Time-lapse map of worldwide nuclear explosions, 1945-present (VIDEO)

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Another film by Isao Hashimoto.

14 minutes

http://youtu.be/LLCF7vPanrY

 

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“Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).

Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing  ‘the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.’ …

http://www.ctbto.org/specials/1945-1998-by-isao-hashimoto/

Video: “Overkilled” by Isao Hashimoto

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Powerful short video on the size of the global nuclear arsenal. The United States wants to spend billions to update and expand its nuclear arsenal.

Put this on a disc and show it at public meetings, including city meetings. Show it to classes. Share this with elected officials. It’s a conversation starter and a wake-up call.

We must stop this madness.

2:10

http://youtu.be/PMweTJAe2u8
https://healfukushima.org/2014/10/26/355-billion-expansion-of-nuclear-weapons-proposed-by-obama-administration-and-congress/

Letter from Dr. Ernest Sternglass to Energy Secretary Steven Chu: On health dangers from ingested and inhaled radiation

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Ernest J. Sternglass, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project
4601 Fifth Avenue #824, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

February 7,2009

Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue
Washington, DC 20585

Dear Dr. Chu,

I am writing to you to make you aware of a little-known tragic mistake that was made by the medical community and physicists like myself during the early years of the Cold War that has been playing a major role in the enormous rise of the incidence chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and thus the cost of healthcare in our nation. The mistake was to assume that the radiation exposure to the public due to the small amount of fallout from distant nuclear weapons tests or the operation of nuclear reactors would have no significant adverse effect on human health.

This assumption was based on our experience with a half-century of studies that showed no detectable increase in cancer rates for individuals given one or two diagnostic X-rays. What was not understood at the time was that the radioactive elements created in the fission of uranium did not just produce a small increase in the external dose as received from the natural background sources. Instead, the particles and gases produced in the fission process released into the environment would lead to vastly greater radiation damage than from diagnostic X-rays or the gamma rays in background sources because the radioactive fission products and uranium oxides were inhaled and ingested with the milk, the drinking water and the rest of the diet, concentrating in critical organs of the body.

Thus, the radioactive Iodine-131 seeks out the thyroid and damages the production of key growth hormones as well as thyroid cancer, Strontium-90 concentrates in bone where it irradiates the bone-marrow, causing leukemia in newly forming red blood cells as well as damage to crucial white cells of the immune system that fight cancer cells and bacteria. Cesium-137 collects in soft tissue organs such as the breast and the reproductive organs of males and females, leading to various types of cancer in the individuals and their children as well as in later generations.

The mistake was compounded by the fact that in the early 1950’s when bomb tests began on a large scale in Nevada, it was not known that the adverse effect of radiation is tens to hundreds of times more serious for the developing infant in the mother’s womb and young children than for the adults studied following medical X-ray exposures. Nor was it discovered until the early 1970’s that protracted radiation exposures as from long-lived fission products accumulating in the body, is much greater than from the same total dose received in a short X-ray exposure.

As a result of this lack of knowledge at the time, government officials were able to reassure a concerned public that the small levels of nuclear fallout from the Nevada tests would produce no adverse effects, and point out the potential benefits of the peaceful atom. Thus, in the mid-1950’s, President Eisenhower was able to declare that dirty coal power plants could be replaced by “ clean nuclear energy too cheap to meter.”

Thus, a program of building a large number of nuclear plants was begun which were permitted to discharge small amounts of fission products comparable with the levels of fallout from atmospheric weapons testing.  This was also the time the Cold War had begun and thousands of nuclear weapons were produced and tested as a necessary deterrent to keep the large armies of the Soviet Union from overrunning all of Europe. Therefore, when it was discovered in the 1960’s that small amounts of fission products produced much greater damage than had been expected, and not only leukemia and other forms of cancer but also premature births, low birth-weight and infant mortality, it was kept secret by our government for fear that it would endanger the deterrent value of the nuclear arsenal.

Moreover, when a rise in healthcare costs began with the start of large-scale atmospheric weapons testing that increased sharply with the construction of some one hundred nuclear plants beginning in the 1950’s, this was blamed on the inefficiency of the system and the greed of the drug companies, and not on the large rise of releases from the nuclear plants built near the large cities, contaminating the milk produced in the nearby dairies.

The details of this story can be found in my book “Secret Fallout” that can be downloaded free from the Radiation and Public Health web-site http://www.radiation. org as well as a list of some two dozen papers published in scientific journals and five books published by members of RPHP.

