Because the United States military used 375 tons of depleted uranium munitions against Iraq in 1991 and the cancer rate in children measured in Iraqi hospitals rose from 32,000 per year in 1990 to 130,000 in 1997. According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official reports, U.S. casualties from Gulf War 1 now exceed 180,000 and already over 30,000 are now disabled from Gulf War 2. We've now used eight times what we did in 1991 and radiation has long been known to cause cancer. This is well known by our federal government.
The problem is only now starting to be realized, as thousands of US Vets are dying not from insurgents’bombs but from our own DU deeds in Iraq. Iraqi water is contaminated; the places where they grow food are contaminated, while everywhere and everything is contaminated. The people are suffering and more and more are dying over there. In fact it is becoming a national crisis, because who is going to help the people with the medical costs? We can't even care for our own veterans.
DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/gunther.htm
According to Irving Wesley Hall at http://www.notinkansas.us/du_3.html
{How much depleted uranium has been showered on coalition troops and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq? The sketchy figures the Pentagon has released are not reliable-official figures from Iraq soon after the invasion in 2003 add up to about 300 tons, and the Pentagon claims it hasn’t used DU munitions since then despite much evidence to the contrary. Expert’s estimates vary widely, but ranges up to 1,000 tons for Afghanistan and up to more than 3,000 tons for Iraq.
The GWV (Gulf War Vet) cohort that is more appropriate to study to determine the effects of inhaled uranium oxide are the 697,000 American military personnel deployed in 1991 to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. According to the official Gulf War Veterans Briefing, the total causality count for the 100-hour war was 760: 294 dead and approximately 400 wounded or ill. In the decade following the war 30,000 Gulf War Veterans are dead and 221,000 are receiving medical disability benefits for war related causes (May 2002 GWV Report).
Neither the VA nor DOD has provided clear research needed to answer the basic question: what part did depleted uranium play in causing death and illness among more than 30% of Gulf War veterans? Basic epidemiological studies such as identifying cause of death as recorded on death certificates have not been reported in the literature.
Depleted uranium contamination causes virtually every known illness from acute skin rashes, severe headaches, muscle and joint pain, and general fatigue, to major birth defects, infection, depression, cardiovascular disease, brain tumors, and every other type of cancer. Uranium replaces calcium, destroying teeth and bones.}
This war was a lie from the beginning, to becoming an occupation, and now is turning into a regional medical hospice operation in which special teams will need to go to Iraq, to decontaminate, and work to help those suffering from DU. That is if they can decontaminate.
Technical reports say chemical gear such as gas masks, do no good, nor does protective clothing. And how does anyone cleanup the radioactive rivers? Children are playing with DU casings, and expended tips.
In fact I think the entire country will die off from DU, along with the 160,000 troops who are already over there. Take note the Politicians who have gone to Iraq to include McCain, Hillary, Bush, Cheney, and others are serious potential victims themselves of DU without them knowing it.
DU is deadly, and it will literally eat a person to death inside. They breathe the air over there; they are able to contract DU. Even taking showers will contaminate victims, along with eating, or being outside where wind blows up dust.
We are talking about a serious crisis. Shake hands with a Sheik, you can become contaminated. It can get into your eyes, nose, mouth, head hair, your body hair, your groin, your nails, your ears, and even your armpits. {According to
Elaine A. Hunter at http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/77250.html says:
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