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Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. "During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city," recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.
He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command.
U.S. forces could use nuclear-tipped "bunker-buster" bombs against buried terrorist weapons in Iraq, should Congress approve funding to develop the new weapons. The enhanced bombs, called "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators (RNEP)," would be used to destroy caches of weapons of mass destruction hidden deep inside hardened caves and bunkers. Like the conventional "bunker-busters" used in Afghanistan against cave-hidden Taliban and al Qaeda weapons and personnel, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator bomb will not fully detonate until deep below ground. Unlike the explosives in the conventional bunker-buster, however, the RNEP's warhead will pack a nuclear punch.
While the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is undeniably a nuclear weapon, Pentagon officials are quick to point out that it be designed to do its job without spreading radiation into the atmosphere, and that its development would comply with all nuclear arms reduction and test ban treaties.
Originally posted by neformore
Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'
About 98% of uranium entering the body via ingestion is not absorbed, but is eliminated via the faeces. Typical gut absorption rates for uranium in food and water are about 2% for soluble and about 0.2% for insoluble uranium compounds.
Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault• Defects in newborns 11 times higher than normal
War contaminants' from 2004 attack could be cause
Depleted Uranium and Health: Facts and Helpful Suggestions
by Glen Lawrence Ph.d.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY 11201
PDF file) Essential information for soldiers and civilians who are at risk for uranium contamination in areas where DU munitions have been used
"We suspect that the population is chronically exposed to an environmental agent," said one of the report's authors, environmental toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. "We don't know what that environmental factor is, but we are doing more tests to find out."
Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Danbones
DU's entrance through the skin is negligible at best as current research shows.
Secondly, from your article:
"We suspect that the population is chronically exposed to an environmental agent," said one of the report's authors, environmental toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. "We don't know what that environmental factor is, but we are doing more tests to find out."
So this is all supposition and all of you have no damned clue what you're talking about? Gotcha.
Scientific studies have so far established no link between the rounds, which contain ionising radiation to burst through armour and are commonly used on the battlefield.
The report acknowledges that other battlefield residues may also be responsible for the defects. "Many known war contaminants have the potential to interfere with normal embryonic and foetal development," the report says. "The devastating effect of dioxins on the reproductive health of the Vietnamese people is well-known."