"We cannot under any circumstances acquiesce in the non-utilisation of any weapons which are
available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier". - Winston
Churchill
On March 28th 2003, a US A-10 aircraft fired into a convoy of five British vehicles near Basrah in a
'friendly fire' incident. It was reported by the Guardian newspaper that the British troops who retrieved
the bodies wore "chemical warfare suits...because of the threat from the depleted uranium used in American
weapons".
Two days later, on the morning of March 30th 2003, an Iraqi troop carrier passing through Kibla, a residential suburb of
Basrah, broke down and signalled to a second troop carrier to come to its assistance. As the Iraqi soldiers were trying
to sort out the mechanical problem, an A-10 fired rounds of depleted uranium ammunition into both vehicles causing
instant inferno. At the same time, two young men were entering a nearby house. Thinking they too were soldiers, the
pilot targeted the house. The soldiers were incinerated, as were the two boys in the house, Jelaal and Nasir aged 21 and
18. A young cousin sustained severe burns on his leg. The explosive blasts created a plume of uranium oxide dust, some
of it so fine that is entered the atmosphere as a gas. The heavier particles landed close to the vehicles and inside the
building. Neighbours and family buried the dead; the grieving parents and remaining eight children continued to live in
what was left of their home, and dozens of local children played daily in and around the burnt out vehicles. No one
warned them of the nature of the bullets that had and would continue to cause so much death and destruction.
In July 2004, an Iraqi environmental scientist, who was researching DU, happened to be driving through Kibla with his
fiancé. They were on the way to church to arrange their wedding. His fiancé mentioned to him that she always got a
headache after passing some burnt out vehicles in the area, so a few days later, he went to investigate. His Geiger
counter immediately told him that the area was radioactive and later, equipped with full radioactive gear, he cleaned
the troop carriers and damaged area of the house to the best of his ability. He then went straight to the British
military in Basrah, explained the situation and asked for their help. Apart from some sympathy from an environmental
adviser, who has subsequently returned to the UK, the response was very dismissive and no action has been taken. The
scientist also notified the World Health Organisation but has had no response at all.
A few weeks after this, photographer Jenny Matthews, Dr Al-Ani and myself happened to be in Basrah and were taken to
visit the family in Kibla. We walked around the burnt troop carriers and watched the rising dial of the Geiger counter,
as wind whipped up the dust around us. Children were playing all around and were very excited to see us. In the house
we spoke to the mother and daughters, two of whom, Ibtehal and Delaal, are suffering from breathing problems and skin
rashes, a younger boy, Kemal who is now thirteen, is losing his night vision, and the burns sustained by their cousin
Sa'd are still not healing properly.
Our own enquiries through the British Embassy in Basrah resulted in the following response, "The clean up of DU is the
responsibility of the civil administration, with assistance from the international community, after any armed conflict."
In this instance the civil administration is the Iraqi Interim Government and, we wonder, which bit of the international
community? - Apparently not the US or UK. After the war of 1991, 24 US vehicles caught in DU friendly fire were returned
to the United States and it took three years to fully decontaminate them. The clean up of the environment itself, is of
course not possible. Nature excels at recycling. Radioactive particles have already entered Iraq's air, water, soil and
vegetation and are working their way through the food chain. Nor do such particles respect 'borders' - the wind, sun and
rain will move them endlessly.
During the Gulf War of 1991 the US and Britain used up to 350 tons of DU shells in southern Iraq. They were used mainly
on the tanks and trucks returning from Kuwait. Despite the fact that they were used mainly in a desert area, the health
problems in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have escalated. In Basrah childhood leukaemia has increased 7 fold, overall
cancers 10 fold and birth deformities 20 fold. Many allied troops returning from the Gulf and the Balkans have suffered
similarly. A German doctor, Dr Siegfried Horst Guenther who studied the rare health effects in Iraq after 1991 also noted
severe immunodeficiencies, AIDS-like syndromes, and kidney and liver dysfunction. Other noted symptoms are reactive
airway disease, neurological problems, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, gum tissue problems, sexual
dysfunction and neuro-psychological disorders.
DU is both radioactive and chemically toxic and many doctors and scientists like Dr Guenther are convinced that the
inhalation or ingestion of microscopic DU particles does have an adverse effect at a cellular level. Children, because of
their fast cell growth, are particularly vulnerable. Dr Alexandra Miller from the US Armed Forces Radiological Research
Institute concludes that "DU compounds can transform cells into a state that appears to be able to induce tumors, based
on the changes in the physical appearance of the cell, and based on the chemical changes induced in the cells by it, and
other tumor-favoring changes". She also states that the radioactive and toxic properties of DU seem to reinforce each other,
thus causing more extensive damage. Depleted uranium has been found in the urine and tissue of sick veterans and civilians many
years after the initial exposure, and chromosome testing by Dr Schott in Germany shows not only chromosomal damage to veterans
exposed to DU but the same genetic damage in their children. DU is known to enter the sperm and the ovary and can cross
the placenta. This not only accounts for the high rise in congenital deformities but indicates that such deformities could be
intergenerational. Young women like Ibtehal and Delaal must not only fear for their own health, but that of any children they may bear.
