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[ This message has been sent to you via the CASI-analysis mailing list ] This is an automated compilation of submissions to newsclippings@casi.org.uk Articles for inclusion in this daily news mailing should be sent to newsclippings@casi.org.uk. Please include a full reference to the source of the article. Today's Topics: 1. Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war (VnStroope@aol.com) 2. Why was US so wrong?? (CharlieChimp1@aol.com) 3. ... local troops may be victims of america's high-tech weapons (bluepilgrim) 4. China, Cuba & UN's hypocrisy at.: uxt (CASI analysis list moderator) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: VnStroope@DELETETHISaol.com Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 00:02:36 EST Subject: Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war To: newsclippings@casi.org.uk [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185438,00.html President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001. Roger Stroope Flagstaff USA Northern Arizona University Graduate Student- Anthropology --__--__-- Message: 2 From: CharlieChimp1@DELETETHISaol.com Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 15:45:34 EDT Subject: Why was US so wrong?? To: JustPeaceUK@yahoogroups.com, Intelligentminds@yahoogroups.com, newsclippings@casi.org.uk [ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] "Dysfunctional family" Printed on Monday, March 22, 2004 @ 17:44:34 CST ( ) By Preston Parkhurst YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (United States) (YellowTimes.org) =E2=80=93= Here we are standing after nearly a year since the invasion of Iraq and everyone is= now questioning the evidence that has led this nation to war. People on every side of this issue are losing their voices and pointing fingers at who coul= d be responsible for what appears to be a complete breakdown of credibility that affects the entire spectrum of our government, the press, and the American = people themselves. Some will argue that President Bush is guilty of misleading Congress, the press, and the people, while others will say it was bad evide= nce and look to the intelligence community. Yet some will say it was the Vice President's past ties to a company and an industry that are the primary ben= efactors of very lucrative contracts to rebuild the torn nation of Iraq. Regardless of what has taken place, in time the facts will be known well enough for most people to have a good idea who or how many were responsible for such a fail= ure that has robbed America of its good name in the world community. What some people fail to see is that what has taken place was given the gre= en light by a majority of the members of Congress from both sides of the political system. One has to ask what is the quality of governing which the= se men and women are giving the American people? They all had the opportunity to question this evidence better before giving the go ahead for war, or at lea= st they should have. Cries of being lied to or being duped by misleading evidence m= akes no difference after the fact, so you have to ask again, just how bright are these folks in Congress? Why didn't they check the facts before the war ins= tead of after, if only they did their job? Another escapee from finger pointing thus far is the American press, which is supposed to be the best, most inquisitive proponent of the facts for the American people. Call it a liber= al press or whatever; we have to face the fact that in the press there was little opposition to the war in Iraq or the reasons for going in the first place. = The press is an institution that was intended to counter the political world to make sur= e the people were not duped by misleading information which the government ma= y have provided to push an agenda to the people. Now it would seem that even = the press in this country was fooled as well when they should have been using t= he unique ability they have of finding things out, instead of sitting in White House press briefings to regurgitate the government's drone to a rabid publ= ic. The American press' ability to offer an accurate presentation of world affa= irs or to stand with a backbone against what is said and what is true is a tota= l failure and utterly pathetic. Were we all swollen with so much patriotism a= fter Sept.11th or blinded by fear that we were so easily able to believe anythin= g offered to us as proof of terrorist plots and boogy men being everywhere? T= his is nothing new to the world or to human nature that people who have been violated in such a manner would feel pain, anger, fear, and the need for an= swers or even revenge. We are no different in that respect than anyone else who resides in the world today, yet we believe we are intelligent enough to kno= w better. In the end we have to admit that somebody pulled the wool over our = eyes while we were busy singing the Star Spangled Banner. As most people should = know, the first casualty of any war is the truth. I think it is in the best inter= est for people to now take a closer look at what is taking place in government = and around the globe as we are now a global community and that at some level we must rely on each other for mutual benefit. We are now living in the world'= s single most powerful nation and our leader and his administration are sayin= g they were misled. We now have a Congress and Senate that claim to have been misinformed about evidence for taking this nation to war. We now have an intelligence community that says it was duped by inaccurate information fro= m its best sources. Now we seem to even have a press that is only just now saying it m= ay have been wrong, which could only mean it, too, was fooled. Last but not le= ast, we have the American people who also feel angry and baffled that they were victims of this amazing phenomenon that has taken place, the duping of the world's most powerful nation that leads us all to look like either liars or= complete fools. When the majority of the globe is quietly sitting back and