30 Oct Depleted Uranium Weapons use in Syria, transfer in Port Townsend, WA
This is an interesting, well-researched and well-written article written by Doug Milholland, a Quaker and Golden Rule organizer in Port Townsend, WA.
October 28, 2016
Representative Derek Kilmer House of Representatives Washington DC
Greetings Representative Derek Kilmer:
I am writing regarding the recent U.S. use of depleted uranium munitions (DU) in Syria. FEMA defines DU munitions as pyrophoric uranium or radiological weaponry.
According to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons “In early 2015, the US stated that its A-10 aircraft had not and would not use DU in Iraq or Syria in operations against Islamic State. However US A-10s have used DU on at least two occasions in Syria. ICBUW and PAX are calling for urgent clarification from the US authorities on both the incidents and its DU policy for the conflict, and for them to swiftly release the targeting data to ensure that the relevant authorities can conduct clearance and risk awareness efforts and to isolate and recover contaminated material. http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/us-broke-own-rules-firing-depleted-uranium-in-iraq
The United States says that the A-10 aircraft uses the armour-piercing incendiary ammunition – DU – solely as an anti-armour weapon. However the radiological munition has been used against personnel, buildings, light vehicles, and other non-armored targets, with instances of use in and around densely populated areas in Iraq and Afghanistan. The use of depleted uranium against such targets contravenes the United States’ own restrictions on the use of the weapons.
Secondly, the refusal of the United States to release detailed targeting data in a timely manner has hampered clearance efforts, and undoubtedly increased the likelihood that civilians would be exposed to depleted uranium. http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/statement-on-depleted-uranium-weapons-unga71
I ask you to vigorously lobby your peers to prohibit the use of these weapons in Iraq and Syria; release targeting data necessary for clean-up efforts and to sponsor legislation banning depleted uranium munitions as a conventional weapon. As Representative Norm Dick’s successor to one of the most militarized districts in the U.S. you are on the right committees to do so. The use of DU munitions remains a local issue in your district, since the Naval Magazine Indian Island weapons transfer depot probably shipped the DU munitions recently used in Syria.
This year a vast tonnage of munitions is leaving Port Townsend Bay on one ammunition transfer ship after another, evidently preparing for war with Russia and/or China. I have read that the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is stuffed with planes and bombs, ready for the order to attack, in what could quickly become a nuclear war. Your votes in support of militarizing the Ukraine have increased the likelihood of such a war.
My wife and I learned about DU in 2001 when the Coast Guard that is not licensed to use radiological weapons returned DU munitions to the Indian Island Depot. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Activists-want-depleted-uranium-munitions-labeled-1131248.php We were also informed by reading the Seattle Times that Navy practicing was using DU weapons in fishing grounds off the coast of Washington. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/103402_fife09.shtml What really caught our attention was the 2003 special report in the Christian Science Monitor “Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq” http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html
We formed the Depleted Uranium Study Team in 2003. Very credible speakers were invited to Port Townsend to help us understand DU munitions, and we concluded that we had a moral responsibility to protest the shipment of this type of weaponry – not only to protect our lives from a trucking accident which might release radioactive particles our local first responders are not equipped to cope with, but also because of what DU weapons do to people where they are used – and to our soldiers who use them.
Doug Rokke has a PhD in health physics and was originally trained as a forensic scientist. When the Gulf War started, he was assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and sent to the Gulf. What he experienced has made him a passionate voice for peace, traveling the country to speak out.
“At the completion of the Gulf War, when we came back to the United States in the fall of 1991, we had a total casualty count of 760: 294 dead, a little over 400 wounded or ill. But the casualty rate now for Gulf War veterans is approximately 30 percent. Of those stationed in the theater, including after the conflict, 221,000 have been awarded disability, according to a Veterans Affairs (VA) report issued September 10, 2002.
“We recommended care for anybody downwind of any uranium dust, anybody working in and around uranium contamination, and anyone within a vehicle, structure, or building that’s struck with uranium munitions. That’s thousands upon thousands of individuals, but not only US troops. You should provide medical care not only for the enemy soldiers but also for the Iraqi women and children affected, and clean up all of the contamination in Iraq.
