| 4th February 2001 |
To Government Standards
Piotr Bein, piotr.bein@imag.net,
Vancouver, Canada
A “leftist – Milosevic hysteria” or a deliberate cover-up by Pentagon and
NATO? Developments so far cast a shadow of suspicion on the motive and conduct
of NATO investigations regarding depleted uranium (DU) effects on soldiers who
served in the Balkans. I remarked in an earlier
article that criminals neither investigate, nor try, nor convict
themselves. Finding evidence for the DU-illness connection became subject of a
“process”. NATO “manages” it like it did the justification of
“humanitarian interventions,” the bombing of civilians in the Balkans and
Iraq, or ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Bureaucracies know how to cover-up their
own and corporate interests. There is a long track record of cover-ups by the
military and the nuclear industry. Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979
was one case.
From
the Annals of Nuke Cover-ups
Dr.
Rosalie Bertell, a renowned epidemiologist and an expert on the health effects
of low level radiation, delivered a statement on July 10th, 1998
concerning the ongoing cover-up of the 1979 Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear
reactor accident. As the President of the International Institute of Concern for
Public Health, she publicly
addressed President Carter. The tools used then are worth
bringing to the public attention in the present DU case.
Thirteen
years earlier, the daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover, “father” of
the nuclear navy, testified about the cover-up of the TMI accident. In May 1983,
Admiral Rickover told her he advised President Jimmy Carter that if the report
about the accident was published in its entirety, it would have destroyed the
civilian nuclear power industry.
“The
accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made
public,” testified Jane Rickover. The admiral told his daughter-in-law that he
used his “enormous personal influence” with President carter to persuade him
to publish the report only in a highly “diluted” form. “In November 1985,
my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in
persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that
report,” stated Jane Rickover.
Bertell
found that the nuclear dose officially assigned to the public included only the
dose after the meters were in place the third day after the accident.
“Accident" meant that the government subtracted radiation dose received
during the same time period in 1978 when the TMI reactors were all operating and
there was Chinese nuclear test fallout. NATO “experts” doctored both the
concentration of DU over Kosovo and the internal dose to an organ from an
ingested particle of DU dust.
It
might have been legally but not morally permissible to withhold the information
about TMI accidental dose under national security law at the time, but after the
Cold War, argued Bertell, it was no longer credible that the US government
protected the nuclear industry at the cost of the lives and health of its
citizens. Dr. Bertell demanded a full disclosure from Jimmy Carter.
President
Carter set up the Blue Ribbon Panel to investigate the TMI accident. The members
of this advisory public panel did not have FBI clearance, that is, they did not
have full access to the truth about the accident, with the possible exception of
Dr. Kemmeny who had worked on the Manhattan Project. Government staff did have
the security clearance and were able to withhold any information their superiors
wanted to declare "classified”.
Health
effects of radiation could be concealed under the guise of national security at
the time, since nuclear weapons program demanded that workers and soldiers
handle radioactive material. One wonders if “security” reasons make the NATO
brass and their subservient agents lie through the teeth, I mean “to
project the truth” about DU.
The
authorities never answered who was in charge of reactor operations during the
accident. Lack of answers on the security clearance issue and who was the
operator precipitated the dissolution of the entire advisory panel. The panel
had never been invited to hearings in Washington. The Industry Advisory Council
continued to function during the investigation. The present DU case eliminated
public participation from the outset. All investigations are vested in either
NATO or bodies such as UN that are controlled by NATO governments.
The
nuclear industry has frustrated the litigation of all of the serious health
claims of the TMI exposed people, in spite of the Supreme Court's ruling in 1997
that these claims must be heard. Lawyers for the nuclear industry were boasting
that they were "invincible" before the Courts. They have managed to
eliminate all of the expert witnesses which the victims had engaged to bring
their cause before the Court, causing the cases to be dismissed for lack of
witnesses. It has not come to this yet, but is likely, if the DU whistle-blowers
were already intimidated and shot at.
Thousands
of TMI accident victims have “not had their day in court!” stated outraged
Bertell almost 20 years after the accident. This dismissal was accomplished
through a judge's ruling, not through the court hearing which the people had
been promised after the Supreme Court Ruling. “This is blatant violation of
justice and of the human rights of the victims. It is especially abhorrent in
the questions of health effects of radiation, a field of public health which was
usurped by the nuclear physicists under the exigencies of potential nuclear war
after World War II,” ended Dr. Bertell so fittingly to the present DU case.
Did
Not See Any Reason
Former
Pentagon expert on DU, Dr. Doug Rokke, who testified
before the British House of Commons, has a litany of critique against the US
authorities in a consistent cover-up of DU dangers. According to Rokke, the
evidence about gruesome health and life effects of DU on civilians in the
Persian Gulf was never allowed into the Western world. Attempts of Iraqi
scientists to bring the problem forward met with a cold shoulder. At the same
time, claims of the Gulf War veterans were “managed” as were complaints of
civilians near DU shooting ranges and processing and manufacturing plants around
the world.
