use of radioactive weapons
the desert ecosystem. by the US after 1991. At the 2003
meeting of parties to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, discussing the US desire to maintain its nuclear
weapons stockpile, the Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, stated:
It is incumbent upon the rest of the world ... to stand up now and tell all
of our military leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected by
nuclear weapons. We refuse to live in a world of continually recycled fear
and hatred.

ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

T here are four reasons why using depleted uranium weapons violates the
UN Convention on Human Rights:
Legality Test for Weapons under International Law
• Temporal Test — Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is
over.
• Environmental Test — Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the
environment.
• Territorial Test — Weapons must not act off the battlefield.
• Humaneness Test — Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanly.

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

International human rights and humanitarian lawyer Karen Parker

determined that depleted uranium weaponry fails the four tests for legal weapons
under international law, and that it is also illegal under the definition of a
“poison” weapon. Through Karen Parker’s continued efforts, a subcommittee
of the UN Human Rights Commission determined in 1996 that depleted
uranium is a weapon of mass destruction that should not be used.

RESOLUTION 1996/16 ON STOPPING THE USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM

T he military use of Depleted Uranium violates current international

humanitarian law, including the principle that there is no unlimited right
to choose the means and methods of warfare (Article 22 of the Hague
Convention VI (HCIV); Article 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva
(GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury (Article
23 §le HCIV; Article 35 §2 GP1), indiscriminate warfare (Article 51 §4c and
5b GP1) as well as the use of poison or poisoned weapons.
The deployment and use of Depleted Uranium violates the principles of
international environmental and human rights protection. It contradicts the
right to life established by Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on
Human Rights.

FOUR NUCLEAR WARS

Military Men are just Dumb, Stupid, Animals

To be used as Pawns in Foreign Policy.
— Henry Kissinger

A lthough restricted to battlefields in Iraq and Kuwait, the 1991 Gulf

War was one of the most toxic and environmentally devastating wars in
world history. Oil well fires, the bombing of oil tankers and oil wells which
released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Arabia and desert, and the
devastation from tanks and heavy equipment destroyed the desert ecosystem.
The long-term and far-reaching effects, and the dispersal of at least 340 tons
of depleted uranium weapons had a global environmental effect. Smoke from
the oil fires was later found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and
Hawaii. Large annual duststorms originating in North Africa, the Middle East,

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 LEUREN MORET

and Central Asia will quickly spread the radioactive contamination around the
world, and weathering of old depleted uranium munitions on battlefields and
other areas will provide new sources of radioactive contamination in future
years. Downwind from the radioactive devastation in Iraq, Israel is also suffering
from large increases in breast cancer, leukaemia and childhood diabetes.

RADIATION RESPECTS NO BORDERS, NO SOCIO-ECONOMIC CLASS, AND

NO RELIGION

T he expendability of the sanctity of life to achieve US political ends was

described by US soldiers on the ground, and from the air, along the
Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991:
Iraqi soldiers [whether they] be young boys or old men ... They were a sad
sight, with absolutely no fight left in them. Their leaders had cut their
Nearly 700,000 American Gulf War Achilles’ tendons so they couldn’t
run away and then left them. What
veterans returned to the US from a weapons they had were in bad repair
war that lasted just a few weeks. and little ammunition was on hand.
Today, more than 240,000 of those They were hungry, cold, and scared.
soldiers are on permanent medical The hate I had for any Iraqi
disability, and over 11,000 are dead. dissipated. These people had no
business being on a battlefield. (S
Hersh, New Yorker, May 22, 2000)
American pilots bombing and strafing, with depleted uranium weapons,
helpless retreating Iraqi soldiers who had already surrendered, exclaimed:
We toasted him …. we hit the jackpot …. a turkey shoot …. shooting
fish in a barrel …. basically just sitting ducks … There’s just nothing like
it. It’s the biggest Fourth of July show you’ve ever seen, and to see those
tanks just “boom”, and more stuff just keeps spewing out of them …
they just become white hot. It’s wonderful. (LA Times and Washington
Post, both February 27, 1991)
Nearly 700,000 American Gulf War veterans returned to the US from a
war that lasted just a few weeks. Today, more than 240,000 of those soldiers
are on permanent medical disability, and over 11,000 are dead. In a US
government study on post-Gulf War babies born to 251 veterans, 67 per cent