Fortunately, the recent rapid development of alternative energy makes it possible to see an end to this tragedy, since it is possible to convert the aging nuclear plants to operate with natural gas. This can be done at a small fraction of the cost of new power stations until the alternative solar, wind, geothermal and hydro sources can take their place, as demonstrated by the case of the Fort St. Vrain nuclear plant near Denver, Colorado, now using natural gas.

If our nation that built the first reactors and nuclear weapons were to announce the goal of phasing out nuclear fission reactors that also produce the plutonium and tritium needed for nuclear weapons while developing nuclear fusion power and other non-polluting sources of energy, it will also make it easier to achieve the stated goal of President Obama of a world free from nuclear weapons.

Thus it is possible to look forward to a world free from the danger of the annihilation of human life by nuclear weapons using enriched uranium or plutonium that is only produced in nuclear fission reactors, together with the highly toxic nuclear wastes that remain deadly for thousands of years.

Sincerely yours,
Ernest J. Sternglass, Ph.D.

http://www.radiation.org/reading/090423_ejs_to_doe.html

Petition: Stop plans to build small nuclear reactors in Saskatchewan to power oil extraction from the Alberta Tar Sands.

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“The Saskatchewan government and nuclear industry – with public and corporate money “laundered” through the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) – plan to build a small nuclear reactor to power extraction of oil from the Alberta Tar Sands.“

Tar sands oil extraction is incredibly destructive to air, water, land, and entire ecosystems.

Tar sands oil is extremely toxic and flammable. Shipping it is very hazardous.

And Saskatchewan wants to add a third element: hazardous nuclear energy.

If you agree that this is a terrible idea, sign the petition here

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_plans_to_build_small_nuclear_reactors_in_Saskatchewan_to_power_oil_extraction_from_the_Alberta_Tar_Sands_1/?pv=10

Contacting the Saskatchewan government, as well, is a very good idea.

Dec. 1 deadline to comment on EPA Clean Energy Plan. Tell them, “No Nukes”

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December 1 is the deadline.

Please comment!

It is very important that the EPA hear from many people, US citizens and people from other countries. Clean energy is not nuclear energy.

Even if you just write a few sentences, that puts one more person for a truly clean energy future and opposed to nuclear power.

The documents are here:
http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule

An overview “fact” sheet is here:

Click to access 20140602fs-overview.pdf

You can comment through the EPA or through the Nuclear Information Resources Service.

EPA:

There are several ways to comment. Here are two:

  • Email A-and-R-Docket@epa.gov: Include docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 in the subject line of the message
  • Fax: Fax your comments to: 202-566-9744.Comments on the Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule must be received by December 1, 2014.

The EPA comment instructions are here:
http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/how-comment-clean-power-plan-proposed-rule

Be sure to reference Docket ID:   EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602

NIRS:

Press release: Tell EPA: Take nuclear support out of proposed carbon rule. Links to submit comments: http://www.nirs.org/climate/epacppsignonletter12114.pdf

Interview with Chernobyl cleanup survivor, Natalia Manzurova

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Natalia Manzurova, shown here in 1988 in the “dead zone”
of Pripyat, is one of the relatively few survivors among
those directly involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl.
In memory of all those affected by the nuclear accidents at Fukushima and Chernobyl :

 Shortly after the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred in March 2011, Natalia Manzurova granted this interview with aol.com. She is one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl. Just after the nuclear catastrophe, the 35-year-old engineer was told to report to the wrecked plant in northern Ukraine. She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. Several years after working there, she developed a benign thyroid tumor. Half the thyroid was removed. Around the time of the operation, the government passed a law saying the liquidators had to work for exactly 4 1/2 years to get their pension and retire. The law concerning benefits kept changing because the government did not want to admit to what extent the liquidators were being affected. It would have looked bad for the industry. “The nuclear industry is dangerous. They want to deny the dangers.” Manzurova became disabled at age 43. Today she is an advocate for radiation victims worldwide.

Chernobyl Cleanup Survivor’s Message for Japan: ‘Run Away as Quickly as Possible’
by Dana Kennedy, aol.com, 22 March 2011

Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told to report to the wrecked, burning plant in the northern Ukraine.

It was just four days after the world’s biggest nuclear disaster spewed enormous amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and forced the evacuation of 100,000 people.

Manzurova and her colleagues were among the roughly 800,000 “cleaners” or “liquidators” in charge of the removal and burial of all the contamination in what’s still called the dead zone.

