2005 Project Censored Award
Scientists uncover radioactive trail in Afghanistan by Stephanie Hiller
"Astounding" levels of uranium in the urine of Afghan civilians
Four months after the attacks in Afghanistan by the US and its allies, under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom, a team of Canadian scientists led by former US Army adviser Dr. Asaf Durakovic, went to the battlefields to test Afghan civilians for evidence of depleted uranium. What they found shocked them.
Instead of depleted uranium, they found medically significant levels of non-depleted uranium in the urine of 100 percent of civilians tested, who live near bomb sites -- 400% to 2000% higher than the normal population baseline. Where did it come from?
Uranium does exist in nature. But all of the likely natural sources -- anomalous geological and agricultural conditions, uranium extracted from weapons production cycles, pottery, uranium mining -- were ruled out. While Al-Qaeda had small nuclear weapons, it did not have the means to deliver them. The uranium had to come from weaponry used during the recent war.
Non-depleted uranium, explains the first of two reports by the medical team, is the feed stock of the enrichment phase of the fuel and weapons development cycles. "NDU" is more radioactive than depleted uranium, whose use, beginning with the first Gulf war, has stirred considerable controversy, with government sources generally insisting that it is relatively innocuous. Nevertheless, more than 221,000 American soldiers are now on disability due to severe war-related symptoms attributed to the mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" and a growing legion of independent scientists and war vets, among them former Army health physicist Doug Rokke and independent researcher Dai Williams, have marshalled stunning evidence that depleted uranium is the cause.
NDU is arguably not significantly more dangerous than DU; speakers at a panel discussion on uraniums weaponry held in Oakland, CA, last December 4, including Patricia Axelrod and Leuren Moret, argue that the issue of nondepleted uranium is nothing more than a red herring to distract attention from concerns about DU. But if the use of NDU indicates experimental application of new nuclear weapons, as the UMRC suggests, then it should alert the public that proliferation of small nuclear weaponry, proposed for some future use, has in fact already begun.
At the six sites studied by the UMRC research team -- two in Kabul, and others in villages South East of the city -- some type of bunker buster bombs had been employed to penetrate multiple levels of concrete and explode under buildings or in the subterranean tunnels Al Qaeda had used as military installations. In all but one location, the hits were accurate. Bombs penetrated roofs without exploding -- "a clue to the weapons' sophistication" -- in some cases punching through concrete floors before detonating. At the Yaka Root Radio Station, "the blast traveled through the walls, destroying equipment stored outside and damaging adjoining buildings and trees. No fire or heat effects were observed in the buildings or on the combustible materials (trees and wooden structures) outside the buildings."
Subjects interviewed reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract.
Reports of that study and a subsequent one by the Uranium Medical Research Center in Canada are posted at the UMRC's web site. The author of the second study, Tedd Weyman, concludes his report with the following story:
http://www.awakenedwoman.com/umrc.htm
"Astounding" levels of uranium in the urine of Afghan civilians
Four months after the attacks in Afghanistan by the US and its allies, under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom, a team of Canadian scientists led by former US Army adviser Dr. Asaf Durakovic, went to the battlefields to test Afghan civilians for evidence of depleted uranium. What they found shocked them.
Instead of depleted uranium, they found medically significant levels of non-depleted uranium in the urine of 100 percent of civilians tested, who live near bomb sites -- 400% to 2000% higher than the normal population baseline. Where did it come from?
Uranium does exist in nature. But all of the likely natural sources -- anomalous geological and agricultural conditions, uranium extracted from weapons production cycles, pottery, uranium mining -- were ruled out. While Al-Qaeda had small nuclear weapons, it did not have the means to deliver them. The uranium had to come from weaponry used during the recent war.
Non-depleted uranium, explains the first of two reports by the medical team, is the feed stock of the enrichment phase of the fuel and weapons development cycles. "NDU" is more radioactive than depleted uranium, whose use, beginning with the first Gulf war, has stirred considerable controversy, with government sources generally insisting that it is relatively innocuous. Nevertheless, more than 221,000 American soldiers are now on disability due to severe war-related symptoms attributed to the mysterious "Gulf War Syndrome" and a growing legion of independent scientists and war vets, among them former Army health physicist Doug Rokke and independent researcher Dai Williams, have marshalled stunning evidence that depleted uranium is the cause.
NDU is arguably not significantly more dangerous than DU; speakers at a panel discussion on uraniums weaponry held in Oakland, CA, last December 4, including Patricia Axelrod and Leuren Moret, argue that the issue of nondepleted uranium is nothing more than a red herring to distract attention from concerns about DU. But if the use of NDU indicates experimental application of new nuclear weapons, as the UMRC suggests, then it should alert the public that proliferation of small nuclear weaponry, proposed for some future use, has in fact already begun.
At the six sites studied by the UMRC research team -- two in Kabul, and others in villages South East of the city -- some type of bunker buster bombs had been employed to penetrate multiple levels of concrete and explode under buildings or in the subterranean tunnels Al Qaeda had used as military installations. In all but one location, the hits were accurate. Bombs penetrated roofs without exploding -- "a clue to the weapons' sophistication" -- in some cases punching through concrete floors before detonating. At the Yaka Root Radio Station, "the blast traveled through the walls, destroying equipment stored outside and damaging adjoining buildings and trees. No fire or heat effects were observed in the buildings or on the combustible materials (trees and wooden structures) outside the buildings."
Subjects interviewed reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract.
Reports of that study and a subsequent one by the Uranium Medical Research Center in Canada are posted at the UMRC's web site. The author of the second study, Tedd Weyman, concludes his report with the following story:
http://www.awakenedwoman.com/umrc.htm
posted by Alice at
Sunday, May 22, 2005
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