E); procedure to minimize the spread of radioactivity (are to) be implemented as soon as possible; radioactive material and waste will not be locally disposed of through burial, submersion, incineration, destruction in place or abandonment; and all equipment, including captured or combat RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded and decontaminated....President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair must acknowledge and accept responsibility for the willful use of illegal uranium munitions and the adverse effects on human health and the environment that have occurred as a consequence."

In a companion article by Christopher Bollyn, he writes:

"Karen Parker, a San Franscisco-based expert in armed conflict law, told American Free Press that the use of radioactive uranium weapons violates the Hague and Geneva Conventions as well as the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980....A weapon made illegal only because there is a specific treaty banning it is only illegal for countries that ratify such a treaty. However, a weapon that is illegal by operation of existing law is illegal for all countries.

DU weaponry cannot possibly be legal in light of existing law, Parker said. According to humanitarian law, the illegality of DU weapons is based on four criteria:

The first is the "territorial" test. Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.

The second is the "temporal" test, meaning that weapons may only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that continues to act after the war violates this criterion.

The "territorial" and "temporal" criteria are meant to prevent weapons from being "indiscriminate" in their effect.

The third rule is that a weapon cannot be unduly inhumane. The Hague Convention of 1907 prohibits "poison or poisoned weapons". Because DU weapons are radioactive and chemically toxic, as the military knows, they fit the defination of "poisonous weapons" banned under the Hague Convention.

The Defense Dept. is well aware of the toxic effects of DU. In an official presentation by U.S. Army Reserve Col. J. Edgar Wakayama at Fort Belvoir, Va. on Aug. 20, 2002, the dangers of exposure to DU were clearly spelled out. Inhalation exposure has a major effect on the lungs and thoracic lymph nodes, Wakayama read from a slide. The alpha particle taken inside the body in large doses is hazardous, producing cell damage and cancer. Lung cancer is well documented, he noted. Urine samples containing uranium are mutagenic (capable of producing mutation), and, the "cultured human stem bone cell line with DU also transformed the cells to become carcinogenic, Wakayama read.

DU deposited in the bone causes DNA damage because of the effects of the alpha particles, he stressed. One gram of DU emits 12,000 high-energy alpha particles per second.

The fourth rule for weapons, the "environmental" test, says that weapons cannot have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment. Wakayama described the dangers to children playing in contaminated soil and the leaching of DU into local water and food supplies.

DU weaponry fails all four tests, Parker says. Because it cannot be contained to the battlefield, it fails the terrirorial test. Airborne DU particles are carried far from the battlefield affecting distant civilian populations and neighboring countries.

Because the uranium disperson on the ground and in the air cannot be "turned off" when the war is over, DU fails the "temporal" test. The airborne particles have a half-life of billions of years and have the potential to keep killing...long after the war is over, Parker wrote.

DU weapons fail the humaneness test because of how they kill, Parker says, by cancer, kidney disease etc. long after the hostilities are over. DU is inhumane because it can cause birth defects such as cranial facial anomalies, missing limbs, grossly deformed and non-viable infants and the like, thus affecting children...born after the war is over, Parker said.

The teratogenic (interfering with normal embryonic development) nature of DU weapons and the possible burdening of the gene pool of future generations raise the possibility that the use of DU weaponsry is genocide, she wrote.

No available technology can significantly change the chemical and radiological toxicity of DU, the Army Environmental Policy Institute reported to Congress in 1994. Thes are intrinsic properties of uranium. Use of DU weaponry necessarily violates the grave breach provision of the Geneva Conventions, and hence its use constitutes a "war crime" or "crime against humanity", Parker concluded.

Questions regarding the legality of DU weapons were sent in writing to the Pentagon's appointed spokesman on DU matters, James Turner. Turner told AFP that he was not qualified to answer such questions. By press time, the Pentagon had not responded to "repeated" requests for information.

Folks: Former President George Bush and his son, the present President---as well as our military boys and girls who serve (and have served) under their command---could very well be hauled before an "International Court of Law" to answer these very serious charges!

Welcomb to the "New World Order"!

Regards,

Cal

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