She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. The plant workers lived there before they were abruptly evacuated.

Manzurova, now 59 and an advocate for radiation victims worldwide, has the “Chernobyl necklace” — a scar on her throat from the removal of her thyroid — and myriad health problems. But unlike the rest of her team members, who she said have all died from the results of radiation poisoning, and many other liquidators, she’s alive.

AOL News spoke with Manzurova about the nuclear disaster in Japan with the help of a translator on the telephone Monday from Vermont. Manzurova, who still lives in Ozersk, was beginning a one-week informational tour of the U.S. organized by the Beyond Nuclear watchdog group.

AOL News: What was your first reaction when you heard about Fukushima?
Manzurova: It felt like déjà vu. I felt so worried for the people of Japan and the children especially. I know the experience that awaits them.

But experts say Fukushima is not as bad as Chernobyl.
Every nuclear accident is different, and the impact cannot be truly measured for years. The government does not always tell the truth. Many will never return to their homes. Their lives will be divided into two parts: before and after Fukushima. They’ll worry about their health and their children’s health. The government will probably say there was not that much radiation and that it didn’t harm them. And the government will probably not compensate them for all that they’ve lost. What they lost can’t be calculated.

What message do you have for Japan?
Run away as quickly as possible. Don’t wait. Save yourself and don’t rely on the government because the government lies. They don’t want you to know the truth because the nuclear industry is so powerful.

When you were called to go to Chernobyl, did you know how bad it was there?
I had no idea and never knew the true scope until much later. It was all covered in secrecy. I went there as a professional because I was told to — but if I was asked to liquidate such an accident today, I’d never agree. The sacrifices the Fukushima workers are making are too high because the nuclear industry was developed in such a way that the executives don’t hold themselves accountable to the human beings who have to clean up a disaster. It’s like nuclear slavery.

What was your first impression of Chernobyl?
It was like a war zone where a neutron bomb had gone off. I always felt I was in the middle of a war where the enemy was invisible. All the houses and buildings were intact with all the furniture, but there wasn’t a single person left. Just deep silence everywhere. Sometimes I felt I was the only person alive on a strange planet. There are really no words to describe it.

What did your work as a liquidator entail?
First, we measured radiation levels and got vegetation samples to see how high the contamination was. Then bulldozers dug holes in the ground and we buried everything — houses, animals, everything. There were some wild animals that were still alive, and we had to kill them and put them in the holes.

Were any pets left in the houses?
The people had only a few hours to leave, and they weren’t allowed to take their dogs or cats with them. The radiation stays in animals’ fur and they can’t be cleaned, so they had to be abandoned. That’s why people were crying when they left. All the animals left behind in the houses were like dried-out mummies. But we found one dog that was still alive.

Where did you find the dog and how did he survive?
We moved into a former kindergarten to use as a laboratory and we found her lying in one of the children’s cots there. Her legs were all burned from the radiation and she was half blind. Her eyes were all clouded from the radiation. She was slowly dying.

Were you able to rescue her?
No. Right after we moved in, she disappeared. And this is the amazing part. A month later we found her in the children’s ward of the (abandoned) hospital. She was dead. She was lying in a child’s bed, the same size bed we found her in the kindergarten. Later we found out that she loved children very much and was always around them.

How did working in the dead zone begin to affect your health?
I started to feel as if I had the flu. I would get a high temperature and start to shiver. What happens during first contact with radiation is that your good flora is depleted and the bad flora starts to flourish. I suddenly wanted to sleep all the time and eat a lot. It was the organism getting all the energy out.

How much radiation were you subjected to?
We were never told. We wore dosimeters which measured radiation and we submitted them to the bosses, but they never gave us the results.

But didn’t you realize the danger and want to leave?
Yes, I knew the danger. All sorts of things happened. One colleague stepped into a rainwater pool and the soles of his feet burned off inside his boots. But I felt it was my duty to stay. I was like a firefighter. Imagine if your house was burning and the firemen came and then left because they thought it was too dangerous.

When did you discover the thyroid tumor?
They found it during a routine medical inspection after I had worked there several years. It turned out to be benign. I don’t know when it started to develop. I had an operation to remove half the thyroid gland. The tumor grew back, and last year I had the other half removed. I live on (thyroid) hormones now.

Why did you go back to Chernobyl after getting a thyroid tumor?
Right around the time of my operation, the government passed a law saying the liquidators had to work for exactly 4 1/2 years to get our pension and retire. If you left even one day early, you would not get any benefits.