No
information regarding clean up of extensive DU contamination was ever given to
Iraq, but Kuwait received the full package from the US. “Iraqi, Kosovo, and
Serbian representatives have asked numerous times for DU contamination
management and medical care procedures but they have been continuously rebuffed
by US officials. Although residents of Vieques, who are US citizens, have also
asked for medical care and completion of environmental remediation DoD officials
have not responded and medical treatment of DU casualties,” testified Rokke.
Assistant
Secretary of the Army Dr. Bernard Rostker said in 1999 that he did not see any
reason why the US should tell anyone where DU was used in Kosovo.
“Consequently military personnel and civilians have been exposed,” wrote Dr.
Rokke in the testimony.
Despite
Rokke’s January 1996 delivery of manuals on DU that he was commissioned by
Pentagon to produce, “US Army, US Department of Defence, British, German,
Canadian, and Australian officials disregarded repeated directives and did not
implement or only have implemented portions of the training or management
procedures,” according to Dr. Rokke.
Contrary
to Rokke’s report, medical care was not provided to all DU casualties,
environmental remediation was not completed, DU contaminated and damaged
equipment and materials were recycled to manufacture new products, DU training
and education was only partially implemented, and DU contamination management
procedures were not distributed. These failures have been verified by US General
Accounting Office investigative report of March 2000.
Science
on the Go
“But
the above is old stuff from Rokke, the government has surely changed since,” I
hear the sceptic say. Nope!
Dr.
Doug Rokke, one of a multitude of American military who were seriously exposed
to DU in the Persian Gulf in 1991 wrote to the Internet on January 25th,
2001, “The DU medical program administrator for the US Department of Veterans
Affairs […[ under Dr. Melissa McDiarmid […] is responsible for our medical
care [but] only has 63 of us in the program. [McDiarmid] has not had me back for
care since March 1999. She knows that I am sick and what has occurred. Melissa
does not return my telephone calls even though I am her patient,” wrote Rokke.
Pentagon
refuses to give the names of all exposed persons and systematically doctors
“scientific” reports through manipulation from a high level. One forgery
involved former Senator Warren Rudman and retired Rear Admiral Paul Steinman,
who biased and censored a serious inquiry into the Pentagon’s handling of Gulf
War illness, run by Dr. Bernard Rostker.
About
the authors of DU reports from RAND, Rokke wrote recently that they participated
in neither post-Gulf War recovery of damaged armour, nor in any tests of DU
weapons. RAND report co-author Naomi Harley “never read any of the test
reports until I sent [them] to her months after she wrote the report during
January 2000. She never has talked to any of our physicians or see any of our
medical records […] never treated any DU casualties […] refuses to help
anyone obtain medical care.”
Dr.
Rostker who is “managing” the DU science for Pentagon is a former RAND
accountant, so it should not be surprising that RAND is his favourite
“science” contractor for Pentagon. “As for most recent reports from OSAGWI
and PSOB [Pentagon] changed my own reports and findings in their recent
versions. They still wilfully ignore medical evidence,” revealed Rokke.
What
did you expect?
Not
Stored Away
How
are the governments so sure of “no link”? The contribution of other factors
to the collection of “unexplained” illnesses of which Gulf War, Bosnia and
Kosovo veterans have complained, is difficult to dissociate from DU poisoning.
Governments spend our taxes to do useless uranium tests for sick Gulf War
veterans. Uranium
Medical Project (UMP) whose research lab is located at the
University of Newfoundland in Canada, cuts through this nonsense.
Labs
chosen by the government do not have the right equipment or methods and would
not be able to detect the levels of uranium isotopes in the veterans. Many
veterans from the UK, Canada and the US are waiting and many cannot afford to be
tested unless the government will pay for proper tests. Veterans need
to know that the research will be done properly and subsequently
published, not just stored away.
UMP
scientists, Len Dietz and Dr. Asaf Durakovic do not wish to be part of a
government contract that might compromise their science. They stated, however,
that they might be willing to lend the lab facilities and expertise, but the
government never asked for it. Durakovic fled his native USA from intimidation
in order to continue independent research abroad and to help veterans
contaminated with DU. UMP recently found a lab in Europe that has the required
equipment and expertise to help with the research.
Dietz
and Durakovic test for minute quantities left over in the body from inhaling DU
ten years ago. “Veterans who breathed high levels of aerosolized DU could have
incorporated it into their bones from where it is a released into the urine. The
positive results we obtained from bones of a Canadian veteran Terry Riordon who
died last year are evidence of this process […] supported by the medical
literature,” state the scientists at the UMP website.
The
Canadian military deemed UMP lab not "accredited". Commercial labs
preferred by the government are “accredited” through an annual fee of
$100,000. UMP research facility does not have money for “accreditation” dues
in a club disguised by bureaucrats as ISO 9000 standard. None of the few
comparable labs in Canada are ISO accredited and they don’t want to be
involved in scientifically difficult and politically charged work.
Findings
UMP
analyzed uranium isotopes in urine and internal organs of ten randomly selected
British and Canadian Gulf War veterans. Five of the ten samples demonstrated the
concentrations of uranium 238 and 235 in the range of natural uranium and five
were in the range of DU. Three of the positive DU samples were highly
significant, which means chance did not play a role in the results.
