News » May 18, 2004

Depleted Morality

The first signs of uranium sickness surface in troops returning from Iraq

By Frida Berrigan

Sergeant Mark Callihan (right) and Staff Sergeant Sean Bach inventory 25mm depleted uranium rounds at their base in Tikrit, Iraq.

It’s a year into the occupation and U.S. troops are being killed at a rate of more than four a day. These deaths from roadside bombs, suicide attackers, anti-U.S. militia and mobs of angry civilians make headlines. More quietly, American soldiers also are beginning to suffer injuries from a silent and pernicious weapon material of U.S. origin—depleted uranium (DU).

DU weaponry is fired by U.S. troops from the Abrams battle tank, A-10 Warthog and other systems. It is pyrophoric, burning spontaneously on impact, and extremely dense, making DU munitions ideal for penetrating an enemy’s tank armor or reinforced bunker. It also is the toxic and radioactive byproduct of enriched uranium, the fissile material in nuclear weapons.

When a DU shell hits its target, it burns, losing anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent of its mass and dispersing a fine toxic radioactive dust that can be carried long distances by winds or absorbed into the soil and groundwater. The U.S. Army and Air Force have fired 127 tons of DU munitions in Iraq in the last year, says Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagon’s director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate.

At the beginning of April—the deadliest month of the war and occupation so far—a New York Daily News investigation found that four National Guardsmen have been contaminated by radioactive dust.

The men were part of the 442nd Military Police Company based in Orangeburg, New York, which went to Iraq last summer to guard convoys and prisons and train the new Iraqi police. While the whole company is due back in the United States by the end of April, a number of soldiers were sent home early, suffering from persistent headaches and fatigue, nausea and dizziness, joint pain and excessive urination.

They sought medical attention and testing from the Army but were ignored. Nine of the returned soldiers, frustrated with this treatment, sought independent testing and examination from a uranium expert contracted by the New York Daily News. The independent expert’s tests showed four of the soldiers had high levels of depleted uranium in their systems.

Asaf Durakovic, a physician and nuclear medicine expert with the Uranium Medical Research Center based in Washington, examined the GIs and performed the testing. The Daily News quoted him as saying: “These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle. Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposures.”

Second Platoon Sergeant Hector Vega tested positive for DU exposure. He is a 48-year-old retired postal worker from the Bronx and has served in the National Guard for 27 years. After being stationed in Iraq last year, he suffers from insomnia and constant headaches.

Durakovic found that Vega and three of his fellow Guardsmen are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. These cases raise the specter of much more widespread radiation exposure among coalition soldiers and Iraqi civilians than the Pentagon predicted.

Pentagon spokesmen consistently have maintained that depleted uranium is safe for U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. In May 2003, the Associated Press quoted Lt. Col. Michael Sigmon, deputy surgeon for the U.S. Army’s V Corps, saying, “There is not really any danger, at least that we know about, for the people of Iraq.” Sigmon asserted that children playing with expended tank shells would have to eat and then practically suffocate on DU residue to cause harm.

Yet, according to a 1998 report by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the inhalation of DU particles can lead to symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss and an unsteady gait. These symptoms match those of sick veterans of the Gulf and Balkan wars. In November 1999, NATO sent its commanders the following warning: “Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated with long-term health effects, including cancers and birth defects.” A study that same year found that depleted uranium can stay in the lungs for up to two years. “When the dust is breathed in, it passes through the walls of the lung and into the blood, circulating through the whole body,” wrote Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian epidemiologist. When inhaled, she concluded, DU “represents a serious risk of damaged immune systems and fatal cancers.”

A four-year study released last year by the Defense Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found “significantly higher prevalences” of heart and kidney birth defects in the children of Gulf War veterans, though it did not mention DU specifically.

The Pentagon’s professions of DU’s safety also is directly contradicted by the Army’s training manual, which acknowledges the hazards of DU, requiring that anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection. The manual warns: “Contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption.”

The men of the 442nd Company said they had never heard of depleted uranium and they were not issued dust masks or other protective gear.

Responding to the New York Daily News article, and calls for testing from Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer New York, an army spokeswoman told the Associated Press that “the military would test any soldier that expressed concerns about uranium exposure.” At the request of Representatives Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) and Robert Filner (D-Calif.), the General Accounting Office (GAO) now is investigating whether the Pentagon has ignored the medical consequences of depleted uranium armaments. Based on the GAO’s findings, Filner and Rodruguez are considering the introduction of legislation to extend service benefits to veterans who develop health conditions that can plausibly be caused by depleted uranium exposure.

