According to some military and science experts, the U.S. military has been using the equivalent of dirty bombs in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom; and the resulting contamination is biogenetically affecting U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and civilians and will continue to do so for generations to come.

The Louisiana House of Representatives became the first legislative body in the nation to acknowledge the toxic effects of depleted uranium (DU) when it passed a bill on Tuesday that guarantees DU testing for war veterans as a medical benefit. The bill passed by a vote of 101-0. No state expenses will be incurred since the federal government subsidizes the $170 test. The bill will become law if passed by the state Senate and signed by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

"The Army calls it the silver bullet. But the team that was assigned to go in and clean up after the first Gulf War was one hundred men," said Ret. Marine Corps Command Sgt. Maj. Bob Smith, who served three tours of duty in the elite Green Berets during the Vietnam War. "A third of them are already dead," he said. Smith is responsible for bringing the issue to the attention of House Rep. Jalila Jefferson. Jefferson enlisted House Rep. Juan LaFonta, who agreed to sponsor the bill. "Louisiana is very service friendly," LaFonta said. "We're concerned about our troops."

During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Army officials assembled a team to clean up the DU contaminated tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Most team members became sick within 48 hours, with the first cancers developing within nine months and first deaths from lung cancer within two years. Today, 14 years later, some veterans are still attempting to obtain medical testing and care, but say that military and Veterans Administration (VA) officials simply refuse to provide mandated services.

Permanent contamination, impossible containment

Many U.S. weapons, such as missiles, bombs, bullets, and tank shells contain DU, and act as "kinetic energy penetrators" that ignite during flight, and break into burning fragments upon impact. DU weapons are effective because they can penetrate and destroy all targets, including boring through 20 feet of super-reinforced concrete bunkers. DU is virtually cost-free, since it is a by-product of nuclear weapons production. The U.S. ADAM and PDM sub-munitions are called "the perfect dirty bombs" as each has a uranium casing filled with high explosives.

But these weapons are the proverbial double-edged swords. On detonation, uranium particles vaporize into a radioactive dust (uranium oxide) that coats everything within proximity. The dust can be swept high into the atmosphere, where upper level winds redistribute toxins across national boundaries.

When inhaled, these nano-particles, 100 times smaller than a cell, follow the respiratory system to attack the master code of DNA, and disable the immune system. Uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, so contamination is permanent, and containment is impossible.

According to Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who has worked around the world on radiation issues, depleted uranium is coming back into the U.S. "in veterans' uniforms and trophies and bags." It's also coming back in their bodies, transferred through semen.

Moret cited a U.S. government study, conducted by the VA on post-Gulf War babies in a group of 251 soldiers in Mississippi who all had normal babies before the Gulf War. The study found 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. Some were born without eyes (anophthalmos), ears, with missing organs, missing legs and arms, fused fingers, thyroid or other organ malformations. Moret said that in some families, the only healthy members are those born before the Gulf Wars.

A WMD used against our own?

The health repercussions in Iraq are unprecedented. In babies born in 2002, the incidence of anophthalmos was 250,000 times greater (20 cases in 4,000 births) than the natural occurrence, one in 50 million births.

The Army and Air Force fired at least 127 tons of DU shells in Iraq last year, according to Pentagon spokesman Michael Kilpatrick, in an interview with the New York Daily News. "Because of its density, it is the superior heavy metal for armor to protect tanks and to penetrate armor," Kilpatrick said.

In fact, the effects of DU meet U.S. government standards of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). According to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Publication 1-02, WMDs are "Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons."

"DU is illegal in any sense of the imagination," said Dr. Doug Rokke, a retired U.S. Army Major, nuclear health physicist, and the Pentagon's expert on the health effects of DU ammunition on the battlefield. Rokke was director of the Army's DU project, and wrote the Army regulations for handling and clean up for DU -- regulations he says the U.S. government is blatantly refusing to enforce. Today, although US Army Regulation 700-48 requires DOD officials to provide medical care to all DU casualties and clean up DU contamination, Rokke said they simply refuse to do so.

Rokke said that by continuing to use DU, and by refusing to admit the acknowledged adverse environmental and health effects, DOD officials violate their own orders and regulations. "When we can no longer clean up the environment and we can no longer provide medical care for anybody that's exposed, then that weapon must never be used in conflict," Rokke said.

Long-term casualties

The official number of wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991 was just 467. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in the first Gulf War, 11,000 are now dead, and more than 325,000 are on permanent medical disability. That means 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.

According to a Department of VA Fact Sheet, "Several scientific studies have shown that as a group, Gulf War veterans are reporting symptoms or diseases more frequently than non-Gulf comparison groups." Additionally, the Fact Sheet reports that a Center for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiological study found "multiple symptoms more prevalent in Air Force Gulf veterans compared with controls who served in other areas of the world. Although 39 percent of Air Force Gulf War veterans who were still on duty and were studied by CDC suffered from chronic problems with fatigue, mood, thinking and muscle aches and pains, this was also reported by 15 percent of the non-Gulf group."

And pediatricians for the VA are gathering data to enable "a comparison of child health not only among the Gulf War theater veterans and control cohorts, but also between children in the same family born before the Gulf deployment compared to those born after the conflict."

Marilyn Brown is the customer service coordinator for the Veterans Health Program in New Orleans. Brown said that her office is taking a proactive stance, and making visits to local units to inform veterans of available services. Returning veterans are entitled to two years free medical care, including psychological services; but they must apply within 90 days of returning from active duty. Brown said that she had no record of recently returning veterans suffering from symptoms related to contact with DU. Veterans can apply for services or simply discuss options by calling (504) 568-0811, extension 5913, or 1.800.985.8387. The office is at 1601 Perdido Street.