The poisoned chalice of NATO’s aid to the Libyan rebels

Depleted Uranium birth defects and cancers in Iraq, Afganistan and the Former Yugosalvia

[Akif Brownlie, Libya News Contributor]

International reports suggest that it is a well known secret that NATO forces assisting the rebels in Libya are using depleted uranium ordinance (‘DU‘) in their bombing strikes on Col. Gaddafi’s forces.

Whilst DU weapons are effective tools for wearing down the wily Colonel, there are serious questions now by the international community concerning the devastation on the health of all Libyans that the use of these weapons will bring.

DU is highly toxic as a radioactive substance and because of that analysts and international public health monitors, like the World Health Organisation, are echoing the view of the international community that there will be serious and wide-ranging permanent effects on the health of Libyans for many years to come from radiation contamination brought about by NATO’s shelling of their country.  That is because DU is proved to have devastated the health of residents in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia, where it has been used in bombing attacks by NATO forces.

It was in 1991, that the US military, in a real war for some time and keen to test out its new super toxic DU amour piercing artillery deployed the use of DU material in its military invasion of Iraq.  Later on and delighted by the apparent usefulness of DU to create weapons of serious destruction in Iraq, the USA used DU ordinance again to pound peace into the conflict in the former Yugosalvia.

But questions began to pile up with regard to the usefulness of DU in war as cancer rates began to increase in more than 5 provinces in southern Iraq which had been shelled by the Americans. Chilling facts had emerged for the World Health Organization which found that the DU shells had contaminated the air, water and soil in the areas with highly toxic radiation which was linked to the increased cancer cases.  As such, by 2003, leukemia south of Baghdad had skyrocketed and by 2009, cancer rates had increased by the rate of thousands year by year. In 2011, reports suggest that the problem is getting worse.

In Yugoslavia too, where the ordinance had been used, leukemia symptoms became epidemic and in some parts of the country radiation levels had risen to up to 1000 times above normal. Even NATO troops suffered from the use of DU and more than 250 Italian force members have since died from DU-related cancer. As for civilians, cancer rates went up from 1 per 1000 per each new-born baby to more than 15 per 1000.

Analysts are saying that there is no need for US, or NATO forces to use DU as there is nothing to indicate that non-DU bombs can be less effective. Furthermore, as DU-inflicted wounds on humans are practically impossible to treat and present hazards for not only the victims, but also the medical personnel treating them who are likely to be seriously contaminated with radiation, there is a strong case that they should not be used whatsoever by any civilized military force.

Furthermore, where DU shells explode in non-residential areas, the problem does not go away but becomes a deferred sentence of death for residents in the target country, or region as such explosions have been found to contaminate the soil and water permanently and to cause untold misery and deaths from cancer upon residents.

According to United States’ former Justice Secretary Ramsey Clark, DU utilisation is: “An unacceptable threat to life and a violation of international law”.

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Tags: Depleted uranium, Libya, Libyan, Muammar al-Gaddafi, NATO, Ramsey Clark, United States, Warfare and Conflict