SIGHTINGS


 
U.S. Accused Of Nuclear
War Against Iraq
From Shanti Communications
 
 
This article is reproduced here with special permission from Shanti Communications news agency. If you wish to forward it, please contact Parveez Syed parveez@cr78ra1uk.win-uk.net for permission.
 
Copyright 1997 © Shanti Communications news agency. All rights reserved. The following feature may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part. Copying, storing, transfer, redistribution, retransmission, publication and exploitation of this information is hereby expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of Shanti Communications UK.
 
 
LONDON-UK (SRTV-SC) - Millions of defenceless children and women civilians, including Western funded Kurds and Shias in Iraq were nuked during the Gulf assault by the Western "Allies", one Western intelligence source told Shanti RTV news agency.
 
And according to former US attorney-general, Ramsey Clark, "350 tons of depleted uranium poisoned Iraq. I have seen the impact of this new poison [DU] when I visited hospital wards for young children in Iraq. Amidst the overwhelming horrors of the bombings and the starvation caused by US-UK imposed sanctions, the doctors at first did not notice the huge rise in the numbers of childhood cancers, such as leukemia, Hodgkin's disease and lymphomas," he told Shanti RTV news agency. "There has also been a significant rise in the rate of congenital diseases and deformities in fetuses: an increase startlingly similar to the increase of these conditions among babies of Gulf assault vets," Clark explained.
 
In the wake of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the US and its "allies" pushed through the UN Security Council a series of resolutions imposing barbaric sanctions against millions of civilians in Iraq. These sanctions, which remain in place today, six years after the eviction of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, have inflicted barbaric hardship and suffering on the innocent civilian population of Iraq.
 
In his 1997 book, "The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice", Geoff Simons accuses the US of committing war crimes under the 1977 Protocol 1 Addition to the 1949 Geneva Convention. The Protocol states 'that the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is illegal and ethically indefensible' (p. xiii). Simons's book is effective in revealing the appalling effects the sanctions are visiting upon the civilian population of Iraq. The author makes a compelling case that the US is violating several international agreements as well as acting inhumanely towad an innocent civilian population. Above all, he imparts to his readers the wisdom that, as human civilization stands poised to enter the twentyfirst century, the international community should no longer accept genocide as a viable form of a superpower's foreign policy.
 
"The United States has conducted two nuclear wars. The first against Japan in 1945, the second in Kuwait and Iraq in 1991. The first nuclear war fissioned a plutonium bomb and one made made of uranium. The second nuclear war utilized depleted-uranium weapons...," according to another 1997 book entitled 'Metal of Dishonor'. "Let's talk about the Gulf massacre, which lasted six weeks. During that time, 940,000 small DU shells were fired from U.S. planes, 14,000 larger DU shells from tanks, and many of these shells spontaneously ignited when they hit their tanks".
 
And according to an article in The Nation US (21 October 1996) by Bill Mesler, "The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet," Iraq presented a study to the United Nations in August 1995 demonstrating a sharp increase in leukemia and cancer incidence in the Basra region, and a secret British Atomic Energy Authority report estimated that there was enough depleted uranium in the form of empty shells in the area to account for five hundred thousand (500,000) potential deaths. But their calculations were unrealistically based upon forty tons, not the three hundred tons of uranium left behind after the United States military [allegedly] vacated the region".
 
August 1997 was the 7th anniversary of the continuing US-led blockade on the Iraqi people and the 52nd anniversary of the atomic bombings on Japan. The similarities between the final attacks on Japan and the continuing US war against Iraq are chilling. The armed, remote onslaught on a defenseless people included the first-time use of more than 300 tons of depleted uranium shells plus a frightening array of other internationally banned radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. All in all, over 140,000 tons of explosives, equivalent to 7 nuclear bombs, were used against the Iraqi society in destroying their environment and infrastructure. The war against the Iraqi people did not end with the cessation of military attacks in 1991, but continues to this very day with a suffocating blockade that has already claimed over one million civilian lives. More than 750,000 children have died in Iraq as a result of a critical shortage of food and medicine. More than two and a half million children are suffering from severe malnutrition because of this blockade. These figures are confirmed by various UN agencies.
 
