Weapon of eternal harm

'It must be true. It's in the Tehran Times.'  

Then the Kuwait News Agency headlined with the news that "UK forces used about 1.9 metric tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003, Defence Secretary Liam Fox told MPs Thursday night." The popular 'Russia Tonight' TV programme wanted an interview.   The logistics were difficult and did not go well. Booking a studio from Moscow and a taxi in Newport from London is not easy.   But I duly appeared on Russian TV just as their mid-night arrived.

They were excited by the story but wary because so few other news outlets were reporting Liam's parliamentary written answer. It's a sad familiar story. We went to Iraq on the pretext of destroying weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. We bombed them with a weapon of eternal destruction.

DU is uranium 238 of reduced harm. It is used as ballast in shells because of its density. It is not a threat in the way that a nuclear bomb is. The danger is the volume of carcinogenic dust that is left on the battlefields when the soldiers depart.  

The Iraq health authorities have identified 40 sites of increased child cancers and birth defects. They are located at the battlefields of the two Iraq wars. There is no denial that DU shells were used in the first Iraq war. It has been claimed tat the UK/USA dumped 2,000 tonnes on Iraq in the second war.

Iraq is demanding compensation. Going to court would be embarrassing and a deal will probably be done and blood money will be paid.

But money will not end the suffering of the children nor the grief of the parents.

Comments

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Paul, why would the UK pay compensation to Iraq? The government and military still insists that DU is safe.

The UK voted at the UN against even investigating the health problems caused by depleted uranium usage.

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/144.html

Unlike cluster munitions and landmines which are clearly going to cause indiscriminate harm to civilians and have been banned, the users of these weapons (the US and UK) can hide behind the fact that there is currently a lack of scientific investigation to prove the effects. In the meantime they obstruct any investigation and withold the information of just how much depleted uranium has been used and where.

The UK should warehouse its remaining stocks of these weaopons indefinately until the EU and UN can move ahead with its plans to carry out investigations.

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It is frightful that Britain and America have dropped thounsands of tonnes of this poison. The plain fact is that the reports of greatly increased incidences of terrible cancers and birth defects are not a coincedence.

At the furthest extremity, you would still urge caution. This is NOT taken into account in the equation. Its a grim subject but I am not going to ignore it like the government and MoD would prefer.

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It is defended by the MoD. And continues. The same has occurred in Afghanistan too. The results are stark and plain to anybody with a conscience. The reports are numerous, the proponemts have no inclination to pay any attention. The greatest crime of all.

[HuwOS]

Well Ad, to be fair, if you don't mind killing foreign brown people on purpose, why the heck would you object to killing those who managed to survive your assault, through carelessness.

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It is a criminal act to use this stuff. The MoD considers it sufficient justification that it is a useful weapon, and therefore reasons that it could save the lives of British soldiers. That is it. No respect for the wellbeing of those who have no choice but to live with the terrible consequences.