🚀 go-pugleaf

This is highly unbelievable.  2500 times background is not from depleted
uranium.  This sounds like a nuclear weapon was detonated, or someone
dropped a dirty bomb somewhere.  Or someone planted material.

"Vendicar Decarian" <VD@Pyro.net> wrote in message
news:ufQDb.9450$mV5.6241@read1.cgocable.net...
> Army shells pose cancer risk in Iraq
> Depleted uranium causing high radioactivity levels
>
> Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1106687,00.html
>
> Depleted uranium shells used by British forces in southern Iraqi
> battlefields are putting civilians at risk from 'alarmingly high'
> levels of radioactivity.
>
> Experts are calling for the water and milk being used by locals in
> Basra to be monitored after analysis of biological and soil samples
> from battle zones found 'the highest number, highest levels and
> highest concentrations of radioactive source points' in the Basra
> suburb of Abu Khasib - the centre of the fiercest battles between UK
> forces and Saddam loyalists.
>
> Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation
> levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area
> researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal.
>
> Critics of these controversial munitions - used to penetrate tank
> armour - believe inhaling the radioactive dust left by the highly
> combustible weapon causes cancer and birth defects. It has
> long been alleged that depleted uranium (DU) used in the first Gulf
> conflict was responsible for abnormally high levels of childhood
> leukaemia and birth defects in Iraq. Depleted uranium is also believed
> by some to be a contributing factor in Gulf War syndrome.
>
> The disclosure comes days after the charity Human Rights Watch claimed
> hundreds of 'preventable' deaths of civilians have been caused by the
> use of cluster bombs by US and UK forces during the conflict. The
> latest research, based on a two-week field trip by scientists, was
> carried out by the Canadian-based Uranium Medical Research Centre
> (UMRC) led by a former US military doctor Asaf Durakovic.
>
> Tedd Weymann, deputy director of UMRC, said: 'At one point the
> readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off
> telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of
> radiation children play on the tanks or close by.'
>
> The amount of DU used during the Iraq war has not been revealed,
> although some estimate it was more than a thousand tons. Last week,
> Labour MP Llew Smith obtained from the Ministry of Defence a list of
> 51 map co-ordinates in Iraq where sites were struck by DU weapons.
> France, Spain and Italy claim soldiers who served in Bosnia and
> Kosovo, where DU shells were used by Nato, have contracted cancers.
>
> Witnesses told the UMRC that a British Army survey team inspected Abu
> Khasib. 'The UK team arrived dressed in white full-body radiation
> suits with protective facemasks and gloves. They were accompanied by
> translators who were ordered to warn residents and local salvage crews
> that the tanks in the battlefield are radioactive and must be
> avoided,' the report states, adding: 'The British forces have taken no
> steps to post warnings, seal tanks and personnel carriers or remove
> the highly radioactive assets.'
>
> Dr Chris Busby, who is a member of a government committee examining
> radia tion risks, expressed concern. 'There is no question that
> inhaling this radioactive dust can increase the risk of lymphomas,' he
> said.
>
> Professor Brian Spratt, who chaired a Royal Society working group on
> the hazards of DU, said: 'British and US forces need to acknowledge
> that DU is a potential hazard and make inroads into tackling it by
> being open about where and how much has been deployed. Fragments of DU
>  penetrators are potentially hazardous, and should be removed, and
> areas of contamination around impact sites identified. Impact sites in
> residential areas should be a particular priority. Long-term
> monitoring of water and milk to detect any increase in uranium levels
> should also be introduced in Iraq.'
>
> In a statement, the MoD said: 'The allegations made by the UMRC are
> not substantiated by credible scientific evidence. They give no
> activity concentrations of the material concentrations on the ground
> or in the air, and their conclusions are not substantiated by readings
> taken by MoD's own survey team... The MoD sent a small team of
> scientists to Iraq in June to perform a preliminary survey in order to
> identify issues... and provide safety advice to scientists in the
> field. This survey looked at a small number of locations where tanks
> had been defeated by DU and found limited contamination at localised
> points; the highest contamination was at the point of entry on a
> defeated tank and this was fixed to the metal and could not be rubbed
> off on the skin by touch, much less inhaled.
>
> 'The UMRC appears to consider a small, highly localised area of
> contamination to present a large health risk. Use of "worst case" data
> to calculate risks to the population is inappropriate.'
>
> --
> "We must create a <economic> crisis in order to ensure that there is no
> alternative to a smaller government." - Bush - Imprimus Magazine 1995.
>
> "We seek to remove resources from the control of the state, thereby
starving
> it." - International Society for Individual Liberty - NeoCon Libertarian.
>
> "Throughout his term, Bush has implied tax cuts would starve the
government,
> paying for themselves by causing budget deficits that, in turn, would
place
> heavy pressure on Congress to lower spending." - Jeff Lemieux - Senior
> Economist - Progressive Policy Institute.
>
> "They have an agenda which is to starve the government of revenue. But in
> order to get it through, they keep on having to pretend that the tax cuts
> are affordable, and so they've been suppressing the likely cost of
> everything, including the war on terror." - Paul Krugman - Economist.
>
>