Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 13. Juli 2004 / Time Line July 13, 2004
Version 3.007/13/2004
UN report raps CPA over actions involving Iraqi oil
sector
http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/3719005.xml?p=Oil/News&S=n
By: Tyson Slocum
Research Director
Public Citizen's Energy Program
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has sent a report to the Security
Council calling into question a variety of actions by the the
Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ruled Iraq until the
handover of sovereignty in late June. Among the things questioned
by the report were the awarding of so-called sole-sourced
contracts, employing of barter transactions where oil was concerned
which presented a "scope for fraudulent or non-transparent
transactions," and a lack of "adequate control" over Iraqi oil
production. The report was prepared by the International Advisory
and Monitoring Board for Iraq, which was set up by the UN Security
Council to oversee the handling of Iraq's oil revenue after the
ousting of the former Iraqi regime. It was tasked with assuring
that the oil revenues were spent to benefit Iraqis. The concerns
detailed in the report were communicated to the CPA before it was
dissolved. The report said the CPA promised to take the appropriate
action on all the issues raised in the report.
07/13/2004
Radiation in Iraq equals 250,000 Nagasaki bombs
By Bob Nichols,
Online Journal Contributing Writer
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/071304Nichols/071304nichols.ht=
As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe what 142
degrees in the shade is like. I've seen 120 degrees in Phoenix and
110 degrees in the spa's sauna I use. One hundred forty-two degrees
leaves me speechless. Try to imagine 142 D temperature while
wearing a helmet, long sleeve shirt, long pants, a bulletproof
vest, boots, and carrying a 70-pound pack.
By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada are said to have 37
words to precisely talk about different kinds of snow.
So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq it seemed like a
good time to float this story to different Internet sites and news
publications. There was one story in 2003 of a 19-year old British
soldier whose military job was to work in a British tank. In Iraq.
In the summer. Word is, from London, that he forgot to drink enough
water and he literally cooked in his tank.
But, this story is not about the temperature in Iraq. You can bet,
though, the weather will be really important for those Americans
unfortunate enough to still be in Iraq this summer.
This story is about American weapons built with depleted uranium
components for the business end of things. Just about all American
bullets, tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and
2,000-pound bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered to
help our side in the war of us against them has depleted uranium in
it. Lots of depleted uranium.
In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800 pounds of the
stuff. This article is about how much radioactive depleted uranium
our guys, representing us, the citizens of the United States, let
fly in Iraq. Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the
stuff, give or take, according to the Pentagon and the United
Nations. That is a bunch.
Now, most people have no idea how much Four Million Pounds of
anything is, much less of depleted uranium oxide dust (UOD), which
this stuff turns into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to
say it is about equal to 1,333 cars that weigh 3,000 pounds apiece.
That is a lot of cars; but we can imagine what a parking lot with
1,333 is like. The point is this was and is an industrial strength
operation. It is still going on, too.
No sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of Radioactive Uranium Dust
(RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a definitely "on-purpose" kind of
thing. It was not "just an accident." We, the citizens of the
United States, through our kids in the Army, did this on
purpose.
When the depleted uranium bullets, missiles, or bombs hit something
or explode most of the radioactive uranium turns instantly into
very, very small dust particles, too fine to even see (they call
it: uranium oxide, that's the really bad stuff). When US troops or
Iraqis breathe even a tiny amount into their lungs, as little as
one gram, it is the same as getting an X-Ray every hour for the
rest of their shortened life.
The depleted uranium cannot be removed, there is no treatment,
there is no cure. The depleted uranium will long outlast the
veterans' and the Iraqis' bodies though; for, you see, it lasts
virtually forever.
But, it gets worse. Seems an admiral who is the former chief of the
naval staff of India wanted to know how much radiation this
represented. He also wanted to express the amount in a figure that
the world, especially the non-American world, could easily
understand.
The admiral decided to figure out how many Nagasaki plutonium bombs
it would take to include the equivalent of the total amount of
radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003 in the Four Million Pounds of
depleted uranium.
The admiral also wanted to figure out how much radiation the United
States Military Forces have deployed in the last five American
wars, the so-called Five Nuclear Radiation Wars.
That is a simple enough task for somebody like the naval chief of
staff for a country that is a member of the Nuclear Club. Using the
Nagasaki bomb for the measuring stick is a particularly gruesome
twist, though. For those of you in the States who do not know it,
United States military forces dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan at
the close of World War II. The rest of the world remembers
that.
