Austria considers disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation of paramount importance for the achievement of international peace and security. The growing threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological) by sub-state or non-state actors necessitates a new commitment by the international community to effectively discourage the development and spread of weapons of mass destruction.

I don't have a clue what you were trying to say with your broken English, but that was a sweet post. Thanks.

dont worry, we know we do have neo-con supporters and war profeeteers here too. May be I should my own tribunal to prosecute them, you get a few drunk plumbers from the street to act as lawyers, couple of retards to help them, and a deft , blind and mute to act as a judge and u have a few of these criminals hanging fast and we could hang them 2 x 2 using the same rope to save money.. canada doesnt have the death penalty, but I guess this should not apply to political murderers and thiefs like neo-cons znd libs.. here is saddam's hanging

 

http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=5969   (hanging)

"start with your own homebefore reforming other nation"

 

Words to live by my friend. Perhaps you should follow your own advice and direct your energy towards Canada instead of always mischaracterizing the U.S.

If you pay attention, Saddam Hussein wasnt remitted to the proper authority of the International Court which was better positioned or more skilled to deal with crimes against humanity. It would have been better. The US lead everything including the formation of this illegal tribunal.. Also why create a new tribunal when you have a better one? I do not say Saddam Hussein did not deserve to die, I am only saying that a lots of other criminals whom helped him with chemecals weapons during the war with Iran walked free, mainly because the charges were kept into a "mainframe" that excluded the US administration. Ask the Iranians if they knew who was behind Saddam WMDS and who was providing the intelligence when the Iranian people were being gased. Anonymous, check in your own backyard for state terror and war criminals, it has the name of Rumsfeld, Bushes Cheney and a myriad of other murderers who like Saddam possibly deserve to hang. Send them to the international court, you'll see. Dont be a hypocritical apologist, start with your own homebefore reforming other nation, Saddam Hussein may be hanging but american made anti-christs lives.

cyrano, do you read the news?  The U.S. wasn't involved in Hussein's execution.  I'm sure you'll come up with some convoluted theory on how the "occupiers" had something to do with, blah, blah, blah - but the reality is, the U.S. was not involved in the sentencing and your asserting otherwise is yet another example of the delusional left making up facts for their own propaganda.

I think the US went very fast with the execution of Saddam Hussein mainly for 2 reasons : because Hussein trial(s) were tainted with pervasive murders and disaspearaNCES AND BECAUSE I think the US is trying to ensure a continuous civil war in Iraq or to fuel dissention in the ME.. IMO, Justice wasn't serve completely, the BUSHes, Rumsfeld and other genocidal men responsible for the ME Butchery are escaping justice.

thank you Mariam for making a case aginst DU.. Its amazing when you here guy like rumsfeld ppaising weapons made with DU, truly Rumsfelf is another nuclear anti-christ and a murderer of men just like the Bushes who elevated him

Victor:

Brilliant research.  Thank you for posting it here.

And exactly the kind of work for which this electronic medium ought to be exploited to its fullest potential. 

Noting, as you do, the paragraphs on chemical and biological weapons that were deleted between the July 22, 2005 date of the Draft Outcome Document and the final 2005 World Summit Outcome (A/RES/60/1) eight-weeks later, can there be any doubt about the truth of your closing sentence?

Namely, that the deletions were undertaken thanks to the "immense pressure from Iran and Syria," states which, as you note, "seem to be at the bottom of almost all evil in the world, now that Saddam is disposed," and off to the gallows?

One other note.  Everybody ought to read and take to heart Par. 5 and Par. 6 of final 2005 World Summit Outcome (A/RES/60/1).  So let me take this opportunity to reproduce them in full here -- from the section "Values and Principles," a kind of preamble to the document:

5. We are determined to establish a just and lasting peace all over the world in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter. We rededicate ourselves to support all efforts to uphold the sovereign equality of all States, respect their territorial integrity and political independence, to refrain in our international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations, to uphold resolution of disputes by peaceful means and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, the right to self-determination of peoples which remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation, non-interference in the internal affairs of States, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for the equal rights of all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion, international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character and the fulfilment in good faith of the obligations assumed in accordance with the Charter.