Really? That seems beyond cruel.
It’s why the nuclear industry is dangerous. They want to deny the dangers. They kept changing the law about what benefits we’d get because if they admitted how much we were affected, it would look bad for the industry. Now we hardly get any benefits.

Did your health worsen after you finally finished work at Chernobyl?
I was basically disabled at 43. I was having fits similar to epileptic fits. My blood pressure was sky high. It was hard to work for more than six months a year. The doctors didn’t know what to do with me. They wanted to put me in a psychiatric ward and call me crazy. Finally they admitted it was because of the radiation.

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/?a_dgi=aolshare_facebook

Reposted at
http://mieuxprevenir.blogspot.com/2013/04/interview-with-chernobyl-cleanup.html
Posted under Fair Use Rules.

U.S. utility regulators recommend nuclear power as clean and asks EPA to incentivize nuclear reactor construction

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Today the professional association of public utility regulators in the U.S. — the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) – approved several resolutions during their annual conference in San Francisco.
http://www.naruc.org/Resolutions/14%201119%20NARUC%20Board%20Substantive%20Resolutions%20Packet.pdf

One of these resolutions is about nuclear power. This resolution advances the interests of the nuclear power industry.

Astonishingly, it states

“In the absence of a public safety or environmental concern, the premature shutdown of these valuable assets may cause economic, social, reliability and environmental harm to families and businesses”.

The public utility commissioners ignored all the safety issues and problems from these plants. That is shocking. Was the accelerating Fukushima disaster even mentioned in their deliberations? What about the harm from not shutting down these plants and from the new ones they plan to build?

This resolution, directed to the Environmental Protection Agency, now represents the official position of the utility regulatory commissions in the United States.

For more information on this conference, here is the conference schedule of workshops and presenters

Click to access 2014AnnualProgram.pdf

and the list of attendees
http://annual.narucmeetings.org/registrants.cfm?orderby=3

Though these are state officials supposedly working for the public, the conference is almost exclusively a conference of the commissions and the industry.

For an article on this conference –
http://smartmeterharm.org/2014/11/16/u-s-public-utility-regulators-in-san-francisco-nov-15-19-for-annual-conference-with-industry/

Note: “Baseload power” is an energy industry term for energy that is dependable and constant “all-the-time-on” power. Currently, that comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, oil. To flip on a light switch and have the light always turn on requires baseload power. Wind and solar power are not baseload, because they are variable and undependable.

EL-1 Resolution Recognizing the Importance of Nuclear Power in Meeting Greenhouse Gas Goals

WHEREAS, Reliable, clean and affordable electricity is vital to local, State, and national economic growth, jobs, and the overall interests of citizens; and

WHEREAS, As demonstrated during the Polar Vortex of 2014, maintaining reliability and fuel diversity; while ensuring compliance with proposed carbon reduction rules, are common challenges for our States and we jointly recognize the need to maintain the existing, baseload nuclear generation fleet; and

WHEREAS, Nuclear power plants provide approximately 20% of the nation’s total electricity generation, and can provide carbon-free electricity for decades into the future; and

WHEREAS, On June 2, 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued proposed regulations for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan, in which EPA identified the avoidance of the retirement of existing nuclear capacity as one of the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER) methods;[i]1and

WHEREAS, EPA states in its proposed regulations that policies “that…discourage premature retirement of nuclear capacity could be useful elements of GHG reduction strategies and are consistent with current industry behavior;” [ii] and

WHEREAS, Nuclear energy has played a substantial role in the achievement of existing GHG State or regional emission reduction goals to date, and continued operation of nuclear power plants is vital to States’ ability to economically meet new federal regulations, and provides an essential tool to manage risks associated with potential GHG emissions reduction requirements; and

WHEREAS, In the absence of a public safety or environmental concern, the premature shutdown of these valuable assets may cause economic, social, reliability and environmental harm to families and businesses; and

WHEREAS, The United States Department of Energy, grid operators, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners have cautioned that the premature shutdown of nuclear power plants could jeopardize both the nation’s electric reliability and the ability to timely address climate change; and

WHEREAS, The EPA’s proposed GHG regulations for existing power plants would lower a State’s allowed GHG emissions rate by counting approximately 6 percent of its nuclear capacity as being “at risk” and including this zero-carbon energy in the goal-setting formula, leading to lower (more stringent) emission rate targets for States that have nuclear power plants; and

