Discounted Casualties:
The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium 

Akira Tashiro, Chugoku Shimbun June 2001

Chugoku Shimbun http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html

Foreword

I met Akira Tashiro last summer in Hiroshima, when I was invited by Gensuikin to speak about Yucca Mountain and high-level nuclear waste at the Plenary Session of the 2000 World Conference Against Atomic & Hydrogen Bombs. The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki live with the aftermath of the horrific power and annihilation of nuclear bombs dropped on a civilian population, and the extreme cruelty of the lifelong effects of exposure to flash external gamma rays and internal low-level radiation from fallout. This reality has changed the lives of all those who have visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and learned not only about the hibakusha (survivors) of Japan, but of those around the world in Kazakhstan, the Pacific Islanders, and the Western United States. Radiation respects no borders. It is a slow, silent, global mutilator of all life.

No Protective Equipment: These US soldiers are preparing to ship home US tanks destroyed by friendly DU fire. Here they are taking no measures whatsoever to protect themselves from radioactive contamination. All undoubtedly inhaled or ingested DU particles. (Courtesy of Douglas Rokke, taken May 1991, in Saudi Arabia) Original photo

In the 1970's I worked as an earth scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. There the transuranium elements were discovered for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the use of depleted uranium (DU) on the battlefield was first discussed. Later I worked at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, where the design of nuclear weapons continues. Radiation and nuclear weapons are seldom mentioned in a climate of secrecy and denial. Many scientists work in isolation and are only dimly aware of the larger project.

In the moment that I stood in the Hiroshima Peace Museum on the anniversary of the bombing looking up at "Little Boy," I was overwhelmed as a scientist. I realized that engineering and technology had built devices, through the misapplication of science, that could destroy all life on Earth. I saw photos of women with vacant stares nursing dead babies. As a mother and giver of life I wondered how, without conscience, man could destroy 4.5 billion years of life evolving on this Earth. The unbelievably dangerous powers of nuclear weapons have been developed by divorcing science from ethics, a Western phenomenon.

The Chugoku Shimbun, Hiroshima's newspaper, has published two award-winning series on exposure to radiation. The first book, EXPOSURE: Victims of Radiation Speak Out, is a powerful message about the detrimental effects that radioactive substances from nuclear testing and "peaceful uses" of nuclear energy have had on people and the environment. In this second book, Discounted Casualties, personal stories about DU reveal the unbelievable immorality and cruelty of this new radioactive weapon.

Radioactive waste from nuclear weapons development, mixed with high-level waste front nuclear reactors, becomes a lethal cocktail in DU ammunition. In recent reports, the US Department of Energy has admitted that military reactor waste has been mixed with DU. The waste contains plutonium, uranium-236, neptunium and other isotopes thousands of times more radioactive than DU. Disposing of dangerous waste at a profit benefits US government agencies and the military industrial complex, while passing the liability for disposal and the biological and environmental damage to citizens around the world.

Tungsten is a biologically and environmentally safer alternative with greater density and penetrating power. DU bullets are pyrophoric and ignite on impact, producing a smoke that poisons life and travels great distances. The bullet fragments and dust left in the bodies of soldiers cause extended suffering, and cruel and inhumane deaths years after the war has ended. DU is radioactive. It is a toxic metal, and the toxicity is greatly increased when combined with chemicals. It disproportionately affects women and children.

DU munitions are illegal under international human rights and humanitarian law. Nevertheless, the US, the self-proclaimed "International Champion of Human Rights," has used this inhumane weapon on the battlefield, exposing its own soldiers, its allies, civilian populations, and future generations. DU testing in the US continues to expose unsuspecting citizens and the environment. Pilots at Fallen Naval Air Station in Nevada trained on nearby bombing and gunnery ranges for the Gulf War. Now, the "don't look, don't find policy" of the military is concealing the cause of a recent leukemia cluster among children in Fallon. Overseas, the use of radioactive trash in weapons has turned Gulf countries, the Balkans, Vieques Island, and Okinawa into dumpsites for the US government and the radiation industry. A single microscopic particle can cause a lethal disease. DU will continue to poison life from the dust and soils of the battlefields and testing grounds. In ten half-lives, or 45 billion years, the radioactivity will become an insignificant amount.

Which is worse, flash annihilation by nuclear explosions, or slow mutilation from low-level radiation, the result of radioactive contamination of the air, water and earth essential to life? Globally, we have been deceived about the health effects of radiation by bureaucratized governments informed by the military industrial complex and scientific power. In the past half-century, 1.3 billion people have been killed, maimed, and diseased by nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Millions more will be killed, maimed and diseased unless the citizens of the world demand an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, nuclear power, nuclear waste, and the new radiological weapons.

As the bell tolls, we must honor and respect the hibakusha around the world, who are living reminders that we are pulling the rope of our own death knell. Let us thank the citizens of Japan, The Chugoku Shimbun, and Akira Tashiro, for making us aware of the most important issue of this century. And thanks to the veterans, whose stories make it clear that democracies, as well as living bodies, can develop malignancies.

Berkeley, California

June 2001

Leuren Moret
President, Scientists for Indigenous People