The following is mirrored from its source at:
http://www.kucinich.us/issues/depleted_uranium.php
Dennis Kucinich on Depleted Uranium
Animation of Dennis Kucinich on DU
(1.4MB - requires Macromedia Flash)
As President, I will order an end to the United States' illegal
use of depleted uranium munitions and will lead an international
effort to recover depleted uranium. I will promote environmental
remediation. Also, I will develop a program to provide care and
restitution for people suffering as a result of the United States'
use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear
weapons production, nuclear testing, and uranium mining.
Through four wars (Gulf War I, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, and Gulf War
II), the U.S. military has deployed tons of nuclear tank missiles
of depleted uranium (DU), which are solid 10-pound uranium bullets
made from radioactive waste from the U.S. Department of Energy's
uranium enrichment process. At least 350 tons of solid radioactive
uranium remains in Iraq after Gulf War I, and 2,000 more tons of
radioactive rubble has been added from our present Gulf War II.
Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
The teratogenic nature of DU weapons and the
possible burdening of the gene pool of future
generations raise the possibility that the use of
DU weaponry amounts to genocide.
According to Pentagon experts, approximately 13,000 Gulf War I
veterans are now dead as result of injuries and illnesses incurred
while participating in military operations between August 1990 and
October 1991. As of May 2002, at least 221,000 veterans were on
disability as result of injuries and illnesses incurred during
military operations in the Persian Gulf combat theater of
operations. All of our troops presently in Iraq are continually
being exposed to this radioactive depleted uranium contamination,
other war related contaminants, water- and food-borne illnesses,
and endemic diseases every second they remain there.
A recent study shows that U.S. Gulf War veterans' children have a
much higher likelihood of having three specific types of birth
defects: two types of heart valve abnormality occurring to
children of male veterans, and genital-urinary defects to children
born of female veterans. A study of British veterans of the Gulf
War, Bosnia, and Kosovo reveals that they have 10 to 14 times the
usual level of chromosomal abnormalities.
A Canadian medical research facility recently found that the urine
of Afghani people living near the area where the United States
carried out military operations contained radioactive isotopes 100
to 400 times as high as Gulf War veterans from the United Kingdom
who were tested in 1999. The Canadian team recorded an average of
315.5 nanograms of these isotopes in people in Jalalabad, Tora
Bora, and Mazar-e-Sharif. A 12-year-old boy near Kabul tested at
2,031 nanograms. The maximum exposure considered safe by the
United States is 9 nanograms/year. With growing evidence of an
increase in birth defects and stillborns, the situation should be
addressed as an issue of the highest priority.
According to humanitarian law specialist, Karen Parker J.D., a
weapon is made illegal in two ways: (1) by adoption of a specific
treaty banning it; and (2) because it may not be used without
violating the existing law and customs of war. A weapon made
illegal only because there is a specific treaty banning it is only
illegal for countries that ratify such a treaty. A weapon that is
illegal by operation of existing law is illegal for all countries.
This is true even if there is also a treaty on this weapon and a
country has not ratified that treaty. As there is no specific
treaty banning depleted uranium weapons, its illegality must be
established in the second fashion.
The laws and customs of war (humanitarian law) include all
treaties governing military operations, weapons, and protection of
victims of war, as well as all customary international law on
these subjects. In other words, in evaluating whether a particular
weapon is legal or illegal when there is not a specific treaty,
the whole of humanitarian law must be consulted.
There are four rules derived from the whole of humanitarian law
regarding weapons:
1. Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle,
defined as legal military targets of the enemy in the war.
Weapons may not have an adverse effect off of the legal field
of battle. (The "territorial" test).
2. Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed
conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the
war is over violates this criterion. (The "temporal" test).
3. Weapons may not be unduly inhumane. (The "humaneness" test).
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 use the terms
"unnecessary suffering" and "superfluous injury" for this
concept.
4. Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural
environment. (The "environmental" test).
DU weaponry fails all four tests:
1. It cannot be "contained" to legal fields of battle and thus
fails the territorial test. Instead, the DU is air-borne far
afield of legal targets to illegal (civilian) targets:
hospitals, schools, civilian dwellings, and even neighboring
countries with which the user is not at war.
2. It cannot be "turned off" when the war is over. Instead, DU
weaponry continues to act after hostilities are over and thus
fails the temporal test. Even with rigorous cleanup of war
zones, the air-borne particles have a half-life of billions
of years and have potential to keep killing and injuring
former combatants and non-combatants long after the war is
over. The toxicity is confirmed by U.S. Army documents. The
Director of the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute
stated in a congressionally mandated report that "No
available technology can significantly change the inherent
chemical and radiological toxicity of DU. These are intrinsic
properties of uranium." (Health and Environmental
Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the U.S. Army:
Technical Report, AEPI, June 1995)
3. It is inhumane and thus fails the humaneness test. DU
weaponry is inhumane because of how it can kill -- by cancer,
kidney disease, etc. -- and long after the hostilities are
over when the killing must stop. DU is inhumane because it
can cause birth (genetic) defects such as cranial facial
anomalies, missing limbs, grossly deformed and non-viable
infants and the like, thus affecting children who may never
be a military target and who are born after the war is over.
The teratogenic nature of DU weapons and the possible
burdening of the gene pool of future generations raise the
possibility that the use of DU weaponry amounts to genocide.
4. It cannot be used without unduly damaging the natural
environment and thus fails the environment test. Damage to
the natural environment includes contamination of water and
agricultural land necessary for the subsistence of the
civilian population far beyond the lifetime of that
population. The U.S. Army also confirms that depleted uranium
contamination will affect food and water. The primary U.S.
Army training manual: Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks states
"NOTE: (Depleted uranium) Contamination will make food and
water unsafe for consumption." Cleanup is an inexact science
and, in any case, extremely expensive -- far beyond the
ability of a poor country to pay for.
In the course of armed conflicts (wars), weapons may only be used
against legal military targets and for the duration of the war.
Weapons may not cause undue suffering or superfluous injury.
Weapons may not use or employ "poison." Weapons may not severely
damage the environment. DU weaponry cannot be used in military
operations without violating these rules, and therefore must be
considered illegal. Use of illegal weapons constitutes a violation
of humanitarian law and subjects the violators to legal liability
for their effects on victims and the environment, as well as
criminal liability. In my view, use of DU weaponry necessarily
violates the grave breach provisions of the Geneva Conventions,
and hence its use constitutes a war crime or crime against
humanity.
Under a Kucinich Administration, all illegal use of depleted
uranium munitions will be halted, as the U.S. becomes a leader in
the international movement to recover depleted uranium.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DKonDU.html (hypertext)
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DKonDU.txt (text only)
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DKonDU.pdf (print ready)