These are steps in the right direction. But the men of the 442 and the 131,000 U.S. and 24,000 Coalition soldiers serving in Iraq deserve more. They deserve a ban on Depleted Uranium.

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• Reader Comments

  “But the men of the 442 and the 131,000 U.S. and 24,000 Coalition soldiers serving in Iraq deserve more. They deserve a ban on Depleted Uranium.”

  It’s always fascinating anew, in sort of a sickening way, how aggressors have a knack to cast themselves as victims of their own aggression. The US-forces, the US-media and John & Jane Public do not form an exception.
  Back in the 1960s & 1970s, they all bitterly lamented the US-victims of the Vietnam war, hardly anybody mentioned the manifold worse suffering of the victimised Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians - both directly through US-bombs and chemical warfare, and indirectly in the wake of said warfare. Had the US not bombed Cambodia, it is highly doubtful that the murderous regime of Pol Pot ever would have had a shot at power.
  It followed logically from this skewed view of who had been victimized by whom, that the “richest nation in the world” never did make the slightest official effort to acknowledge its wrongdoing, let alone to redress with generous material support and help the injury it had caused in this “righteous war against communist aggression”. Rather to the contrary.

  And now in Iraq?
  Once again, the focus is on the victimised US-forces, even in the anti-war “In These Times”.
  Sure, the US- and coalition soldiers deserve a ban on Depleted Uranium. But what about the Iraqui people? Would they not have deserved such a ban already long ago, with much greater right and with far more urgency?
  After all, the US-forces affected by DU are only reaping a tiny fraction of the pernicious seeds they so genereously did sow, both in this “Gulf War” and in the previous one.
  Reports of the disastrous effects of DU on the Iraqui people have been published - and, naturally, denied by the US-military and political leadership - already shortly after the first “Gulf War”. And the media did not raise much of a stink about it.
  Presumably, those in the say then years ago must have thought “it was worth the price”.
  Today, there is reason to fear, that as long as there are only a few “confirmed” US-victims of DU, “it” still will be “worth the price”. As long as the price is paid in Iraqui lives.

  Posted by epix2 on May 28, 2004 at 11:24 AM

  Yes, the Iraqi people deserve to have this abomination banned.
  The U.S. has dispersed 405 tons of DU in the past 14 years: 320 tons in the 1st Gulf War, 10 tons in Yugoslavia and 75 tons in the latest conflict.
  Safe? With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, it’s hardly safe. In fact, it’s one of the worst chemical weapons ever used. Cancer rates in Kosovo are up 166% and rising. In Iraq, 700-1000%. Deformities are up 400-600%. Gulf war veterans cancer rates are up 67%.
  —Source: Campaign Against Depleted Uranium.

  This is an abomination the world will never be rid of. Our sun will super-nova before the half-life of DU is over.

  epix is right—the U.S., the dispersers of this horror, has little room to complain. But the innocent soldier is falling victim just like the Iraqi citizen. Only the soldier is beign betrayed by his/her own government by being told it’s safe.

  I have to give In These Times the benefit of the doubt on this one. I don’t believe they’re making light of the Iraqi people’s plight. I would hope most readers of ITT would understand the Iraqi people are still, still, fucking still getting the shaft.

  It doesn’t matter, though. The horror continues, babies are being born without eyes, enlarged heads, horrible deformities. It’s an outrage.
  This is the democracy we bring them?

  Posted by Ammonia D on Jun 1, 2004 at 3:39 AM

  There is much controversy on the use of Depleted Uranium. However a look through Google using maternity hospitals possibly with Croatia will turn up many reports. Kaiser has a report that can be lost except on my web site searching for DU.

  The use of DU must stop both militarily and commercially.

  Posted by Mark Schindler on Sep 23, 2004 at 10:59 PM

  we have depleted uranium on our doorstep, should we all be worried!one local doctor has dissmised claims of any leukemnia in dumfries and galloway as a whole,there is a live firing range down the road in dundrenan,is it safe to swim in the sea,and play in the sand,one local counciller thinks it is,he swims there all the time,they will not release any medical information on child or adult leukeamna,yours in disgust
  derek

  Posted by derek. on Oct 4, 2004 at 6:53 PM

  If they use DU on the range they could be contaminated. My WEB site has further information:
  http://inferno.slug.org/~mark/Issue_D.html
  The Kaiser Report has extensive information.

  Posted by Mark Schindler on Nov 3, 2004 at 11:34 AM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 7 posts.

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