saying to themselves with a smug chuckle, "told you so," we can either start pointing= the finger abroad and proclaiming that they are irrelevant chocolate makers or = we can at least take the time to ponder the question, what if we were wrong? I= f we were wrong, why were we wrong and what can we do to correct this before = we are viewed by everyone but ourselves as foolish little generals? Preston Parkhurst encourages your comments: Thx2069@tampabay.rr.com --__--__-- Message: 3 Date: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 17:28:36 -0500 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: bluepilgrim <bluepilgrim@DELETETHISgrics.net> Subject: ... local troops may be victims of america's high-tech weapons http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/180333p-156685c.html Poisoned? Shocking report reveals local troops may be victims of america's high-tech weapons By JUAN GONZALEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Army Sgt. Hector Vega at his Bronx home. [two photos] Augustin Matos with his daughter Samantha Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found. They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. "I got sick instantly in June," said Staff Sgt. Ray Ramos, a Brooklyn housing cop. "My health kept going downhill with daily headaches, constant numbness in my hands and rashes on my stomach." A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four "almost certainly" inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers. If so, the men - Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone - are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict. The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq last Easter, the unit's members have been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month. "These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle," said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing that was funded by The News. "Other American soldiers who were in combat must have more depleted uranium exposure," said Duracovic, a colonel in the Army Reserves who served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. While working at a military hospital in Delaware, he was one of the first doctors to discover unusual radiation levels in Gulf War veterans. He has since become a leading critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare. Depleted uranium, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, has been used by the U.S. and British military for more than 15 years in some artillery shells and as armor plating for tanks. It is twice as heavy as le= ad. Because of its density, "It is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said. The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of depleted uranium shells in Iraq last year, Kilpatrick said. No figures have yet been released for how much the Marines fired. Kilpatrick said about 1,000 G.I.s back from the war have been tested by the Pentagon for depleted uranium and only three have come up positive - all as a result of shrapnel from DU shells. But the test results for the New York guardsmen - four of nine positives for DU - suggest the potential for more extensive radiation exposure among coalition troops and Iraqi civilians. Several Army studies in recent years have concluded that the low-level radiation emitted when shells containing DU explode poses no significant dangers. But some independent scientists and a few of the =ADArmy's own reports indicate otherwise. As a result, depleted uranium weapons have sparked increasing controversy around the world. In January 2003, the =ADEuropean Parliament called for a moratorium on their use after reports of an unusual number of leukemia deaths among Italian soldiers who served in Kosovo, where DU weapons were used. I keep getting weaker. What is happening to me? The Army says that only soldiers wounded by depleted uranium shrapnel or who are inside tanks during an explosion face measurable radiation exposure= . But as far back as 1979, Leonard Dietz, a physicist at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory upstate, discovered that DU-contaminated dust could travel for long distances. Dietz, who pioneered the technology to isolate uranium isotopes, accidentally discovered that air filters with which he was experimenting had collected radioactive dust from a National Lead Industries Plant that was producing DU 26 miles away. His discovery led to a shutdown of the plan= t. "The contamination was so heavy that they had to remove the topsoil from 52 properties around the plant," Dietz said. All humans have at least tiny amounts of natural uranium in their bodies because it is found in water and in the food supply, Dietz said. But natural uranium is quickly and harmlessly excreted by the body. Uranium oxide dust, which lodges in the lungs once inhaled and is not very soluble, can emit radiation to the body for years. "Anybody, civilian or soldier, who breathes these particles has a permanent dose, and it's not going to decrease very much over time," said Dietz, who retired in 1983 after 33 years as nuclear physicist. "In the long run ... veterans exposed to ceramic uranium oxide have a major problem." Critics of DU have noted that the Army's view of its dangers has changed over time. Before the 1991 Persian Gulf War, a 1990 Army report noted that depleted uranium is "linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage." It was during the Gulf War that U.S. A-10 Warthog "tank buster" planes and Abrams tanks first used DU artillery on a mass scale. The Pentagon says it fired about 320 tons of DU in that war and that smaller amounts were also used in the Serbian province of Kosovo. In the Gulf War, Army brass did not warn soldiers about any risks from exploding DU shells. An unknown number of G.I.s were exposed by shrapnel, inhalation or handling battlefield debris. Some veterans groups blame DU contamination as a factor in Gulf War syndrome, the term for a host of ailments that afflicted thousands of vets from that war. Under pressure from veterans groups, the Pentagon commissioned several new studies. One of those, published in 2000, concluded that DU, as a heavy metal, "could pose a chemical hazard" but that Gulf War veterans "did not experience intakes high enough to affect their health." Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick said Army followup studies of 70 DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans have not shown serious health effects. "For any heavy metal, there is no such thing as safe," Kilpatrick said. "There is an issue of chemical toxicity, and for DU it is raised as radiological toxicity as well." But he said "the overwhelming conclusion" from studies of those who work with uranium "show it has not produced any increase in cancers." Several European studies, however, have linked DU to chromosome damage and birth defects in mice. Many scientists say we still don't know enough about the long-range effects of low-level radiation on the body to say any amount is safe. Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, has called for identifying where DU was used and is urging a cleanup of all contaminated areas. "A large number of American soldiers [in Iraq] may have had significant exposure to uranium oxide dust," said Dr. Thomas Fasey, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center and an expert on depleted uranium. "And the health impact is worrisome for the future." As for the soldiers of the 442nd, they're sick, frustrated and confused. They say when they arrived in Iraq no one warned them about depleted uranium and no one gave them dust masks. Experts behind News probe As part of the investigation by the Daily News, Dr. Asaf Duracovic, a nuclear medicine expert who has conducted extensive research on depleted uranium, examined the nine soldiers from the 442nd Military Police in late December and collected urine specimens from each. Another member of his team, Prof. Axel Gerdes, a geologist at Goethe University in Frankfurt who specializes in analyzing uranium isotopes, performed repeated tests on the samples over a week-long =ADperiod. He used= a state-of-the art procedure called multiple collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Only about 100 laboratories worldwide have the same capability to identify and measure various uranium isotopes in minute quantities, Gerdes said. Gerdes concluded that four of the men had depleted uranium in their bodies. Depleted uranium, which does not occur in nature, is created as a waste product of uranium enrichment when some of the highly radioactive isotopes in natural uranium, U-235 and U-234, are extracted. Several of the men, according to Duracovic, also had minute traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, that is produced only in a nuclear reaction process. "These men were almost certainly exposed to radioactive weapons on the battlefield," Duracovic said. He and Gerdes plan to issue a scientific paper on their study of the soldiers at the annual meeting of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine in Finland this year. When DU shells explode, they permanently contaminate their target and the area immediately around it with low-level radioactivity. Originally published on April 3, 2004 --__--__-- Message: 4 From: CASI analysis list moderator <casi-analysis-admin@DELETETHISlists.casi.org.uk> To: newsclippings@casi.org.uk Reply-To: casi-analysis-admin@lists.casi.org.uk Subject: China, Cuba & UN's hypocrisy at.: uxt Date: 04 Apr 2004 23:51:35 +0100 received from: ejepress_release@yahoo.com on: Sun, 04 Apr 2004 15:56:27 (original post almost illegible due to html language being written in full, so re-posted by moderator) destaqueinternacional2003@yahoo.es Destaque Internacional Current Reports - Year VI - No. 135 - Person responsible: Javier González, Reconquista 417, Buenos Aires / April 2, 2004.- China, Cuba and the UN's "hypocrisy" Scandals in the area of "human rights" and documents that reveal favoritism toward the former regime in Iraq put the credibility of the international organization at stake The humanitarian organization, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) has awarded the "Grand Prize for Hypocrisy" to the United Nations (UN) and to its recent World Summit on the Information Society "for the special place reserved at this major Internet summit for countries that have most harshly repressed the Internet, such as China and Cuba", presently the "two biggest prisons in the world for journalists." The United Nation's "Farce" As an example of the United Nation's "farce", Reporters Without Borders (RWB) mentions the UN's Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, presently holding its 60th session until April 24, 2004. Among the 53 countries represented in this body, 25 have not even ratified a number of conventions and treaties about human rights. Last year, Lybia was elected president of the Commission and among its members appear four countries (China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Saudi Arabia) whose governments are considered as "the most repressive in the world." "The foxes are in charge of the chicken coop" The aforementioned, adds RWB, creates an "absurd system" which operates "rather like asking thieves to sit in judgment over criminals." Jose; Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), was no less severe in his criticism: "The foxes are in charge of the chicken coop. The world's worst human rights violators protect themselves, and one another. They act like a true mafia" (continues). * "No-action" motions block any discussions *"Kofigate" * Iraqi Foreign Minister (Chancellor) Holds the United Nations Responsible * Western Medias: Mysterious Censorship To receive by e-mail, free of charge, the full text of the Editorial, please, click in: destaqueinternacional2003@yahoo.es?subject=Editorial:FullText(Free)" End of casi-news Digest _______________________________________ Sent via the CASI-analysis mailing list To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-analysis All postings are archived on CASI's website at http://www.casi.org.uk