DEPLETED URANIUM: THE WAR CRIME THAT HAS NO END

24/02/04

*DEPLETED URANIUM: THE WAR CRIME THAT HAS NO END
"Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity."
Dr. Doug Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist */
The U.N. Observer /

The international dispatches about the U.S. invasion and occupation of 
Iraq - replete with graphic details about overcrowded hospitals, U.S. 
cluster bomb shrapnel buried in the flesh of children, babies deformed 
by U.S. depleted uranium, farms and markets destroyed by U.S. bombs - do 
not make pleasant reading. The mounting evidence from the invasion of 
Iraq establishes what many Americans may not want to face: that the 
highest leaders of our land violated many international agreements 
relating to the rules of war. Unless we address the war crimes of the 
Bush administration - and the prima facie evidence is overwhelming - we 
betray our conscience, our country, and our own faith in democracy.

The United States is bound by customary law and international laws of 
war: the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 
1949, and the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the United Nations, 
December 11, 1945 - all of which set limits beyond which, by common 
consent, decent peoples will not go. [...] Of all the violations of the 
laws of war by the highest officials of our country, none is more 
alarming or portentous than the widespread, premeditated use of depleted 
uranium in Iraq. [....] Ever since the end of Desert Storm, when the 
Pentagon unloaded 350 tons of depleted uranium, American officials have 
been well aware of the health hazards of the residue that is collected 
from the processing of nuclear fuel. [...] Article 23 of the Geneva 
Convention IV is clear and unambiguous: "It is forbidden to employ 
poison or poisoned weapons, to kill treacherously individuals belonging 
to the hostile nation or army, to employ arms, projectiles or material 
calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." The Geneva Protocol of 1925 
explicitly prohibits "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gasses, and all 
analogous liquids, materials or devices." The radiation produced by 
depleted uranium in battle is a poison, a carcinogenic material that 
causes birth defects, lung disease, kidney disease, leukemia, breast 
cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and neurological disabilities.

Full report: http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=1462&blz=1


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