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[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] Thank you Peter Brooke for your thorough news scans including your comment this evening: As the story stands at the present time, the United States is feverishly producing unimaginable quantities of weapons of mass destruction with the express intention of wiping out what is left of a country which for eleven years has been deprived of the means of providing for its own defense (and its own health and its own economy). CASI members will know my particular concern about Depleted Uranium (DU) in far larger weapons systems than previously acknowledged - from the 5,300 Maverick missiles used in 1991 (with 135 kg now suspected DU warheads) to the 6,000+ guided weapons used in Afghanistan (with suspected DU warheads ranging from 250 - 1500 kg). The UK media blackout on the questions in my report DU weapons 2001-2002 at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm continues 100% solid - perhaps to the great relief of the Government and MoD. But yesterday the March issue of Le Monde Diplomatique broke this silence with a review by Robert James Parsons - "The big lie about clean wars: The reality of Depleted Uranium weapons". Maybe the English version will be published in the Guardian Weekly next Wednesday. The guided weapons used in Afghanistan will be centre stage to any US operations in Iraq. We don't have to wait until the conflict starts. Please widen the analysis. Afghanistan has dropped off the UK media agenda since the bombing stopped. But if DU has been used the real dying has only just begun. On 14-17 March the WHO will be holding a conference in Kandahar on the subject of "Public Health after the war in Afghanistan". At a press conference in Geneva on Friday they were asked if they would include DU hazards in their debates. The answer was simply no. The WHO is constitutional obliged to defer to the IAEA in matters of public health arising from radiation exposure. CASI member know what this means for the UN veto on thorough scientific analysis of the 10 years on effects of DU weapons in Iraq. ANY publicity you can give to the potential DU nightmare faced by the population in Afghanistan just might get DU weapons back onto the international media agenda. All I ask is to know what is the mystery, dense metal, 2x the specific gravity of steel and pyrophoric to incinerate suspected chemical or biological weapons targets? Such weapons of course will be essential in a new US campaign against suspected NBC targets in Iraq, regardless that the radioactive contamination they may involve will occur anyway, whether or not the targets are really factories for "weapons of mass destruction". The US and UK and Israel and French arms industries produce up to 21 weapon systems (guided bombs, cruise missiles and sub- munitions now strongly suspected of using DU warheads. Some of these have been exported to up to 30 countries in the last 10 years. These are I suspect the countries that voted down the proposed DU health study in Iraq in November 2001. Never mind the spin and anti-Iraq propaganda in the media. This issue is in our hands now with extensive research resources from respected international organisations specialising in analysis of the arms industry, and weapons manufacturers themselves. See for yourselves at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/du2012.htm One hope is that UK MPs will openly challenge the UK Government to tell the truth about Depleted Uranium weapons, hazards, precautions and contamination in Afghanistan in the Defence debate scheduled for next Thursday, 7 March. But NOTHING will happen in the UK Parliament or media unless a few more voices than mine pursue this issue. Its not a side show. CASI members know the suspected DU genocide in Iraq. Well it continues I suspect through the Balkans and Afghanistan. Slow death doesn't make headlines in the UK. But it just might if people realise that UK troops, media teams and aid agencies have been at risk of this same irreversible radiation contamination. News reports yesterday morning about UK and other governments efforts to encourage Afghan refugees to return angered me. The existence DU contamination is known - a fact if Donald Rumsfeld's report of 16 January is believed - "elevated radiation due to depleted uranium on some warheads". HIs colleague referred to missile with depleted uranium warheads captured from the Taliban in December. BUT according to most international arms websites NO missiles use DU warheads - except for Jane's Defence last year that "some guided weapons use depleted uranium to increase the penetration effect". All these sources are available in my report published on 31 January and sent to UN agencies, the media and last week again to the UK Government. Time is so short - for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq alike. I am 90% sure that the US is using a wide range of depleted uranium weapons. A GBU-28 Bunker Buster guided bomb may contain up to 1.5 tons of DU. This is partially processed nuclear waste. Its use must render these weapons to be "weapons of indisciminate effect" in the meaning of articles 35 and 55 of the first protocol additional to the Geneva Conventions. Never mind Iraq's "maybe" weapons of mass destruction. The US are leaders in the field of every type of weapon of mass destruction and indiscriminate effect. With DU they may have massively miscalculated. They have convinced themselves, through transparently flawed "scientific" research e.g. by the RAND Corporation that "DU is Safe". From here is a very short step to using it in a whole new generation of weapons, and a shorter step to using these weapons in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan. The psychology involved is called "group-think" (Janis, 1977, 1983) - the madness of war that renders politicians and generals vulnerable to shared delusions that they are invulnerable, their truth the only truth, and to reject any data or views that suggest otherwise (see link on page 136 of the report). Unfortunately US group think is transferred seamlessly to the MoD and UK Government. So if 100 tons of DU has been used in Afghanistan they will feel no guilt or shame. Rather worse they will sabotage any and every moral or scientific attempt to expose the truth. I go on too long - sorry. But these things must be said. And the Net is the only channel for uncensored communication in this time of war. Most grateful if you can comment, criticise or spread the questions asked in the DU report. Such an international debate just might alter the balance of forces for and against another war on Iraq. in friendship and concern for peace Dai Williams Eos, Woking, Surrey, UK eosuk@btinternet.com http://www.eoslifework.co.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk