The (DU) elephant in the Iraqi room

[serryjw]

Most of us have been following this for a few years. No doubt we used DU in Iraq in the 1st Gulf war and now the 2nd. The question has to now be.....Will Iraq EVER be safe for oil companies to go in there and take what they really came for ...The BIG Prize..Iraqi oil....Some think the reserve is greater than in Arabia

quote........

Like an angry ghost of past wars haunting the Middle and Near East, an enigmatic disease infiltrates the soil and poisons the surrounding land and people. Birth defects, leukemia, cancer, and other ailments plague this war-torn land, all swelling to catastrophic proportions. Multitudes are doomed to die of a mysterious condition characterized by a host of symptoms, ranging from burns to respiratory problems to tumors. Many of those facing death are children.
What caused all this? According to the Iraqi medical community, studies, scientists, and anyone who isn't affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO) or Pentagon, the lingering crisis in Iraq was caused, and continues to be caused, by depleted uranium used by the US military.

Depleted uranium, the waste left over from nuclear reactors, made its debut during the first Gulf War (1991) and has since been used in the in the Balkans (1995), in Afghanistan (2001), and the second Gulf War (2003), and in no small numbers. In 2003, in Iraq alone, we used enough DU to recreate the Nagasaki bomb 250,000 times, or over 2,000 tons.
end quote........
http://www.coastalpost.com/06/06/04.html

[Junkdrawer]

1. Will starving people work for food in a place they call home...

I'm guessing yes.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. That implies that the oil companies actually care about the health of the

people they send over there to work on the oil fields. I am sure they do not. As long as they get the oil and make their profits, they could not care less if their oil field workers die horrible deaths.

[OneBlueSky]

3. singling out THE most important national/global issue . . .

is impossible -- there are just too many excellent candidates . . .

(e.g. 9/11, stolen elections, compromised voting systems, the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, the mental stability of our leaders, tilting balance of powers, civil liberties, domestic spying, nuclear weapons, energy, environmental destruction, taxation, outsourcing, etc.) . . .

but somewhere high on everyone's list MUST be BushCo's deployment and use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . and the immense harm it is doing to their people, to our soldiers, to the environment and to the planet . . .

this is far worse than a mere war crime -- it is a crime against humanity . . .

and someday, we're all going to be asked if we stood up and tried to stop it . . .