To compound the health problem, some of the DU used in munitions comes from the other end of the nuclear fuel cycle and
is contaminated with artificial isotopes such as U-236 and plutonium and neptunium. As depleted uranium isotopes decay
they become increasingly radioactive. Moreover, according to Dr Dan Bishop, if Neptunium 235 is present, its short half
life will spike the radioactivity and will triple "the alpha radiation over natural uranium and double the total alpha,
beta and gamma radiation over natural radiation". The environmental and health effect of DU munitions could be far
greater than is generally assumed. Samples taken from civilians in Afghanistan by the Uranium Medical Research Centre
also showed excessive levels of non depleted uranium and one tissue sample from Basrah has shown the presence of enriched
uranium.
The British have admitted to the use of 9 tons of uranium in the 2003 war - nine times more than in 1991, but the US
refuse to be specific. The estimates range between 200 to 2000 tons. While the US and UK only admit to the use of DU
in anti-tank penetrators, there is growing evidence that it is being used in a variety of other weapons. High levels of
radioactivity have been found in large bomb craters such as the Ma'moon telephone exchange in Baghdad which was hit by
several bunker busting bombs. The missiles cut through six layers of steel before exploding below ground level. This
supports the contention that uranium is being used in some guided missiles to enhance the penetration of hard
structures and to incinerate them. These large bombs could release significant amounts of uranium oxide into the
atmosphere.
The difference between the war of 2003 and previous conflicts is that the use of uranium has been almost exclusively
in urban, residential areas. The UK and US military justify this by saying that there are no known health effects from
depleted uranium, yet are they really convinced? In fact, the military and governments have known the health risks of
depleted uranium for decades. In 1991, a UKAEA report stated "The DU will be spread around the battlefield and target
vehicles in varying sizes and quantities from dust particles to full size penetrators...localised contamination of
vehicles and soil may exceed permissible limits and these could be hazardous to both clean up teams and the local
population". In 1995 the US Army environmental Policy Institute wrote, "If DU enters the body, it has the potential
to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and
radiological". All military personnel working with DU in the UK are classified radiation workers and subject to
constant monitoring. Hard target testing, which took place in Eskmeals, Cumbria until 1995, was done under very strict
conditions and it still costs the British tax payer £360 000 a year to maintain and protect the site. DU rounds were
fired at a hard target in a concrete bunker, known as the VJ Butt and in July 2000, the Radioactive Waste Management
Advisory Committee (RWMAC) made the following report, "...a well-defined protocol is in place for workers required to
enter the VJ Butt after test firing. Before they can do so, allowance is made for a cooling period during which cooling
fans with three levels of air filtration are in operation. Members of the butt entry party are required to wear full
protective clothing with pureflow hoods and carry personal air samplers."
All well and good, but how can the use of the same material be justified, if it is targeting houses, buses and people
in Iraq? While there is acknowledged military advantage in using uranium against hard targets, it is very difficult to
understand why it is also being used so liberally on 'soft' targets. In this last war on Iraq, these have included
military personnel, cars, trucks, buses and houses. Even the Iraqi troop carriers hardly merited extreme penetrative
force. And where in places like Kibla are the air filters and pureflow hoods to be found? When Abdul Zahra Misbal Shindi
buried his dead sons he was not, like the British soldiers, provided with a chemical suit.
Kibla is not alone. The same Iraqi scientist has discovered 26 radioactive sites in just one area of Basrah. In parts
of Baghdad radiation has been monitored as 1 000 and
1 900 times greater than normal background level and high recordings have been made in towns such as Samawah and Negev.
Our mission to Iraq in August was not to measure radiation, but to assess the needs of Iraqi children for our charity
Child Victims of War. Basrah Children's Hospital is crying out for even the most basic equipment to treat its ever
growing numbers of young leukaemia and cancer patients. Despairing doctors said that this was not really a cancer
ward where children were treated, just a place where they came to die. Basrah is in desperate need of an oncology
centre. If even a few of the young children we met are dying from the allied use of radiological weapons, then the lack
of medicine and pain relief created by the long years of sanctions and now occupation, compounds a most terrible crime.
