Depleted Uranium & Birth Defects
By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.
IBy continuing to use depleted uranium (DU) armor and munitions, the Bush Pentagon is waging radiological warfare against the unborn and indeed against all unborn generations.
By now most people know that DU has damaged tens of thousands of our own troops and caused soaring cancer rates in target populations, including the people of Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Over 130,000 veterans of the first Gulf War have been declared “unfit for service” because of medical conditions which independent scientists and physicians connect to exposure to depleted uranium.
What is less well known is the staggering rate of birth defects in the children of the veterans of these wars. The British are reporting rates as high as 65%. It seems that breathing in the radioactive dust from exploded DU shells not only causes decapacitating illnesses, but massive genetic damage as well.
The use of DU was started by the first President Bush and continued by Clinton. Both could plead ignorance. But now the data is in. We know better. The continued use of over 2,000 tons of this toxic and highly radioactive substance in the current Iraq War is inexcusable.
The result will be countless civilian casualties, tens of thousands of our own troops with respiratory problems, kidney damage, cancers, muscle damage, and other debilitating conditions, and thousands of stillbirths and birth defects. It is particularly ironic that this is being done by a supposedly pro-life administration.
We sincerely hope that this barbaric practice (which violates humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions) will be halted, and that the United States will take the lead in the difficult task of cleaning up the radioactive debris and dust it has spread over much of the Middle East.
And let’s NOT give the contract to Halliburton!
Dr. Robert Bowman was a Col. in the USAF and Chief of Technology Assessment under President Jimmy Carter and is a Catholic Bishop of The Apostolic Society of Franciscan Communities. email: [email protected], web site: www.rmbowman.com. He has been President of the Institute for Space and Security Studies since 1982. Before that he was Vice-President of Space Communications Company; Manager, Advanced Space Programs for General Dynamics; and Director, Advanced Space Programs Development for DoD, directing the “Star Wars” programs.