6. We reaffirm the vital importance of an effective multilateral system, in accordance with international law, in order to better address the multifaceted and interconnected challenges and threats confronting our world and to achieve progress in the areas of peace and security, development and human rights, underlining the central role of the United Nations, and commit ourselves to promoting and strengthening the effectiveness of the Organization through the implementation of its decisions and resolutions.

For the life of me, I can't understand why Iran, Syria, and North Korea didn't force the deletion of these passages too.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA  

But it actually merits saying twice.

If the neocon is making lots of noise about something and accusing someone else of doing it, and making threats about it..........

YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS AND YOUR LAST DOLLAR THAT THE NEOCON ESTABLISHMENT IS THE GUILTY PARTY.

If the neocon is making lots of noise about something and accusing someone else of doing it, and making threats about it..........

YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS AND YOUR LAST DOLLAR THAT THE NEOCON ESTABLISHMENT IS THE GUILTY PARTY.

Excellent response.

Very informative. Kinda like the ole "smoking gun", huh? Now you see it. Now you don't. Connect the dots publicly, however, and you will be accused of being a conspiracy theorist, or just as bad, "on the lunatic fringe" (a very cute expression, I must say). So don't say it out loud. But I have to say, perhaps you didn't take this far enough. Chemical and Biological Weapons development has exploded within the secret halls of the Defense Dept's labs located in many of our universities and carried out by researchers who have prostituted themselves for research funds freely given out by the military. The US is actively and aggressively and secretly carrying out research involving not only the most heinous and nasty of biological and chemical weapons intentionally involving "first-strike" capabilities, but also non-lethal weapons to control civil unrest. Now the interesting part. If I do the same research as you did, only on the mention of "biological" rather than "nuclear", then on the Draft document I get 6 hits, 1 of which concerns issues around biological diversity in the environment, 5 of which concern chemical/biological weapons. The final version contains three references only - ALL to biological diversity issues - NONE mentioning biological weapons. These were the omitted phrases:

44. We recognize that we are facing a whole range of threats, including armed conflicts between and within States, the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, terrorism and organized crime, poverty and the rapid spread of highly infectious diseases and severe environmental degradation that require our urgent, collective and more determined response. 78. We urge all States to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and we pledge to comply fully with all the articles of those conventions, in order to strengthen the multilateral framework for non-proliferation and disarmament and to achieve full adherence to these instruments. [part of 80.]# Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention through continued multilateral and national efforts to improve its verification and implementation, and encourage all States Parties to submit informations on confidence-building measures as required by the Review Conference of the BTWC [part of 80]# Prevent non-State actors from gaining access to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related technology and materials as well as their means of delivery, including by strengthening relevant national control measures and by complying with Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) [part of 80] Explore effective measures to prevent and combat the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related technology and materials and rockets and shoulder-fired missiles, as well as to ban their transfer to non-State actors, including by implementing effective national export controls

A search of "chemical" brought up the same with this additional item that was deleted:

[part of 80] Complete the destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles consistent with the Chemical Weapons Convention in a timely and effective manner

Of course, all these were likely compromises taken upon immense pressure from Iran and Syria who seem to be at the bottom of almost all evil in the world, now that Saddam is disposed of.

Mariam Russell:

A plethora of important finds.  Thank you very much.

Incidentally, you mention the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion in the case on The Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (July 8, 1996).  The ICJ found (among other things) that "There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons;...There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such;...A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51, is unlawful;...A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons;...[T]the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law; However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;...[and most important that] There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."

I've always like the very last opinion the most of all -- and whereas some of the earlier opinions were split, this very last one was delivered unanimously, please note well.

So I guess one more relevant question -- aside from those you are raising about the use of depleted uranium ammunition in theater after theater of armed conflict where the Americans (and the British, the Irsraelis) are engaged -- might be: Which of the world's states stands in greater violation of the letter and the spirit of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: The one with the uranium conversion and enrichment program, and heavy-water nuclear energy plant, in Iran?  Or the several with their vast nuclear weapons programs and decades-old stockpiles in countries such as the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, and so on?  (See the "Nuclear Notebook" maintained jointly by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.)

I believe that everyone here knows how I'd answer this question.

