[CPEO-MEF] Afghanistan: TheDepleted Uranium Nuclear NightmareStarts(coastalpost.

[Shanti Renfrew <autodelete66@yahoo.com>]

Afghanistan: The Nuclear Nightmare Starts
By Davey Garland

When questions were asked in the British parliament a year ago about
whether depleted uranium (DU) weapons had been used in the military
strikes on Afghanistan, "It is not being used at present" was defense
minister Geoff Hoon's reply.

A few days earlier, Hoon had been similarly vague on the issue, assuring
us that: "No British forces currently engaged in operations around
Afghanistan are armed with depleted uranium ammunition. However, we do
not rule out the use of depleted uranium ammunition in Afghanistan,
should its penetrative capability be judged necessary in the future."

The defense minister played his cards close to his chest, no doubt
having been informed that DU or other uranium weapons were being used by
the United States (and no doubt British) forces to penetrate the caverns
of Tora Bora and other targets (including civilian ones), especially in
the vicinity of Kabul.

The refusal of the Ministry of Defense to fully admit that dangerous
uranium weapons may have been used in Afghanistan and the conflicts in
the Balkans (Bosnia and Kosova), when evidence shows the contrary,
illustrates just how sensitive the government is to the possibility that
its use, or its collusion in the use, of weapons of mass destruction may
be discovered.

This is not just because thousands of innocent civilians will suffer due
to radiological (and heavy metal) poisoning, but also because the
government is prepared to send British troops and aid workers, possibly
for a long occupation of the war zones, ill-equipped and vulnerable to
contamination.

When the Afghan crisis began, many of us believed that a great amount of
DU/dirty uranium would be used to achieve the US-British campaign
objectives, both to penetrate the opposition's hideouts in rocky terrain
and to test new weapons systems (dirty uranium or dirty DU contains
radioactive contaminants, such as plutonium isotopes, derived from spent
fuel from power reactors). The amount used in Afghanistan might have
exceeded the several hundred ton's of DU/dirty uranium used in the
1990-91 Gulf War and the Balkans conflicts.

[THIS ARTICLE CAN BE VIEWED AT:
http://www.coastalpost.com/03/01/03.htm ]

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