LET'S TALK ABOUT DEPLETED URANIUM

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. The article I posted down the line on Lebanon made me think some more about Iraq. We have no idea what the actual casualties of this war are, or will be. First of all, I have to assume that the DOD counts deaths IN COUNTRY, like they did during Viet Nam. The men and women who died after they got home were not part of the statistics. Anyway, how many of our troops are going to come home, only to suffer debilitating illnesses, or worse...death... from chemical exposure? How many of them will have children who have birth defects or suffer strange diseases?

Let me give you some figures here from the first Iraq war from The Sorrows of Empire:

During 1990 and l991, some 696,778 individuals served in the Persian Gulf as elements of Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. Of those, 148 were killed in battle, 467 were wounded in action, and 145 were killed in accidents, totaling 760 casualties, quite a low number given the scale of the operations. As of May, 2002, however, the VA reported that an additional 8,306 soldiers had died and 159,705 were injured or ill as a result of service connected "exposures" suffered during the war. Even more alarmingly, the VA revealed that 206,861 veterans, almost a third of General Norman Schwarzkopf's entire army, had filed claims for medical care, compensation, and pension benefits based on injuries and illnesses caused by combat in 1991. After reviewing the cases, the agency has classified 168,011 applicants as "disabled veterans." In light of these deaths and disabilities, the casualty rate for the first Gulf War may actually be a staggering 29.3 percent.
Doug Rokke, a former army colonel and a professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University, was in charge of the military's environmental cleanup following the first Gulf War. The Pentagon has since sacked him for criticizing NATO commanders for not adequately protecting their troops in areas where ammunition made from depleted uranium was used, such as Kosovo in 1999. Rokkee observes that many thousands of U.S. troops have been based in and around Kuwait since 1990, and their exposure to DU seems to produce a higher figure than the VA's. he notes that between August 1990 and May 2002, a total of 262,586 soldiers became "disabled veterans" and 10,617 died. His numbers result in a casualty rate for the whole decade of 30.8%.

That's some scary shit!!! Can you imagine what the actual numbers are going to be when all is said and done this time around in Iraq???? Very scary, indeed. It will be years before we see the full scope of pain and suffering and death that will come out of this war. And that's not to mention what the Iraqis, and their children, and their children's children are / will suffer, also. I wonder if our country is planning for the HUGE expense of treating all the illness that comes out of this war for years to come. My guess is....they are not.

Here's another site with info on depleted uranium.

By DEBORAH HASTINGS AP National Writer

NEW YORK Aug 13, 2006 (AP)— It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Full story here

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