Gulf assault veteran nurse Carol Picou retraces her steps back to Iraq with her husband Anthony to try to prove her serious health problems stem from exposure to depleted uranium (DU) weapons in the assault. She is the first US soldier to return to Iraq. In her 45 minutes long factual documentary, US military admit proper precautions were not taken and that troops were exposed to risk. However. the British army - the only others to use DU weapons against millions of Iraqi civilian children and women as well as soldiers - has refused point blank to admit any mistakes were made. They also repeatedly refused to co-operate in the making of the documentary and continue to do so, despite a change of British government.
 
[The documentary is to be televised on Channel Four (C4) TV in the UK on Thursday 11 September 1997, from 9pm UK time]
 
Described as the most significant development in "battlefield" weapons since the machine gun and as the Western army's "miracle" weapon to kill millions of defenceless civilians in the Middle East remotely, these new and devastating artillery shells are made from a highly toxic radioactive waste product from the nuclear industry. First used against millions of Iraqi civilians in the Gulf assault, DU is the heaviest metal on earth.
 
DU 'penetrators', fly much faster and further than coventional armour piercing shells. The Western weapons of mass, barbaric destruction blasted their way through thousands of life support systems and facilities in Iraq as well as tanks and vehicles. The heat generated by the weapons is so high, that victims inside civilian and military targets were literally burnt alive in a fireball of fuel, exploding weapons and gases.
 
Dr Michio Kaku, a nuclear physics professor, explains how the hot gases "literally fry people inside tanks, almost like chickens". Carol Picou is a 15-year veteran of the US Army Medical Service. She served in Asia, Africa and Europe before being sent to "Operation Desert Storm". Her unit was the front-line medical team during the ground assault, as fast action response unit that moved at the head of the attack. Carol and her colleagues were the first women to ever serve as front-line troops in the US army.
 
Until the Gulf assault, Carol had been in excellent health. But today, like more than 350,000 Gulf assault veterans and nine million defenceless Iraqi civilians, she is seriously ill with a range of debilitating sickness. [Adding to the vets sickness mystery is the inexplicable disappearance of as many as 700,000 service-related immunisation records from the Pentagon and the CIA offices]. Carol spent just two weeks inside Iraq during the Gulf assault. She witnessed the full ferocity of the new DU weapons, often arriving less than 30 minutes after attacks. She remembers how different it was to anything she had seen in her 15 year of serving in the US army. "It just wasn't normal. To me it looked like we must have nuked them .... The bodies were as black as can be and some of the bodies just melted ..."
 
They had never witnessed such a destructive force. Yet they did not fully understand what it was they were using and what precautions should have been taken. They had no idea they were working right in the middle of a uranium 'battlefield'. No one told them they should avoid the smouldering wrecks of Iraqi vehicles or surrendering soldiers. No one told them the after-effects of DU could be highly dangerous. Anthony Picou says: "We, along with the Pentagon know DU creates a dust cloud that can travel for 20 miles. How many solders were in its path? Let's face it, even the air was contaminated. My wife Carol breathed that air and also dealt with injured Iraqi troops. Their clothes and gear all contaminated. Thousands of soldiers are sick. I truly believe that the army is totally aware of the consequences of inhalation and ingestion of depleted uranium".
 
The US and Britain used so much DU in weapons during the Gulf assault that 350 tons of residue permeate the ground and water, and will contaminate the entire region for generations. One particle of DU in the lungs, for example, radiates 800 times the accepted annual level of radiation. US forces in the Gulf encountered DU in a variety of ways. Some were exposed during combat. Some were exposed during the recovery of contaminated US vehicles that had been hit in 'friendly-fire' incidents. Some were exposed when they explored the after the "cease-fire".
 