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

of the babies were reported to have serious illnesses or serious birth defects.
They were born without eyes, ears, had missing organs, fused fingers, thyroid
or other malfunctions. Depleted uranium in the semen of the soldiers internally
contaminated their wives. Severe birth defects have been reported in babies
born to contaminated civilians in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and the
incidence and severity of defects is increasing over time. Women in Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and Iraq are afraid now to have babies, and when they do give
birth, instead of asking if it is a girl or a boy, they ask “Is it normal?.”
Soldiers who served in Bradley fighting vehicles, where it was common to
sit on ammunition boxes where depleted uranium ammunition was stored, are
now reporting that many have rectal cancer.
For the first time, medical doctors in Yugoslavia and Iraq have reported
multiple in situ unrelated cancers developing in patients, and even in families
TABLE 1
KNOWN ILLNESSES INFLICTED BY INTERNALISATION OF
DEPLETED URANIUM PARTICLES
GENERAL LIST
abnormal births and birth calcium loss in body heart attack/disease
defects cardiovascular signs or high blood pressure
abnormal metabolism of symptoms high frequency of
semen: contain amine and chemical sensitivities micturition
ammon. alkal. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Hodgkin lymphoma
acute auto-immune chronic kidney and liver immune system deficiency
symptoms disorders infections
(lung, liver, kidney failure) chronic myeloid leukaemia insomnia
acute myeloid leukemia chronic respiratory infections involuntary movements
(deadly within days or colon cancer joint/mustle/leg pain
weeks) confusion kidney failure/damage
acute immune depression diarrhoea leukaemia
acute respiratory failure digestive problems liver carcinoma
asthma dizziness loss of feeling in fingers
auto-immune deficiencies Eppstein Barr Syndrome Lou Gehrigs Disease ALS
Balkan Syndrome fluid buildup low blood oxygen saturation
blood in stool and urine fibromyalgia (low HbO2)
body function control loss gastrointest: signs/symptoms low lung volume
bone cancer general fatigue lung damage
brain damage genetic alterations lung cancer
brain tumours glandular carcinoma lymph cancer
burning semen Gulfwar Syndrome lymphoma
burning sensations headaches (severe) melanoma

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 LEUREN MORET

memory loss other malignancies skin infections

metallic taste pancreas carcinoma skin spotting smell,
Microplasma fermentans/ Parkinson’s disease sleep disturbances
incognitis infections petit and grand mal fits stiffening of fingers
mood swings — violence, rashes teeth crumbling
homicide/suicide reactive airway disease thyroid cancer
multiple cancers reduced IQ thyroid disease
multiple myeloma respiratory ailments unable to walk
myeloma shortness of breath unusual fevers/night sweats
muscle pain sinus diseases unusual hair loss
nerve damage skin cancer vision problems
neuro-muscular degenerative skin damage: sweat glands weight loss
disease with trapped DU-
non-Hodgkin lymphoma particles

CHILDREN FEMALE MALE

alimentary disorders abdominal pain (acute) headache
asthma breast cancer acute myeloid leukaemia
bladder and sphincter breast cancer at very arthritis
paralysis young age (20) avoiding people
blindness cervix cancer breathing problem (stridor)
complete range of known endometriosis chemical sensitivity
and unknown congenital headaches chronic myeloid leukaemia
defects incontinence endometriosis in partners
deafness joint pain gastrointestinal disorders
dyspraxia lung cancer at age 20 in hip and leg pain
headache non-smoker joint pain
kidney disease menstrual problems lung cancer at young age
leukaemia miscarriages lymphoma
lymphoma nausea skin cancer
malformations of legs, arms, ovarian cancer skin eruptions
toes and fingers paralysis of digestive stomach pain
respiratory disorders system suicide
stillbirth thyroid problems testicular cancer
neural tube defects uterine cancer unable to walk

Table 1: Compiled by Leuren Moret from Interviews with Gulf War Veterans
and their families
Visit: http:www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/du-diagnosis.html
Desert Shield/Desert Storm, website: http://www.ushostnet.com/gulfwar/
articles.htm

