November 09, 2004

Dear Mr. Nader,

The U.S. general elections are now concluded, and the political map of the official organs of representation is clear. We are now assured of a steady sail on the same course, especially when it comes to the "war on terrorism," as the U.S. government likes to call its naked and illegal aggression in the Middle East.

With the latest siege of Fallujah, we are faced with the openly stated goal of destroying hundreds of thousands of lives so as to secure an Iraqi "free" election by the end of January 2005. The U.S. military forces are about to do to this Iraqi city what the Russians did to Grozny, capital of Chechnya; i.e. raze it to the ground and make it uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

The idea being, through the utter destruction of the urban structures you deny the resistance their operating space, much like deforestation for example, was supposed to refuse the Vietnamese resistance operating space. Innocent, unarmed citizens, for whose supposed voting rights the American soldiers are killing them in tens of thousands, are to be thankful and grateful for all this. Truly amazing how the official logic works!

To a very tall list of international laws and treaties being violated by the U.S. government, we must add the most noxious international illegality regarding the daily use of uranium-enriched munitions by the armed forces of the United States of America.

Uranium weapons are in violation of U.S. laws and meet the federal definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction: US CODE, Title 50: Chapter 40, Section 2302: The term "weapon of mass destruction" means any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people through the release, dissemination, or impact of - (A) toxic or poisonous chemicals or their precursors; (B) a disease organism; or (C) radiation or radioactivity." Depleted uranium WMD are therefore illegal under US Military Law, and all international treaties, agreements, and the Geneva and Hague Conventions.

As the uranium contained in munitions is vaporized upon impact, and as a result of the subsequent oxidation, the uranium dust that is produced stays suspended in the air in particles measured in microns (a thousandth of a millimeter), and easily attached to dust or rain and carried further. All living beings then are contaminated. These particles, whose half life is 4.5 billion years, can be lodged in the lungs, the hilar lymph nodes, the kidneys, the nervous system, in the reproductive organs, and in the bones. As explained by Dr. Hooper, Professor emeritus at the University of Sunderland, to writer Akira Tashiro, "A particle five microns or less can lodge permanently in the lungs … Theoretically, it would take about 24,000 years for all the particles to be completely eliminated from the body," (Discounted Casualties, Chugoku Shimbun, 2001, p. 95).

And this is very old news indeed. As Leuren Moret, former geoscientist at Livermore National Laboratories, who has since been informing the world of the horrors of uranium munitions, writes, "In a declassified memo to General Leslie R. Groves, dated October 30, 1943, three of the top physicists in the Manhattan Project, Dr James B Conant, A H Compton, and H C Urey, made their recommendation, as members of the Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee, on the 'Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon’: 'As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small … There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty … it will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large enough to be extremely damaging,’" ("Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War," in, World Affairs-The Journal of International Issues, July 2004).

With an increasing number of Iraqi cities likely to come under siege, it can be safely assumed that increasing tonnage of uranium-enriched munitions will be used in these densely packed urban, populated areas.

In view of the fact that the genocidal and omnicidal (killing of all living things) impacts of the U.S. and the UK’s military tactics in using uranium munitions are denied vehemently, while the clinical and the criminal evidence piles higher, and while other more "mundane" atrocities are becoming normalized, we must clearly communicate with the U.S. and UK soldiers and their families about what lies ahead for those exposed to uranium munitions.

As a result of the unprecedented proliferation of uranium munitions by the U.S. and the UK military forces in the Gulf region between 1991 and August 2004, Terry Jemison of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs has reported that 518,739 soldiers returning from the Gulf region in that 13-year period are currently on medical disability. In that same time period only 7,039 were injured on the battlefield. Sixty five percent of the post-war babies born to a group of 400 returning soldiers were born with severe deformities - missing brains, missing eyes, arms and legs and other organs (see, "Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad," by Leuren Moret, San Francisco Bay View, August 18, 2004). This trend will continue to grow worse, as an increasing tonnage of uranium munitions is used.

There are reports that people in the big business of war are well aware of the growing U.S. public awareness and increasing opposition to uranium munitions. The U.S. authorities are therefore currently beginning to outsource the manufacturing of uranium into munitions to Belgium and South Africa.