WHEREAS, The EPA’s proposed rule treats new nuclear power plants under construction as though they are already operating, and uses their output in the rate-setting formula, which drives down the States’ emission rate goals, and

WHEREAS, State commission actions to approve the uprating of existing nuclear power plants or the siting of new nuclear power plants have and will play a substantial role in GHG emissions reduction goals; now, therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, convened at its 126th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, urges the EPA, to the extent it regulates carbon from existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, to adopt final GHG rules and regulations that: 1) will encourage States to preserve, life-extend, and expand existing nuclear generation; and 2) remove the generic approximately 6 percent at-risk nuclear and nuclear under construction from the calculation of State-specific emissions targets; and be it further

RESOLVED, That, to the extent the EPA regulates carbon from existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, that States may include in compliance plans and thus receive emissions credit related to all output of new nuclear capacity (including uprates of existing plants) that begins operating after the issuance date of the proposed rule.

________________________________

Sponsored by the Committee on Electricity

Recommended by the NARUC Board of Directors November 18, 2014

Adopted by the NARUC Committee of the Whole November 19, 2014

 

[i] ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, 40 CFR Part 60, [EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602; RIN 2060-AR33, Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units, June 2, 2014, at p. 114.

 

[ii] Id., at p. 151-152

 

Movie: “KAKUSEI: The Fukushima End ” Pre-Screener Version

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQydg6d05kU
IMDb, Blondion Productions:

Today the Japanese government assures its people of Fukushima’s safety and urges residents to move back. However, citizens are not convinced… Through the experiences of five individuals, this documentary reflects upon how culture has influenced the choices citizens make everyday, and how those have changed.

Closing scene from ‘Kakusei’:

  • Hikaru Abe, student in Soma, Fukushima (40 km north of Fukushima Daiichi) who stayed behind after his mother and younger brother evacuated: “Nothing has gotten better… The government was incapable to deal with issues, covered up information we needed and even put pressure on us. While many human errors were seen, people in Fukushima worked hard to move on with the support from all over the country. Fukushima is in the process of recovery. Our government abandoned us. Anyone, please, please save the lives of Fukushima people and children. Japan is clearly going insane. It seems like we are about to get killed.”

“Please lend your strength to Fukushima.”

The documentary is extremely well produced. Its thoughtful subject matter, eye-catching cinematography and excellent sound design will hopefully soon be seen by millions. According to the film’s official trailer posted last year,

“We are currently in need of funding to complete and distribute the film. Please lend your support and donate: http://www.blondion.com/support.”

This letter by Tomoko Hatsuzawa, a mother in Fukushima City, expresses sentiments similar to those shared by Hikaru. Hatsuzawa gave the letter to Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times, who also translates:

“To people in the United States and around the world, I am so sorry for the uranium and plutonium that Japan has released into the environment. The fallout from Fukushima has already circled the world many times, reaching Hawaii, Alaska, and even New York. We live 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the plant and our homes have been contaminated beyond levels seen at Chernobyl… But the government will not help us. They tell us to stay put… I was eight years old when the Fukushima Daiichi plant opened. If I had understood what they were building, I would have fought against it. I didn’t realize that it contained dangers that would threaten my children, my children’s children and their children. I am grateful for all the aid all the world has sent us. Now, what we ask is for you to speak out against the Japanese government. Pressure them into taking action. Tell them to make protecting children their top priority. Thank you so much.”

Watch the Kakusei pre-screener here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQydg6d05kU

From Dion Blondion:
Let us work together and spread the message. Please show this film to everyone around you and I would love to hear your comments.

I would like to quote Miss Tomomi Abe, who inspired my courage to make this film, “We won’t give up. We will never give up. We’ll never give up on the lives of Fukushima children.”

Visit us at:
http://www.blondion.com

Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/projectkakusei https://www.facebook.com/blondionprod…

Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/blondionpr

Petition: Tell the U.S. to stop opposing UN resolutions on depleted uranium

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Please sign this petition:

Dear Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power,

We, the undersigned, urge the United States government to address the toxic legacy of its depleted uranium use in Iraq.

On November 5, a new resolution on depleted uranium weaponry will be introduced to the United Nations General Assembly. While the text of this year’s resolution is still being negotiated, since 2007, UN resolutions have included language affirming the need for research on the potential harmful effects of depleted uranium as well as the need for disclosure of where this weaponry has been used. The resolutions have been passed by the vast majority of the world’s nations, indicating a growing global concern. Unfortunately, each year the U.S. has isolated itself by opposing these resolutions, alongside only a few other countries.