“And it’s not just children in Iraq. It’s children born to soldiers after they came back home. The military admitted that they were finding uranium excreted in the semen of the soldiers. If you’ve got uranium in the semen, the genetics are messed up. So when the children were conceived—the alpha particles cause such tremendous cell damage and genetics damage that everything goes bad. Studies have found that male soldiers who served in the Gulf War were almost twice as likely to have a child with a birth defect and female soldiers almost three times as likely.http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/our-planet-our-selves/594
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, founder of the Uranium Medical Research Center describes DU: “in the course of one year, 1 milligram of depleted uranium emits 390 million alpha particles, 780 million beta particles and associated gamma rays. This is over one billion high energy, ionizing, radioactive particles and rays, which can produce extensive biological damage to ovaries, lungs lymph nodes, kidneys, breast, blood, bones, stomach and fetuses. In Iraq this caused an ongoing health catastrophe.”
This article talks about the various types of DU weapons: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-lindorff/depleted-uranium-weapons_b_326547.html
The following excerpts are from Doug Westerman’s excellent article. You would be wise to read the article to get a clear picture of what happens where these weapons are used.
“In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y., which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing more than 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.
Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.“
And in the same article Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq is quoted:
“Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient – for example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers – one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney–he had three different cancer types. Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/depleted-uranium-far-worse-than-9-11/2374
I have read that the United States used 350 tons of DU munitions in Iraq during the 1991 war, and 1,200 tons during its 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation.
“There has been a dramatic jump in miscarriages and premature births among Iraqi women, particularly in areas where heavy US military operations occurred, such as Faluja during 2004, and Basra during the 1991 US war on Iraq.
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1991, the country’s rate of cancer cases was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the trend continuing.”https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/13/fall-o13.html
http://cognitiveliberty.net/2012/fallujah-babies-under-a-new-kind-of-siege/
In 1999 the Navy installed a crane on Indian Island, which allowed munitions to be loaded on ammunition haulers, aircraft carriers, missile frigates and submarines. The crane, capable of lifting 89,600 pounds, is the tallest structure for miles around the Indian Island/Port Hadlock area. The tonnage of materials of war used in Iraq and Afghanistan caused the Navy to purchase over a dozen T-AKE type ammunition-hauling ships. Lewis and Clark Class T-AKE dry cargo/ammunition ships are 689 feet in length and 105.6 feet in beam, with a draft of 29.9 feet. They displace 41,000 tons, and the ships can carry almost 7,000 metric tons of dry cargo and ammunition and 23,500 barrels of marine diesel fuel.
The base is the US military’s only container port for the Pacific basin. The Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and the Navy use ordnance shipped through the base. The trucks that deliver weapons to the Indian Island munitions transfer depot are huge, capable of hauling very heavy bombs, bunker busters, missiles, and torpedoes. Truckloads of munitions travel through the small community of Port Hadlock on their way to the base.
In my opinion it was the Navy’s used flawed environmental impact processes to keep local citizens in the dark about the overall plans for expanding NavMag Indian Island. While the safety of nearby residents was ignored the Navy closely examined the fate of the eelgrass underneath the dock.
We lobbied our congressman and senators, our city council and county commissioners, urging them to protest the shipment of DU munitions through Jefferson County and the abuse of the EIS process. Hundreds of local residents signed petitions. Mayor Michelle Sandoval supported and County Commissioner Phil Johnson were very supportive. We lobbied the Department of Transportation to require container trucks carrying radiological weapons be labeled with a radioactive placard. http://www.ptleader.com/news/feds-nudged-on-radioactive-transport/article_8b1d4224-635c-5d8d-be48-2ac60404b452.html
Seattle activist Glenn Milner heard of our struggle and used Freedom of Information requests asking the Navy to release the explosive arcs data the Navy uses to estimate the damage radius an exploding ammunition ship would cause. The Navy refused to release updated explosive arc information. Milner’s case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in 2011 that the Navy had misused the exemptions to the Freedom of Information act to deny Milner’s requests. https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-1163
Thanks to his lawsuit we discovered that because of their enormous capacity to move munitions the Navy’s T-AKE vessels were unable to comply with the Navy’s own minimum safety distances. No wonder the Navy wouldn’t release the documents! The Navy countered this revelation by saying they would eliminate the required scuttle zone where burning ships would be taken away from the dock, in the hope they could be sunk before they explode. Moving away from the dock means moving towards our community. We appreciate Milner’s lawsuit that forced the Navy to decide that saving the dock and crane are less important than the lives of the civilians living too close to the ship-scuttling zone.
