Uranium Weapons Causing Cancer in Iraq

Zaman.com
Nov. 12, 2006

The World Health Organization (WHO) had released a study on depleted uranium in 2001 after serious doubts emerged over its damage to health.

The study asserted that depleted uranium had very little risk of spreading.

The United States used 320,000 tons of depleted uranium during the Gulf War alone.

The British Armed Forces also used depleted uranium in some of its ammunition.

During the wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, when such weapons were used extensively, there was a significant growth in cancer and birth defects.

Later a scientist who had worked for the WHO at that time claimed that there was a study kept concealed from the public that explained how depleted uranium caused cancer.

Depleted uranium inhalation has geno-toxic effects on DNA, said Dr. Keith Baverstock in an interview with BBC Radio 4 as someone who worked on the published study.

“When you breathe in the dust the deeper it goes into the lung the more difficult it is to clear. The particles that dissolve pose a risk - part radioactive - and part from the chemical toxicity in the lung - and then later as that material diffuses into the rest of the body, and into the blood stream, a potential risk at sites like the bone marrow for leukemia, the lymphatic system and the kidney,” according to Dr. Baverstock.

He said this research was not included in the report of the WHO.

Nevertheless, the British and American troops in Iraq today continue using depleted uranium weapons in spite of the warnings that it poses a potential long-term cancer risk to civilians.

Yet there is another dimension to the event.

During the Gulf War, 400,000 American soldiers were stationed in the region where depleted uranium was being used.

Nearly 20,000 American soldiers are still struggling to get over what is called “Gulf War syndrome” caused by cancer and other serious health problems.

The WHO defends that this investigation was not available when they released the report in question.

It has been revealed that Israel used uranium in Lebanon as well.

There are claims that the cancer rate in Iraq has increased tenfold, and the number of birth defects has multiplied fivefold times since the 1991 war, and the increase is believed to be caused by depleted uranium.

There are people who want to investigate these events, but the United States is quite uneasy about the attempts to inspect the aftermath of the war.

The United States was also criticized due to its unwillingness to cooperate with the United Nations on the issue.

A girl who appeared in a famous photograph taken in 2003 in Fallujah was suffering from leukemia while soldiers and scientists were discussing depleted uranium.