Terry
Riordon was diagnosed with Gulf War illness before he died. A post-mortem
analysis of lung, kidney, liver, and bone from his body confirmed the presence
of DU in bone tissue. The liver and kidney samples did not contain a significant
amount of DU. This was in agreement with uranium distribution and retention in
the body. Uranium tends to deposit in the skeletal tissue.
UMP
findings agree with the clinical description of multiple complaints of Gulf War
syndrome. Evidence of the presence of DU in the urine samples and internal
organs of the contaminated Gulf War veterans points to DU as one of the possible
causes of the Gulf War syndrome. The results were peer reviewed and presented at
the European Association of Nuclear Medicine Conference in Paris on September 3rd,
2000, and were published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Gulf
War veteran Angus Parker from the British National Gulf Veterans and Families
Association believes that testing of human tissue of civilians and soldiers who
died or are sick of DU will provide the link to various forms of ill health,
“I believe this is the one piece of the puzzle still not accounted for in peer
review […] when this piece is provided it will end our battle.”
NATO
country governments will do everything to prevent such testing and results going
public. This is why they intimidated Dr. Durakovic and now are playing the ISO
9000 accreditation game.
Would
a lab in a country independent of NATO offer to carry out the tests? Would NATO
ad hoc committee on DU recommend to Lord Robertson that the country be bombed,
or the lab up blown-up by NATO Special Operations? Or will this silly
information war continue to the public’s disgust and detriment of the
contaminated persons?
UN
Covers Up
Superpowers
exploit the UN in cover-up schemes. World Health Organization (WHO) and UN
Environment Program (UNEP) that should protect the environment and health became
accomplices to environmental extermination and genocide. On May 1st,
2000, three months after NATO had officially confirmed using DU munitions in
Kosovo, Robert Parsons criticized UN and Pentagon for saying that there was too
little information for firm conclusions but no cause for serious concern.
“[A]nother episode in a game of hide-and-don't-tell that the U.S. government
has been playing for years,” wrote Parsons.
NATO's
admission alarmed aid agencies in Kosovo. WHO was asked to investigate, but it
is obliged to give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the last word
over subjects of radiation. A fact sheet being prepared on DU by WHO was
cancelled. IAEA was set up in 1950s by the US and other nuclear powers to clear
the nuclear industry of liabilities arising from radiation effects on the
public.
A
UN Balkans Task Force produced a report of serious DU contamination after 1991
NATO attack. UNEP director Klaus Toepfer suppressed it under pressure from
Washington, but it eventually leaked out. UNEP brought out a major study again
in October 1999, but on orders from Toepfer a long chapter on DU was chopped
down to two pages. Alpha radiation from DU was not found because measuring was
done using Geiger counters incapable of detecting it.
The
task force had tried to involve WHO, but IAEA excluded them from the radiation
appraisal. Faced with IAEA’s opposition, WHO embarked on a "generic"
study of DU only as a heavy metal. It became known later that the study was
under Dr. Michael Repacholi, an electro-magnetic field expert, who delegated it
to Barry Smith, a geologist in England.
After
six months’ delay by NATO, the Balkans Task Force report conclusions were
played down. At a press conference, the task force chairman, former Finnish
environmental minister Pekka Haavisto, disclosed a map of DU sites that was
released by NATO at the time. But Toepfer's spokesperson, the man who had cut
out 70 pages from the October report, not Haavisto's, orchestrated the event.
The announced conclusion was, “no cause for serious concern.”
In
response, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees quietly decided to refrain from
sending pregnant staff to Kosovo. Those assigned there were given the option of
going elsewhere. Those sent to Kosovo had a note put into the personnel files to
facilitate compensation claims for possible illnesses from DU contamination.
Unlikely
NATO
announced in January 2001 that WHO and UNEP confirmed no proof of connection
between leukemia and DU, meaning that NATO DU weapons used on a mass scale since
1991 were not a health hazard. Strangely, the statement about UN findings came
from Lord Robertson, as if UN was under the military pact.
The
media quoted "experts affiliated with the WHO in Geneva" as being
sceptical whether or not DU shells used in the Balkans had actually caused cases
of leukemia. Those same experts had warned in a less publicized report that
children playing in DU war zones could be in danger. The remains of tanks and
military vehicles destroyed by DU shells and demolished factories were the most
hazardous sites, according to UNEP.
Another
ambiguous announcement from WHO in Geneva said that it was "unlikely that
depleted-uranium ammunition used by NATO troops could have caused cancer,"
and that it was "unlikely" that exposure to DU "could have led to
a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan
conflict." Having absolved NATO of responsibility for health hazards from
DU, WHO intended to study cancer rate in “military personnel who served in the
Gulf War or Balkans."
I
guess thousands of children, and others in Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia, who died or
are ill with a variety of diseases and birth defects, don’t fall under WHO
jurisdiction.
(copyleft: reproduce and acknowledge the source)
This page: http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/bein/standards.htm
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