PORTUGAL: RESULTS OF FIRST URANIUM TESTS RELEASED AS PORTUGUESE ARMY DEMANDS MORE INVESTIGATION, AFTER “LOSING” NATO DOCUMENT

Pravda.Ru presents documents from the US Defence Nuclear Agency and the Los Alamos National Laboratory which make suspicious statements about depleted uranium.

The Director of the Department of Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, which is part of the Portuguese Nuclear Technological Institute, Fernando Carvalho, stated that the Portuguese scientists sent to Kosovo have already concluded that there is no danger posed from radiation.

This declaration is, and is not, surprising. It is surprising because it was issued almost immediately after the tests were started (they were supposed to be ready in three weeks’ time) and it is not surprising because, as Pravda.Ru has been stating for a number of weeks now, the danger posed by Depleted Uranium is from toxicity, not radioactivity. Measuring radiation levels to try to find a cause for Balkans Syndrome will prove as useful as trying to find the end of a rainbow.

The Portuguese Army, however, stated through a spokesman that “The Balkans syndrome is a fact and its origins must continue to be investigated”.

It is indeed a fact and the blatant truth is that soldiers are dying. The Italian Defence Ministry has now officially confirmed the deaths, by laekaemia, of seven soldiers who were stationed in the Balkans and a further two Dutch soldiers who served in the same area have died in recent days, bringing the total to four. These figures are creeping up daily and can be added to two Portuguese soldiers, 6 Belgians, 1 Spanish, 1 Czech soldier dead and tens of others receiving treatment for leukaemia. The Italian Defence Minister, Sergio Mattarella, confirmed that in Italy alone, there are 30 such cases.

Add to this the statistics released by the British Defence Ministry about Gulf War Syndrome deaths: of the 53,462 soldiers who served in the Gulf War, 413 have died, 56 of whom through leukaemia or other cancers. This means zero point one per cent through leukaemia and cancers and zero point eight per cent in total.

As figures are produced and denied, and accusations are made and refuted, it seems the truth in this case is, slowly but definitively, finally being defined. That NATO knew of the dangers of using DU, there is no doubt:

A document titled “Hazard Awareness” (July 1999) which alerted against the possible existence of “toxic residue from heavy metal” in targets hit by DU weapons, is significant. This document, according to Lord Robertson, NATO Secretary-General, was circulated to all countries participating in Kosovo at the date of issue. The Portuguese army seems to have lost its copy, because the Chief of the Portuguese Armed Forces, General Alvarenga, declares that he has never seen this document before. An investigation is under way to discover how the original NATO document got lost; A document dated March 1991 from Los Alamos National Laboratory expresses “concern” over the use of DU:

Quote: Memorandum 1st March 1991 from Lt. Col. M. Ziehmn

To Studies and Analysis Branch Attn. Major Larsen

Ref.: F668/(505) 665-193 Symbol: MCLnO

Subject: The Effectiveness of DU penetration

"There has been and continues to be concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore if no-one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable”.

Unquote

An undated Memorandum from the Defence Nuclear Agency (USA) titled “DU Ammunition” from Action Officer Gregory K. Lyle, Ltc. USA states:

“ Alpha particles from expended rounds is a health concern but Beta particles from fragments and intact rounds is a serious health threat…(there is a) need to provide guidance for DU before DU use manifests itself in the press as a health problem”.

This would seem to be documentary evidence which goes beyond any hypothesis of coincidence. Now we shall see what is the scientific fact behind the claims that DU can be dangerously toxic. This explanation is provided by Prof. Antonio Fonseca, nuclear physicist from the University of Lisbon.

He states that DU is highly toxic if breathed in or ingested. Due to its hardness, DU is excellent not only for use as a projectile to puncture armour but also in the constitution of armour itself. The radioactivity it emits is basically alpha rays, which are inoffensive, although there are a limited number of more dangerous Beta rays and less, but some, gamma rays, the most dangerous to the health. However, it is not DU’s radioactivity that is dangerous. On implosion, Uranium vapour is released and millions of micro-particles are sent into the air. The wind and the water can carry these up to 20 km. from the area of impact. This dust can enter the food chain and water cycle. “It is then that the alpha particles released by the DU start to attack the body,” says Prof. Fonseca. Mutations to red and white blood cells can occur as a result. DU particles can ionise oxygen molecules in the bone marrow and these molecules become “free radicals”, which migrate and decompose chemical connections between DNA chains in the interior of cells. This cellular change is the beginning of the process which causes cancer of the blood (leukaemia). These cancerous cells travel around the body in the bloodstream, destroying the host’s immune system, causing anaemia, exhaustion, bleeding gums, skin eruptions, loss of hair, headaches, herpes, chest infections, throat infections and eventually kidney and liver failure. All of these symptoms are in line with alterations in red or white blood cell levels or blood platelet levels.

Read any report on symptoms of Gulf War veterans anywhere in the world and now, those suffered by soldiers who served in the Balkans, and these – exactly these – will be the symptoms presented.

TIMOTHY BANCROFT-HINCHEY Pravda.ru Lisbon