One atom bomb was dropped by Americans on the city of Hiroshima,
the other bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days later. About
170,000 to 250,000 people were vaporized or incinerated
immediately. It was a really big deal.
It is a measuring stick that plays very well in the rest of the
world; but, not very well on American Fox News (Fair &
Balanced)(c) channel or the rest of the Fox-like American media.
The Department of Energy still lists the Hiroshima and Nagasaki
detonations as "tests".
The admiral released the data months ago at a scientific conference
in India. This article is the first report of the data in the
United States. It will first be released on the Internet.
The admiral in India calculated the amount of radiation in the
Nagasaki bomb and compared it with the number in the 4,000,000
pounds of depleted uranium left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now,
believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is
essentially what the experts in India did.
How many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation in the 2003 Iraq war?
Answer: about 250,000 Nagasaki bombs.
How many Nagasaki bombs equal the radiation in the last Five
American Nuclear Radiation Wars? Answer: about 400,000 Nagasaki
bombs.
Who would do something like this?
We would. The only people in the history of the world to engage in
nuclear wars are Americans, citizens of the United States.
Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese of WWII also wanted to engage
in nuclear wars, except the American military beat them to the
draw, so to speak.
Respected academic scholars could debate forever whether or not
Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of Germany, would have deployed uranium
munitions in the Sudetenland if the weapons had been available.
Certainly the Germans knew just as much about uranium wars as we
did at the time. It seems doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have
ordered the use of uranium munitions there because the Sudetenland
was so close to the Fatherland, Nazi Germany.
An American general named Leslie Groves was in charge of the bomb
making operation called The Manhattan Project. In 1943 The War
Department knew exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were good
for.
If the nuclear weapons did not detonate in Japan, the use of
uranium bullets and bombs were the fall back position. It was not
'til Ronald Reagan was president in 1981 did the re-named Defense
Department resurrect the deadly radioactive uranium bullets,
shells, bombs, and missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was
Ronnie Ray-Gun.
The American military knew the symptoms of radiation poisoning in
1943, too; starting with the irritated sore throat through to an
agonizing death from being cooked from the inside out.
President [sic] Bush promised to invade and attack many countries
in the 2003 State of the Union speech. I believe the man. For some
reason, some misguided Americans do not believe him, or think he
was "exaggerating." The rest of the world has every reason to
believe him and fear him, though.
Not to worry, Americans, the president [sic] has plenty of raw
material for radioactive uranium munitions left. There are more
than 77,000 tons stored at the 103 nuclear waste plants and a
stunning 1.5 billion pounds at the several nuclear weapons labs and
related facilities in the US.
Each nuke waste generating plant makes another 250 pounds of
radioactive material a day for radioactive bullets, shells, bombs,
and missiles. Not to put too fine a point on it; but that is enough
for 288 more gloriously successful campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear
Radiation War in Iraq. Who's next?
Every year about this time the southern winds leave a fine desert
sand on the windshields of cars parked outside in Africa then
Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this sand dust will carry a
surprise. Thanks to the Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the
world. And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.
These depleted uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing effect gives
a whole new meaning to the age old term: cannon fodder. In Iraq,
what goes around, comes around. If not the depleted uranium
munitions themselves, the depleted uranium dust will be in the
bodies of our returning armed forces, time bombs slowly ticking
away the lives of the gullible and the ignorant with their very own
personal internal radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st
Century American Nuclear Radiation Wars.
A lot of people have done everything they can think of to stop
these nuclear wars. Even more specifically to stop the use of
depleted uranium in munitions and shut down the nuclear power
plants. We have tried and failed for years. Why don't you give it a
try? Can't hurt anything! Write what steps you would take to turn
this situation around.
Contact me at: bobnichols@cox.net. - Copyright 2004, Bob Nichols.
All rights reserved. Permission for reposting is granted provided
the complete text and attribution are kept intact.
Bob Nichols writes in Oklahoma City and is a contributing writer
for LiberalSlant, Democratic Underground, Online Journal,
AmericaHeldHostage, and other online publications. Mr. Nichols is a
frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer and other print
publications. He is a member of CASE-Citizens' Action for Safe
Energy, and president of the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. CASE has
successfully killed two serious, well funded attempts to build
nuclear power plants in Oklahoma and several attempts to site what
is now known as the "Yucca Mountain Reactor Dump" in Oklahoma. All
these efforts to build nuclear facilities have failed. CASE won
every time.
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