On returning to Iraq, the Picous discovered that officials there believe DU to be responsible for an alarming rise in the number of birth defects amongst Iraqi children. UN reports have confirmed that DU presents serious health risks to Iraq but under barbaric and ihhumane US-UK imposed UN sanctions, nothing has been done to assist them in cleaning up an estimated 200 tonnes of uranium used by the Western "Allies" (read US and UK).
 
Carol explains how she received what she describes as a 'secrect document' which lists dust from DU weapons as hazard which may be responsible for causing symptoms identical to hers. Her husband Anthony said the report confirms the existence of a previous army report written four years before the Gulf assault. The report said that DU hit tanks should only be approached while wearing breathing equipment and protective clothing. Anthony asks: "so if they know of the danger of potential exposure, why aren't they trying to find out what happened to those who were exposed?"
 
Carol describes how they received a series of threatening phone calls and how one night their car was destroyed in a mass of flames. She is convinced some sort of cover up is taking place. She meets veteran Mike Flores, who was exposed to DU penetrator rods. His twin sons were born with an arm deformity identical to that of the child born around the same time to another veteran exposed to DU rods in the Gulf.
 
"Deformed babies born in San Antonio in our support group of 125 veterans look like the babies born in Iraq," Carol said. "I had depleted-uranium poisoning. My results came back positive on 10 September 1994". Anthony believes "it's because they realised that the depleted uranium penetrator is such an awesome weapon that they don't want to jeopardise its use in the next war". Carol is determined to continue her quest for proof. "This is my life, trying to figure out whar's wrong with me and try to figure out how to help myself, because I'm not getting any help from the (US) military doctors so I may as well keep researching to help myself get better and stronger".
 
"US is guilty of biological warfare and genocide of civilians in Iraq. Many US and UK veterans know too much. They have big mouths. They expose US and UK governments. They expose Western politicians and the leading infant-killers. They expose US president George Bush and Norman Schwarzkopf as leading liars and mass infant-killers. They incriminate British ministers, including Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair etc. They expose Western media lies and coverups. The veterans must be silenced and banned," a Western intelligence source told Shanti RTV news agency.
 
During the making of the C4TV documentary, Carol and Anthony were given open access to high-ranking Iraqi officials and were able to travel extensively in restricted and contaminated areas. "This was better access than many sick veterans receive in the UK and US," Anothony commented.
 
"The damage to children today and to unborn generations caused by nuclear testing and by Agent Orange was exposed by grassroots movements," Clark said. "We must act now to confront this new danger of depleted uranium. We must heighten public awareness. We have to end the government cover-ups of the spreading poison".
 
"We now shoot nuclear wastes into other people's backyards. We're talking about laying the groundwork for an investigation into war crimes against ordinary people. There's one thing more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. That's the power of a people united, the power of a people educated, the power of a people enraged that this obscenity is committed against other people," Michio Kaku said. "I believe this battle is winnable. When the American people realize that we are shooting nuclear wastes into other people's backyard, poisoning our very own, inflicting innumerable casualties on other people, then I think the American people will rise, and we will see the day when nations beat our DU swords into plowshares".
 
"Although the military war against Iraq allegedly ended in 1991, the destruction caused by the war continues until today. Contrary to what was reported in the mass media, the military war against Iraq was not a 'clean' war, but was a vicious massacre, in which toxic, radioactive, and numerous banned weaponry were utilised against civilian populations! The British and American armies used banned weapons such as cluster bombs, napalm, and fuel air explosives in their destruction of Iraq. In addition, they used, for the first time, more than 350 tons of depleted Uranium (DU), a radioactive waste product from the nuclear industry. In the six years since its initial use against the Iraqi people, this radioactive poison has become standard material in US weaponry all the while, the people in Iraq continue to suffer from the consequences of this poison," a caring Iraqi campaigner Rania Masri told Shanti RTV.
 