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

who are living in highly contaminated areas. Even stranger, they report that
cancer was unknown in previous generations. Very rare and unusual cancers
and birth defects have also been reported to be increasing above normal levels
prior to 1991, not only in war-torn countries, but in neighbouring countries
from trans-boundary contamination.
Dr Keith Baverstock, a senior radiation adviser who was on the staff of the
World Health Organization (WHO), co-authored a report in November 2001,
warning that the long-term health
effects of depleted uranium would Severe birth defects have been
endanger Iraq’s civilian population, reported in babies born to
and that the dry climate would contaminated civilians in Iraq,
increase exposure from the tiny
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and
particles blowing around and be
inhaled for years to come. The WHO the incidence and severity of
refused to give him permission to defects is increasing over time.
publish the study, bowing to pressure
from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Dr Baverstock released
the damning report to the media in February 2004. Pekka Haavisto, chairman
of the UN Environment Program’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit in Geneva,
shares Baverstock’s anxiety about depleted uranium but UNEP experts have
not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.

“DEPLETED URANIUM SCARE” — Claimed by President Bush on the

offical White House website:

“D uring the Gulf War, coalition forces used armor-piercing

ammunitionmade from depleted uranium, which is ideal for the
purpose because of its great density. In recent years, the Iraqi regime has made
substantial efforts to promote the false claim that the depleted uranium rounds
fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has
distributed horrifying pictures of children with birth defects and linked them
to depleted uranium. The campaign has two major propaganda assets:”
“Uranium is a name that has frightening associations in the mind of the
average person, which makes the lie relatively easy to sell; and Iraq could take

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 LEUREN MORET

advantage of an established international network of antinuclear activists who

had already launched their own campaign against depleted uranium.”
“But scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN
Environmental Programme, and the European Union could find no health
effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium.”
The US war in Afghanistan made it clear that this was not a war IN the
third world, but a war AGAINST the third world. In Afghanistan where 800
to 1000 tons of depleted uranium was estimated to have been used in 2001,
even uneducated Afghanis understand the impact these weapons have had on
their children and on future generations:
After the Americans destroyed our village and killed many of us, we also
lost our houses and have nothing to eat. However, we would have endured
these miseries and even accepted
The parallels between Iraq, them, if the Americans had not
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan are sentenced us all to death. When I
startlingly similar: the weapons saw my deformed grandson, I
used, the unfair treaties offered realized that my hopes of the future
by the US, and the bombing and have vanished for good, different
from the hopelessness of the Russian
destruction of the environment barbarism, even though at that time
and entire infrastructure. I lost my older son Shafiqullah. This
time, however, I know we are part
of the invisible genocide brought on us by America, a silent death from
which I know we will not escape. (Jooma Khan of Laghman province,
March 2003)
In 1990, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) wrote
a report warning about the potential health and environmental catastrophe
from the use of depleted uranium weapons. The health effects had been known
for a long time. The report sent to the UK government warned that “in their
estimation, if 50 tonnes of residual DU dust remained ‘in the region’ there
could be half a million extra cancers by the end of the century [2000]”.
Estimates of depleted uranium weapons used in 1991, now range from the
Pentagon’s admitted 325 tons, to other scientific bodies who put the figure as
high as 900 tons. That would make the number of estimated cancers as high
as 9,000,000, depending on the amount used in the 1991 Gulf War. In the

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

2003 Gulf War, estimates of 2200 tons have been given — causing about
22,000,000 new cancer cases. Altogether the total number of cancer patients
estimated using the UKAEA data would be 25,250,000. In July 1998, the CIA
estimated the population of Iraq to be approximately 24,683,313.
Ironically, UN Resolution 661 calling for sanctions against Iraq was signed
on Hiroshima Day, August 6, 1990.

