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U.S. WEAPONS POISON EUROPE
RADIATION FROM IRAQ WAR DETECTED IN UK ATMOSPHERE
By Leuren Moret
A shocking new scientific study by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan asks: “Did the use of uranium weapons in Gulf War II result
in the contamination of Europe?”
High levels of depleted uranium (DU) have been measured in the atmosphere in Britain, transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Scientists cited the U.S. bombing of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 and the “Shock and Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003 as one of the main reasons.
In the 1950s the British government had established an air monitoring facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.
Ironically, AWE was taken over three years ago by Halliburton, which at first refused to release key data as required by law to Busby.
An international expert on low-level radiation, Busby serves as an official advisor on several British government committees. He recently co-authored an independent report on low-level radiation with 45 scientists with the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) for the European Parliament.
Busby was eventually able to get Aldermaston’s air monitoring data from Halliburton by filing a freedom of information request using a new British law that became effective Jan. 1, 2005. Critical data from 2003 was missing, however, so he had to obtain the information from the Defence Procurement
Agency.
Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities throughout Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric radiation levels transported by sand, dust storms and air currents from radiation sources in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
After the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq in 2003, very fine particles of depleted uranium were captured along with larger sand and dust particles in filters in Britain. These particles traveled in seven to nine days from Iraqi battlefields as far away as 2,400 miles.
The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003 campaign, and at one of the five monitoring locations, the levels twice required an official alert to the British Environment Agency.
In addition, according to Busby, the Aldermaston air monitoring data provided a continuous record of depleted uranium levels in Britain from other recent wars.
Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided evidence that the United States has illegally used depleted uranium munitions on civilian populations. These military actions are in direct violation of not only international conventions but also violate U.S. military law because the United States is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol.
Depleted uranium weaponry meets the definition of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in two out of three categories under U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 40 Sec. 2302. After action mandates have also been violated such as U.S. Army Regulation AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278, which requires treatment of radiation poisoning for all casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians.
In the mainstream press, British officials have attempted to counter the study by blaming the elevated uranium levels on “local sources.” Anonymous statements by government scientists used by the media thus far, however, have been contradicted by evidence disclosed in the report.
Naturally occurring uranium in the crust of the Earth is only 2.4 parts per million and could not become concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain. As far as nuclear power plants are concerned, the lowest levels of uranium measured at monitoring stations around Aldermaston were actually taken at the facility, which designs and tests nuclear weapons—meaning this could not possibly be a source.
Atomic weapons facilities would be more likely to produce plutonium contamination, which was not reported as a contaminant.
This wasn’t the first time a noted scientist has discussed global pollution from the use of DU.
Dr. Keith Baverstock, an expert on radiation, exposed a World Health Organization (WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium. Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he had written for the organization but was never published. He warned in the report about the environmental contamination from tiny DU particles formed from U.S. munitions.
In addition, Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, estimated that the atomic equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991 from the use of DU munitions. He said it is mixed in the atmosphere in one year.
DU PROFITS
As if Busby’s report is not bad enough, a new book by a leading scientist notes who is making billions from nightmare armaments.
Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book The Enemy Within that the British royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines in Australia. The mining company was formed for the British royal family in the late 1950s by Roland Walter “Tiny” Rowland, who was known as the queen’s banker and the master financial manipulator behind billionaire Robert Maxwell’s fortune.*
The Rothschilds are also profiting enormously from their control of the price and supply of uranium globally.
The ubiquitous Halliburton just recently finished construction of a 1,000-mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.
The queen’s favorite American buccaneers, Dick Cheney and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of DU munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo.
The role that such diverse groups and individuals as the Carlyle Group, George H.W. Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci, Los Alamos and Livermore labs, and U.S. and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known. God save the queen from her complicity in turning planet Earth into a death star.
Leuren Moret is an international expert on the environmental
effects of depleted uranium and has worked at two U.S. nuclear
weapons laboratories.
(Issue #10/11, March 6 & 13, 2006)
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