-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 26, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

Sara Flounders: We are now learning the true Gulf War casualties

[Sara Flounders of the International Action Center]

We must take note that once again B-52 bombers have struck Iraq, and now Stealth bombers are poised to bomb again.

Clinton, Dole and Kemp were outdoing each other today talking about "protecting our soldiers." If nothing else, the issue of depleted uranium proves that the Pentagon never cared about the safety of its soldiers. It is perfectly willing to just use them, poison them and throw them away.

The Pentagon is not defending soldiers, but is defending profits. The war on Iraq is about oil profits for big corporations.

As we mobilize opposition to this latest bombing we want to look at the very weapons that destroyed hundreds of miles of Iraq and now threaten the world. These are weapons made of the highly toxic, radioactive material that has become all too common-depleted uranium. Iraq has been the testing ground for this new weapon.

The Pentagon and the giant and highly profitable munitions industry see DU as a cheap way to enhance shells and bullets.

DU, the waste of the process of making enriched uranium for atomic bombs, is so dense it enables shells to penetrate steel like a knife cuts butter.

Much of the uranium burns on impact and creates a fine radioactive mist that can be inhaled. One particle of DU in the lungs radiates 800 times the accepted annual level of radiation.

More than 300 tons of particles and fragments remain in the Gulf area, creating an environmental and human health disaster that will stretch for generations.

The Pentagon clearly considers contamination of its own soldiers, of the environment and of millions of civilians as an acceptable cost.

During Operation Desert Storm the Pentagon killed more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers, but bragged there were only 148 U.S. casualties. Now we are finding that more than 60,000 Gulf War vets suffer Gulf War Syndrome.

It will be decades and generations before we know the true casualties as more veterans and their children cope with rare and unknown conditions, cancers, deformities and congenital diseases.

There is only one thing the Pentagon fears-an informed people, mobilized and angry. Information is power. When mobilized it can actually undergo a chemical transformation and become outrage.

Then it has explosive potential. Potential to force great sweeping changes.

That is our secret weapon.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)

Copyright © 1996 workers.org