Depleted uranium in Iraqi cities
Shahid Khandker Toronto, Canada
The weekly Guardian recently published an article stating that British soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests on the levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to check if they are in danger of kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure. The ministry of Defence announced this measure responding to an warning from the Royal Society, Britain's top scientific body, that soldiers and civilians might be exposed to toxic levels. Experts have calculated that between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of depleted uranium were used by the coalition in the Iraq war so far -- more than three times the amount used in the first Gulf War and to make matters worse, this time it was primarily spread in Iraq's cities, not on the battlefields. The uranium and its radioactive decay products will remain toxic for over 4 billion years...and will slowly destroy the genetic future of the Iraqi people. But the death and destruction will not be contained within the borders of Iraq! Winds will spread it throughout the Middle East and beyond. The US has carried out its plan now on Afghanistan and Iraq...which country next? Syria, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Lebanon, Kuwait, the Gulf States, and Iran will breathe the invisible war too... and they may share the fate of the Iraqi people, the caretakers of the cradle of civilisation.
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. PHOTO: AFP |
