Depleted Uranium and NZ troops in Afghanistan

NZ's Afghan veterans tested for radioactivity

Soldiers returning from Afghanistan are having urine tests to check if they have absorbed radioactivity from American depleted uranium munitions

Stuff,

25 June, 2012

The Defence Force has confirmed the tests "as a precautionary measure", but there has yet to be a positive result.

The issue will come before Parliament on Wednesday during the first reading of the Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill, backed by Labour MP Phil Twyford.

A lobby group calling for a ban on the weapons says it understands the Defence Force is unwilling to pay for a more comprehensive test for absorbed uranium.

"There is a real resistance to paying for the proper tests," Rob Green of the Peace Foundation says.

A parliamentary briefing paper with the bill says depleted uranium munitions are made from the waste from the process of enriching natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors.

It is used for armour-piercing munitions because it is heavy and burns rapidly. Widely used in Afghanistan, it gives off a very fine dust.

The paper says about a third of 800,000 US and British Gulf War veterans now claim disability benefits for a mystery illness, and there has also been a sharp increase in certain cancers and child deformities in Iraq.

There is suspicion that the same is occurring in Afghanistan, but while depleted uranium was a suspected cause, nothing had been confirmed.

New Zealand does not have the weapons, but the parliamentary paper says Defence personnel returning from Afghanistan have had to provide urine samples for testing. It also says UK specialist Dr Chris Busby has called for the Defence Force to use a more sensitive testing system because of the fineness of uranium dust.

National has written to advocates of a ban on depleted uranium, saying there was no conclusive evidence it posed a significant threat to health or the environment, while supporting continued monitoring.

NZ’s Afghan veterans tested for radioactivity and Beyond Treason or why DU does not show up in Ordinary Radiation TestsTests.

Travellerev

Aotearoa: a Wider Perspective,

25 June, 2012

I once had the opportunity to speak with Doug Rokke, one of the most ardent anti DU advocates.

Doug Rokke is the man who wrote the book on DU and the disposal of weapons of mass destruction for the US army. He should know. He is dying of the effects of DU poisoning.

As a military man his whole life and a true American patriot he has come to the conclusion that the US military knowingly has polluted hundreds of thousands of their soldiers with the nano-articled radio active dust that is spread around from the moment the bullets leave the gun where soldiers inhale the dust.

The news that soldiers now have to do a test in order to see if they have been exposed to the DU dust is a joke as the low emitting radiation particles does not show up in the test which is made for the high radiation nuclear fall out of nuclear disasters.

The particles of DU which are so small that they can get trough skin barriers and nestle in areas of the body where they will radiate low doses of radiation can cause cancer and other illnesses over long periods of time making it difficult to find out what the real cause of a disease in the future is which is why the governments of countries which has soldiers exposed to DU don’t want to test for the contamination and use tests which are guaranteed not to show it. It might expose them to huge damage claims if it turned out that the DU did cause cancer or deformities in offspring and that is something Governments don’t want.

This Film called Beyond Treason (Sorry can’t embed due to copyright reasons but you can watch it for free wehn you link through) features amongst others Doug Rokke and details the treason the use of DU really is.

Soldiers returning from Afghanistan are having urine tests to check if they have absorbed radioactivity from American depleted uranium munitions.

The Defence Force has confirmed the tests “as a precautionary measure”, but there has yet to be a positive result.

The issue will come before Parliament on Wednesday during the first reading of the Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill, backed by Labour MP Phil Twyford.