THE PARALLELS

War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase
in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
— Ludwig von Mises

T he parallels between Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan are startlingly

similar: the weapons used, the unfair treaties offered by the US, and the
bombing and destruction of the environment and entire infrastructure. In
every city of Iraq and Yugoslavia, the TV and radio stations were bombed.
Educational centres were targeted, and stores where educational materials
were sold were destroyed on nearly the same day. Under UN sanctions, Iraq
was not even allowed pencils for schoolchildren. Cultural antiquities and
historical treasures were targeted and destroyed in all three countries, a kind
of cultural and historical cleansing, a collective national psychic trauma.
The permanent radioactive contamination and environmental devastation
of all three countries is unprecedented, resulting in huge increases in cancer
and birth defects following the attacks. These will increase over time from
unknown effects due to chronic exposure, increasing internal levels of radiation
from depleted uranium dust, and permanent genetic effects passed on to future
generations. Clearly, this has been a genocidal plan from the start.
What has happened to human rights, to the rights of the child, to civil
society, and to common humanity?
It is up to the citizens of the world to stop the depleted uranium wars, and
future nuclear wars, causing irreversible devastation. There are just a few
generations left before the collapse of our environment, and then it will be too
late. We can be no healthier than the health of the environment — we breathe
the same air, drink the same water, eat food from the same soil.

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 LEUREN MORET

Map of regions within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Afghanistan which
have been contaminated with depleted uranium since 1991. Depleted uranium
dust will be repeatedly recycled throughout this dry region, and also carried
around the world. More than ten times the amount of radiation, released
during atmospheric testing, has been released from depleted uranium weaponry
since 1991. In 2002 the US government admitted that every person living in
the US between 1957 and 1963 was internally contaminated with radiation.
Note that the contaminated region corresponds with the “South” region on the
Eurasian chessboard.

Our collective gene pool of life, evolving for hundreds of millions of years
has been seriously damaged in less than the past fifty. The time remaining
to reverse this culture of “lemming death” is on the wane. In the future,

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

what will you tell your grandchildren about what you did in the prime of
your life to turn around this death process? (Rosalie Bertell, 1982)
“W
THE DEEPER PURPOSE: G*O*D* [GOLD, OIL, AND DRUGS]

e must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the

source, of at least a proportion of the oil which we require” (British
Royal Commission, agreeing with Winston Churchill’s policy towards Iraq,
1913).
“It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of
our imports come from overseas” (President Bush, Beaverton, Oregon,
September 25, 2000).
“If they turn on the radars we’re going to blow up their goddamn SAMs
[surface-to-air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their
airspace ... We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about
America right now. It’s a good
thing, especially when there’s a lot A silent and hidden partnership
of oil out there we need” (US between the US and Japan
Brigadier General William Looney
provided large amounts of cash
in 1999, referring to Iraq).
Millions of years ago, before from Japan to finance the 1991
India crashed into the Eurasian Iraq and 1995 and 1999
continent and uplifted the Yugoslavian wars, with additional
Himalayas, the ancient shallow help in Afghanistan by providing
Tethys Sea stretched from the not only cash but fuel for the war
Atlantic across what is now the
from Aegis warships of the
Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and
Aral seas. Rich oil deposits are now Japanese Self Defence Forces in
located where ancient life the Indian Ocean.
accumulated and “cooked” under
just the right conditions to form large oil deposits in the ancient sediments.
Long before 1991, Unocal in Afghanistan, Amoco in Yugoslavia, and various
oil companies interested in Iraq oil deposits, had conducted extensive exploration
and characterisation of oil deposits in the Middle East and Central Asian
regions, including the northern half of India.

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 LEUREN MORET

Britain has maintained an interest in Middle Eastern oil deposits for a

century, and has been the staunchest military partner of the US since the first
depleted uranium war in 1991 in Iraq. Germany, another military partner in
Yugoslavia with forces now in Afghanistan, was one of the major economic
beneficiaries of the breakup of Yugoslavia and the colonisation of the Balkans.
US interest in Yugoslavia had much to do with building pipelines from Central
Asia to the Mediterranean warm-water ports in Yugoslavia. A silent and hidden
partnership between the US and Japan provided large amounts of cash from
Japan to finance the 1991 Iraq and 1995 and 1999 Yugoslavian wars, with
additional help in Afghanistan by providing not only cash but fuel for the war
from Aegis warships of the Japanese Self Defense Forces in the Indian Ocean.
Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi, and Halliburton are now partners in a Central
Asian oil pipeline project. In 2004, despite much citizen opposition in Japan,
the Japanese government has sent Self Defense Forces to Iraq for
“reconstruction”. This action taken by the Japanese government, of placing
troops on the ground in a war zone, will lead to rescinding Article 9 of the
Japanese Constitution, which for ever prohibits military aggression by Japan.