In a recent email interview with Leuren Moret, she revealed that: "I called [a] veteran who was in munitions, Special OPs, and has testified in Congress ... He said that soldiers he is in touch with who are on active duty told him that recently crates of depleted uranium ballistics (bullets, missiles and bombs) have been arriving at the port at Corpus Christi, Texas. There is a large U.S. Army depot there where munitions are stored for distribution to all branches of the military. There is also a quarantine station there which may mean extra privacy for whatever they are doing with the DU. The crates of DU ballistics are labeled with point of embarkation as "Belgium" or "South Africa ". He said that Belgium is where NATO headquarters is located, and that the winds there blow out to sea which would carry any depleted uranium dust or residue away from populated areas. The munitions are being shipped to the U.S. for storage and deployment here. He said the metal DU is shipped to those countries for manufacturing, a way to appease the outcry in the U.S. against DU munitions."

When I suggested to Ms Moret that, following from the available statistics, we can extrapolate that at least 50,000 returning soldiers will die in a decade, her objection was that my estimate was too low. She emphasized that all future generations born to contaminated people will continue to express birth defects from their damaged DNA.

The planned and conscious proliferation of uranium poisoning by the U.S. and the UK governments must be used in campaigns of organized, legal mass mutiny. In this effort, the clear clinical evidence that exists of the effects of uranium munitions’ use must be widely disseminated among the armed forces of the U.S. and the UK, both the ones already on the ground as well as those being dispatched. The governments of the U.S. and the UK must be held accountable.

Mr. Nader, on behalf of millions of voiceless Iraqi and Afghan citizens, as an American citizen born in the Middle East, I urge you to use the same courage of conviction that sustained your fight for consumers’ rights to bring the public’s attention into focus on this genocidal act by the U.S. armed forces. We are appealing to you and your expertise since the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have consistently refused to acknowledge the long-term genocidal effects of uranium-enriched munitions in the illegal wars they are conducting in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are convinced that, with the available clinical data regarding the health of soldiers returning from the Middle Eastern theatres of war, part of which is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and parts of which can be attained from other U.S. Government agencies, a case can and must be brought forth to:

1) order the U.S. government to cease and desist in its use of uranium-enriched munitions,
2) bring to justice manufacturers of such munitions,

3) bring to justice all government officials connected to approval and issuance of directives for use of uranium munitions,

4) ban all future manufacture/use of uranium in munitions, or in any other military or industrial product or manufacturing process,

5) inform all victims of exposure to uranium munitions as to what has caused the health problems they are experiencing,

6) compensate all victims of exposure to uranium munitions for their suffering,

7) inform all military personnel dispatched to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as their families about the exact amounts of exposure to uranium dust/gas by their loved ones while in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the all possible consequences of such exposure,

8) inform all Iraqi and Afghan citizens about the exact tonnage of uranium-enriched munitions used against their communities, with exact statistics on locations of tonnage dropped or used in ballistics, its subsequent atmospheric contamination, and its capabilities for harm to organic life,

9) completely compensate all Iraqi and Afghan citizens for the permanent devastation imposed on their environment caused by the U.S. military forces’ use of uranium munitions.

Mr. Nader, as a person familiar with the legal and legislative structures that exist in the United States of America, and as a person who has successfully brought to fruition campaigns of change to that legal system, you are best equipped to look into and act on the illegalities of uranium munitions’ use in this ongoing illegal war. As an advocate of citizens’ rights, you have championed their rights to be informed of hazardous materials pushed on them by private corporations. Here is a case of intentional unprecedented harm inflicted by the United States government on U.S. citizens and foreigners alike, one that cries out for your loud and indulgent attention.

Please act on behalf of the citizens whose rights have been stripped; both citizens in countries under attack by the U.S. aggression, whose murdered citizens now number uneasily at well above 100,000 in Iraq alone, as well as on behalf of the citizens of the U.S. itself. Innocent civilian populations are dying at alarming rates; children, women and men, the elderly and the unarmed civilians die needlessly and mercilessly, just so that a tiny elite’s pockets may be filled even more so with others’ riches. It is pure barbarity to be killing such vast numbers of innocents on no pretext whatsoever, and a far worse barbarity to be killing the future generations of people, in Iraq and Afghanistan and the neighboring countries condemned to living forever in radioactively poisoned ecosystems.

Mr. Nader, please bring your political clout and expertise to the task of exposing and stopping this atrocity being committed against humanity, a war crime if there ever was one.

Yours sincerely,

Reza Fiyouzat


Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance writer living in Japan. Fiyouzat can be reached at rfaze@gol.com.



Courtesy of Reza Fiyouzat