ONE issue in the febrile discussion on war against Iraq has been submerged, and ought not to have been. It is the potential use of a weapon called the B61-11 earth-penetrating bomb. In the last Gulf War, bombs made little or no impression on deep bunker positions. The B61-11 certainly would, as it has a nuclear warhead. Are we in Britain and the US sure that we want to justify using nuclear weapons for the first time since Nagasaki?
I say 鈥渨e鈥� because Britain has a direct responsibility. The B61-11 would be delivered from two bombers. These are stationed on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia, the biggest American base outside the US. Six huge, temperature-controlled hangars are being built to maintain and repair these bombers. Britain has no right to wash its proverbial hands of this appalling situation. What it can do, other than alerting increasingly critical opinion in the US itself, is another matter.
AT the end of the recent 鈥淪top the War鈥� march in London, 36 speakers each had three minutes to address a huge throng in Hyde Park. As I stepped from the podium after my short speech, a sallow-faced man took me aside and beseechingly and politely asked: 鈥淲hy has none of you mentioned Gulf War syndrome? Will there be a repeat performance of how my life was wrecked?鈥�
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I felt bad having met Captain Doug Rokke of the US Army last year. He was an environmental adviser to General Norman Schwarzkopf during the so-called Desert Storm but is now a professor at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. Rokke says we must carefully evaluate the possible health and environmental impact of any weapons used in a pre-emptive military attack against Iraq.
Rokke warns against using munitions containing depleted uranium (DU). They were first used in 1973 and their destructive capabilities are clearly superior to any other munitions fired by tanks, armoured vehicles, aircraft and rifles. Moreover, the ADAM and PDM landmines are in effect 鈥渄irty bombs鈥� 鈥� conventional explosives wrapped in a shell containing uranium.
He warns: 鈥淎lthough DU munitions are excellent weapons, they leave a path of death, illness and environmental contamination wherever they are used. Their radiological and chemical toxicity are due to the uranium, plutonium, neptunium and americium isotopes within each DU bullet. We also have all the inherent contamination from the equipment, terrain and facilities that were destroyed.鈥�
Shaun Rusling, a 快猫短视频 reader who wrote to me recently put the case against DU weapons most movingly: 鈥淚t is now 11 years since the Gulf War and the Ministry of Defence has not tested my urine or blood for low level or any level of radiation. This weapon was experimental at the time of the Gulf War, yet the MOD claims it still does not know why thousands of us are ill but it has not tested any of us.鈥�
Why not, I鈥檇 like to know.
