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WASHINGTON
- May 2 - Green Party members are calling for the Bush
Administration to take immediate steps to prevent radioactive depleted
uranium used in U.S. weapons from harming U.S. troops and the people of
Iraq.
Despite its known toxicity, the Pentagon uses depleted uranium widely, in
projectiles on ammunition, casings for bombs, shielding on tanks,
counterweights for nose cones and ground-penetrating missiles, fragments in
cluster bombs and in anti-personnel mines, and in airplane wings and for ballast in ships. With depleted uranium's half-life of 4.5 billion years,
the effects of its military use will last for the rest of time.
"If White House officials and the Pentagon really believe in supporting our
troops or the welfare of the Iraqi people, they'll make every effort to
clean up battlefields and test those who've been exposed to depleted
uranium," said Carol Miller, public health activist and New Mexico Green delegate to the national party's central committee. "Medical testing of deployed troops is required under a law that went into effect in 1998, a law
that the Department of Defense announced it would obey just this past week,
under pressure from the National Gulf War Resource Center and TomPaine.com."
"But even after immediate and comprehensive testing of urine, blood, fecal
matter, hair, and kidney function, and radioactivity counting, there are no
cures for D.U. exposure," Miller added. "The primary purpose of testing is
documentation of exposure for compensation and for treatment paid for by the
military or V.A. if problems develop in the future."
The Pentagon's recently announced expanded medical examination of troops does not fulfill the requirement that soldiers be examined before and after
deployment. Greens caution that there may be a correlation between the use
of depleted uranium and the development of Gulf War Syndrome, although the
cause of the syndrome remains a mystery.
"Gulf War Syndrome afflicted about 100,000 of 700,000 Gulf War veterans, with about 30 percent of that number requiring hospitalization," said J. Roy
Cannon, Delaware Green Party member and former veteran vocational
rehabilitation counselor. "After medical testing, the Department of Defense
must closely monitor those who are found to have D.U. present in their
bodies. The British military plans to take this precaution -- why not the
U.S.?"
Greens also called for the removal of deployed D.U. ordnances from Iraq
before there is an ecological and public health disaster in the region.
"The cost of cleaning up D.U. from Iraq before it contaminates the soil and
water could be funded by the $85 billion authorized for the war by
Congress," said T.E. Smith, a Vietnam War veteran and member of the D.C. Statehood Green Party. "Iraqi doctors believe that increased birth defects
and cancer rates in Basra were caused by D.U. after the first Gulf War. D.U. is also being studied as a cause of health problems in Kosovo."
Greens demand that the U.S. assure that independent investigations by the
U.N. and others into the effects of depleted uranium are comprehensive and
unhindered, unlike in Kosovo, where analysts were only allowed on select battlefields. Greens also called for the immediate release of information
regarding quantities of the ordnance and where they were used during the invasion of Iraq.
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