The U.S. must end its opposition to UN action on depleted uranium. It must also support clean-up of areas where it has used depleted uranium and further scientific study of the impact of these materials on people, such as the relationship of these materials to increased cancer rates and birth defects, so that proper treatment can be pursued for those who have been exposed. These actions are critical to both civilian communities in Iraq and U.S. veterans and servicemembers.

We note the renewed urgency of this matter given the current U.S. military actions in Iraq and Syria.

Sign the petition http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10503.

U.S. sends planes armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East again

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Posted on War is a Crime

By David Swanson, October 28, 2014

The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them.

A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard’s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). “Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round,” said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.

Public affairs superintendent Master Sgt. Darin L. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing told me that the A-10s now in the Middle East along with “300 of our finest airmen” have been sent there on a deployment planned for the past two years and have not been assigned to take part in the current fighting in Iraq or Syria, but “that could change at any moment.”

The crews will load PGU-14 depleted uranium rounds into their 30mm Gatling cannons and use them as needed, said Hubble. “If the need is to explode something — for example a tank — they will be used.”

Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told me, “There is no prohibition against the use of Depleted Uranium rounds, and the [U.S. military] does make use of them. The use of DU in armor-piercing munitions allows enemy tanks to be more easily destroyed.”

On Thursday, several nations, including Iraq, spoke to the United Nations First Committee, against the use of Depleted Uranium and in support of studying and mitigating the damage in already contaminated areas. A non-binding resolution is expected to be voted on by the Committee this week, urging nations that have used DU to provide information on locations targeted. A number of organizations are delivering a petition to U.S. officials this week urging them not to oppose the resolution.

In 2012 a resolution on DU was supported by 155 nations and opposed by just the UK, U.S., France, and Israel. Several nations have banned DU, and in June Iraq proposed a global treaty banning it — a step also supported by the European and Latin American Parliaments.

Wright said that the U.S. military is “addressing concerns on the use of DU by investigating other types of materials for possible use in munitions, but with some mixed results. Tungsten has some limitations in its functionality in armor-piercing munitions, as well as some health concerns based on the results of animal research on some tungsten-containing alloys. Research is continuing in this area to find an alternative to DU that is more readily accepted by the public, and also performs satisfactorily in munitions.”

“I fear DU is this generation’s Agent Orange,”

U.S. Congressman Jim McDermott told me. “There has been a sizable increase in childhood leukemia and birth defects in Iraq since the Gulf War and our subsequent invasion in 2003. DU munitions were used in both those conflicts. There are also grave suggestions that DU weapons have caused serious health issues for our Iraq War veterans. I seriously question the use of these weapons until the U.S. military conducts a full investigation into the effect of DU weapon residue on human beings.”

Doug Weir of ICBUW said renewed use of DU in Iraq would be “a propaganda coup for ISIS.” His and other organizations opposed to DU are guardedly watching a possible U.S. shift away from DU, which the U.S. military said it did not use in Libya in 2011. Master Sgt. Hubble of the 122nd Fighter Wing believes that was simply a tactical decision. But public pressure had been brought to bear by activists and allied nations’ parliaments, and by a UK commitment not to use DU.

DU is classed as a Group 1 Carcinogen
by the World Health Organization,

and evidence of health damage produced by its use is extensive. The damage is compounded, Jeena Shah at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) told me, when the nation that uses DU refuses to identify locations targeted. Contamination enters soil and water. Contaminated scrap metal is used in factories or made into cooking pots or played with by children.

CCR and Iraq Veterans Against the War have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in an attempt to learn the locations targeted in Iraq during and after the 1991 and 2003 assaults. The UK and the Netherlands have revealed targeted locations, Shah pointed out, as did NATO following DU use in the Balkans. And the United States has revealed locations it targeted with cluster munitions. So why not now?

“For years,” Shah said, “the U.S. has denied a relationship between DU and health problems in civilians and veterans. Studies of UK veterans are highly suggestive of a connection. The U.S. doesn’t want studies done.” In addition, the United States has used DU in civilian areas and identifying those locations could suggest violations of Geneva Conventions.

Iraqi doctors will be testifying on the damage done by DU before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Washington, D.C., in December. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration said on Thursday that it will be spending $1.6 million to try to identify atrocities committed in Iraq . . . by ISIS.

Source: http://warisacrime.org/content/us-sends-planes-armed-depleted-uranium-middle-east