THE IRON TRIANGLE: MILITARY, BIG BUSINESS, POLITICS (All Under One
Roof)
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private
power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself.
That, in its essence, is Fascism — ownership of government by an individual,
by a group, or any controlling private power.
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt

B ut what do oil, military partners, depleted uranium wars, and US foreign

policy have to do with nuclear weapons? The answer came to me in 1991
when I became a whistle-blower at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory
near San Francisco, California. Richard Berta, the western regional inspector,
Department of Energy, told me “The Pentagon exists for the oil companies
… and the nuclear weapons labs exist for the Pentagon.”
Depleted uranium was used beginning in 1991 for three reasons:
• To test the radiobiological effects of fourth-generation nuclear weapons,
which are still under development

116 WORLD AFFAIRS APR–JUN 2004 VOL 8 NO 2

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 DEPLETED URANIUM: THE TROJAN HORSE OF NUCLEAR WAR

• To blur and break down the distinction between conventional and nuclear
weapons
• To make it easier to reintroduce nuclear weapons into the US military
arsenal.
Today, the US is number one in fourth-generation nuclear weapons research
and development, followed by Japan and Germany tied for number two, and
Russia and other countries follow.
The Carlyle Group, a private massive equity firm, the twelfth largest defence
business with an obscenely high profit margin, is a business “arrangement”
between the Bush and Bin Laden families, wealthy Saudis, former British
Prime Minister John Major, James Baker, Afsaneh Masheyekhi, Frank Carlucci,
Colin Powell, other former US government administrators, and Madeleine
Albright’s daughter. The Carlyle Group is the “gatekeeper” to the Saudi
investment community. It owns 70 per cent of Lockheed Martin Marietta, the
largest military contractor in the US, and because Carlyle is privately owned,
has no scrutiny or accountability whatsoever. A journalist who calls himself “a
skunk at the garden party” described his investigation of the Carlyle Group
and said “it’s like shadow boxing with a ghost”. The group hires the best-
known politicians as lobbyists from around the world, in order to influence
the politics of war, and privately profit from their previous public policies.
The conflict of interests is obvious: President Bush is creating wars as his
father, former President George Bush, is globally peddling weapons and
“protection”. Lockheed Martin Marietta now owns Sandia Laboratories, a
private contractor that makes the trigger for nuclear weapons, with a Sandia
laboratory facility across the street from Los Alamos and Livermore National
Laboratories, where the nuclear bombs are made.
At the May 2003 University of California (UC) Regents meeting which
I attended, Admiral Linton Brooks was present and newly in charge of the
nuclear weapons programme under the Department of Energy. Admiral Brooks
informed California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante and the UC Regents
that the management contract for the nuclear weapons laboratories, held
unchallenged by the University of California for over 60 years, will be put up
for competitive bidding in 2005. The favoured institution, with a faculty
member on the “blue ribbon committee” making the contract award, is the
University of Texas. This privatisation and management contract transfer of
the US nuclear weapons programme will put control of the US nuclear weapons

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 LEUREN MORET

programme close to the Carlyle Group. The incestuous relationship between

the US government, private companies, and the Bush and Bin Laden families
in a way answers many of the lingering questions in everyone’s minds about
many of the ill-fated decisions and policies that have been implemented.

But who is Osama bin Laden really?

Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden?

He’s America’s family secret. He is the American President’s dark

doppelganger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and
civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste
by America’s foreign policy; its gunboat diplomacy, its nucler arsenal, its
vulgarly stated policy of “full spectrum dominance”, its chilling disregard
for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support
for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that
has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of
locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we
breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we
think.

Arundhati Roy
The Algebra of Infinite Justice

118 WORLD AFFAIRS APR–JUN 2004 VOL 8 NO 2

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