"There is only one thing the Pentagon fears - an informed people, mobilised and angry. Information is power. When mobilised it can actually undergo a chemical transformation and become outrage," according to Sara Flounders of the International Action Center. "The United Nations and the Clinton administration prefer to starve millions of men, women and children. The children of Iraq do not cry out in silence - they cry out to us! We hear their pain, and we must give strength to their voices so that the conscience of the world will awaken to their cries," Masri said. "Come together and fight for your sons, daughters, your mothers and fathers, for the people over there now, and for the people of Iraq that are suffering from the contaminants left behind in their land," Carol concluded. "The US sprays a crop-destroying insect on Iraqi crops, contaminating water and southern Iraqi marshes every year," the Western intelligence source told Shanti RTV news agency.
 
FACT SHEET 1990-1997
 
The US-UN sanctions have caused the death of more than 1,000,000 Iraqis; at least 750,000 of them have been children; an additional 4,500 Iraqi infants under five years of age die every month; more than 25 per cent of living children now suffer from malnutrition (UNICEF-WFP); a full 20 per cent of the Iraqi population is living in dire poverty; collective punishment is prohibited by international law; punishment of innocent people violates universal principles of human rights.
 
"Blind, deaf and dumb world" A moving poem by: Shaon Sabah
 
Sabah describes her thoughts and feelings about the sufferings of her fellow Iraqis under the US-UN imposed blockade of food, medicine and spares for life support facilities, denouncing the hypocrisy of the West, and hoping for a time when the world will wake up, open its eyes, ears, brain and move to help end the senseless killing of Iraqi infants since 1991.
 
I sit and wait for the time to pass For the world to wake up and open its eyes I scream and shout at the top of my lungs But my voice goes on unheard I cry and weep until my eyes dry out Until the emptiness fills my heart With a bitter sadness impossible to describe
 
But the world is deaf and blind Any my voice and tears are bloated out By the most ugliest sounds of all
 
The sound of weeping mothers And starving children Of horror and destruction Of torture and seffering Of a child crying out for help and salvation Begging to be noticed and heard
 
And so I sit and watch the screen filled with blood and terror While my heart grows with a vicious hatred Impossible to scrape away
 
I see a woman holding a dead child in her arms While the tears swim in her eyes And the happiness in her heart fades away Into eternal emptiness and despair
 
I see innocent people on the ground Covered with a blanket of death Their blood forming a red sea Which would flow forever in their sleep
 
I see barefooted children on the streets Searching for the truth Wondering why they have been denied Their childhood and rights
 
I see a tiny baby lying on his grave A little creature in the wilderness Who was born in the world that was falling apart And died in its arms not knowing why and how
 
I see the ramaining ruins of a building That once stood beautiful and erect And wonder why the world is blind And still insists to pretend
 
The blood and suffering I see is real But life still goes on And I sit and watch the screen While the leaders try to rule the world And take away the only precious thing I possess My family and friends
 
I hope and dream and the years go by But still I'm lost and without a home I laugh and talk and eat and drink While inside I cry out for the one thing That will make me whole
 
I am a stranger in an unknown land An alien in a different world A confused child in the body of a man
 
Where is the justice the West is on about? Why are our children starving? And why are my people been set aside to hurt and to die? And why is the world so silent
 
We have the right to be raised in our own Lands Without a single threat So go away and let us live our lives Without suffering and fear
 
Take away all the money and all the riches You have carved for But don't you dare snatch a newborn From its mother's womb Or pluck a blooming flower from its roots
 
You have tried tim and time again To change the course of History To abuse the Lands of civilisation, wisdom and knowledge But one thing you have struggled but failed to achieve Is stab the American flag in its heart of hearts
 
I guarantee you that One day we shall return We will build and grow and learn While you will be looking from outside Tearing your hair apart from the crimes you have committed That will place you down in History As a coward and a fool
 
Presented by: Shanti RTV (c) 27 August 1997


 
 
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