I suspect Rep. Dicks told the Navmag command to invite concerned local citizens to tour the base, perhaps to allay some of our fears about the dangers local residents face. Because several of us had been arrested in protest at the base Commander Whitbread revoked the ban and bar letters we had received so that we could accept his invitation. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/depts.washIngton.edu/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=184×9783
12 of us were given 4 hours of Commander George Whitbread’s time. We watched men packing 50 caliber machine gun bullets, saw the building where tomahawk cruise missiles are stored, how the Navy buried their munitions in bunkers, and how Army munitions storage zones are out in the open air, surrounded by a ring of lightning rods mounted on 60’ poles. We stopped on the dock by the enormous blue crane. I asked the Commander if our hospital windows would implode and as shrapnel make the hospital a mass casualty zone if one of the ships were to explode. He responded that that kind of danger only existed when the large ammunition ships were there, and were being loaded. Whitbread came across as a brave and decent man, who summarized his perspective on militarism with the saying that “if your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
On Rep. Dick’s last campaign in 2010 he debated his Republican opponent in Port Townsend. (Dicks was elected 18 times and ended his career as the ranking member of the appropriations committee and the subcommittee on defense.) He called me over to where he was sitting before the debate and said that he had stopped the purchasing of depleted uranium munitions. This made my day! About the same time I went to a Navy Informational associated with an Environmental Impact Statement process and was approached by Commander Mark Loose of the weapons transfer depot. He told me that he had personally inspected every military ship that called on Puget Sound to determine that there were no du munitions remaining on board and that he knew where to look. He thanked me for my activism.
I was thrilled. I fantasized that perhaps the U.S. had voluntarily stopped using depleted uranium munitions. I didn’t expect the U.S. government to admit that using DU weapons is a war crime for the criminal liability and cost of cleanup, would cost billions, if not trillions. I just hoped that Norm Dicks had caused our government to quietly quit using DU. At one point I read on the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons website that DU munitions contracts were not being renewed. I prayed for the best.
I found out this month that the Centcom confessed it fired 3600 pounds of DU in Syria on the 18th and 23rd of November 2015, using the radiological munitions to destroy a fuel truck convoy, which would widely scatter particles of DU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN9moYkOyHY&index=82&list=PLe-28xyt3qR2yu09O26lecuHx1oh8FKXE
I decided to write to you Rep. Kilmer, and asked Glen Milner to look over my rough draft. He sent me evidence that the weapons transfer depot is still shipping DU munitions. In his email response Glen wrote “The Navy has been using DU later than dates provided by the Navy. See the last attached file—a FOIA request that appears to show DU munitions being shipped out of Indian Island as late as 2011. I also sent a similar FOIA request to Indian Island at the time. If I remember correctly, the Navy insisted there was no DU at Indian Island. The response from a different agency of the Navy showed that this was not correct.”
This is very disappointing. Using bullets and bombs with DU components would be a war crime if America, Israel, France and England weren’t vetoing UN resolutions year after year condemning the use of DU as a conventional weapon. The evidence is plain that breathing in nano-sized particles of uranium is dangerous. Nano particles can travel in the wind for thousands of miles. The people who are exposed again and again are the ones breathing the dusty air where the weapons were used.
“The widespread stigmatization of the use of this chemically toxic and radioactive material; the refusal of states to follow their own guidelines to minimize risks to civilians; the cost, and complexity of clearance; and the simple fact that the weapons pose an unacceptable threat to civilians long after conflicts end; contribute to the already compelling case for a ban on the use of depleted uranium in conventional weapons.” http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/statement-on-depleted-uranium-weapons-unga71 The United Nations is debating DU weapons again.http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/united-nations-highlights-cost-and-difficulty .
So, Representative Kilmer, talk with Congressman Jim McDermott. http://www.vice.com/read/vice-on-hbo-congressman-jim-mcdermott-on-depleted-uranium-in-iraq He is a former Doctor, and believes DU is an important issue. McDermott and Senator Maria Cantwell have both been leaders on this issue. Talk with Norm Dicks. Use your voice to press your colleagues to ban further use of DU weapons, and release the information necessary to attempt battlefield cleanup efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Yugoslavia, Vieques Puerto Rico and now Syria. You can do this if you man up. For God’s sake, for our children’s sake, for the sake of this fragile and living earth of which we are but a small brief part – please help put this horrid genie back in the bottle.
Sincerely,
Douglas Milholland
CC: Rep. Jim McDermott, Senator Maria Cantwell, former Rep. Norm Dicks, Tacoma News Tribune, Kitsap Sun, Peninsula Daily News, Port Townsend Leader, Seattle Times, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times
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