And you?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and the formation of the League of Nations and the United Nations had the abolition of war in mind, but failed to deliver due to the vested interests in continuing to use force and to the strongly held notion that force may be necessary in self-defense. What they could agree to, however, was that certain acts of war are "inhumane" and not necessary for the purpose of defeating the enemy. They therefore agreed to prohibit such acts. Other initiatives, such as the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross, have added to the list of proscribed actions.

What has emerged, therefore, is the development of a body of international law termed the humanitarian laws of warfare, which prohibit certain "inhumane" acts during wartime while not prohibiting the inhumane act of war itself. Such law was seriously debated during the recent International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The ICJ concluded that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law."¹

The question that arises, therefore, is whether the use of depleted uranium (DU) in weapons systems violates this body of law, and if so whether the law can be used to effectively constrain or prohibit such use.

Alyn Ware, Exec. Dir., Lawyer´s Committee on Nuclear Policy

How DU Shell Residues Poison Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (excerpt)

A spent depleted-uranium shell I found in Iraq was confiscated by a large police detachment in Germany, carried away under enormous safety precautions and stored in a specially shielded deposit. My efforts to have it examined got me into serious trouble.

Prof. Dr. Siegwart-Horst Guenther

Depleted-uranium projectiles were used for the first time by the allied troops during the Gulf War in 1991, with devastating effects and consequences.

At the beginning of March 1991, I detected projectiles in an Iraqi combat area that had the form and size of a cigar and were extraordinarily heavy.

At a later point in time, I saw children play with projectiles of this kind; one of them died from leukemia.

As early as at the end of 1991 I diagnosed a hitherto unknown disease among the Iraqi population which is caused by renal and hepatic dysfunctions.

My efforts to have one of these hitherto unknown projectiles examined brought me into serious trouble in Germany: the material was highly toxic and radioactive. The projectile was confiscated by a large police detachment, carried away under enormous safety precautions and stored in a specially shielded deposit.

During the last five years I have been able to carry out extensive studies in Iraq. Their results produced ample evidence to show that contact with DU ammunition has the following consequences, especially for children:

• A considerable increase in infectious diseases caused by most severe immunodeficiencies in a great part of the population;

• Frequent occurrence of massive herpes and zoster afflictions, also in children;

• AIDS-like syndromes;

• A hitherto unknown syndrome caused by renal and hepatic dysfunctions;

• Leukemia, aplastic anemia and malignant neoplasms;

• Congenital deformities caused by genetic defects, which are also to be found in animals.

The results of my studies show similarities to a clinical picture described recently by the term of the so-called Gulf War Syndrome in American and British soldiers and their children. The congenital deformities caused by genetic defects in American and Iraqi children are identical.

*******

What Government Documents Admit

"If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological."

"Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures."

From the Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI), Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the U.S. Army, June 1995

"Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."

"Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects."

From the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) report, included as Appendix D of AMMCOM's Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, Danesi, July 1990.

This report was completed six months before Desert Storm.

"Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity risk."

Operation Desert Storm: Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal With Depleted Uranium Contamination, United States General Accounting Office (GAO/NSIAD-93-90), January 1993, pp. 17-18.

 

Dr. Helen Caldicott 

For many years the United States has been using depleted uranium, a by-product from the production of enriched fuel for nuclear reactors and weapons, to manufacture shells, bullets and protective armour of tanks. This excess uranium, composed mainly of the uranium isotope U-238 is called "depleted" because it has a lower than normal content of the isotope U-235, the fissionable material. But it has one very "excellent" property—it is extremely dense and capable of penetrating heavily armored vehicles. This capability was ably demonstrated in the Gulf massacre of 1991. "Massacre" describes what happened better than "war."

But another physical property, which is not so desirable, is that depleted uranium spontaneously burns on impact, creating tiny aerosolized particles less than five microns in diameter, small enough to be inhaled. At least seventy percent of the uranium in these weapons is released in this form on impact, and these tiny particles travel long distances when airborne.

Leonard Dietz, physicist

The fallout range of airborne DU aerosol dust is virtually unlimited. These micro-particles can be inhaled and ingested easily and that makes them dangerous to human health.

Leonard A. Dietz

Abstract

We develop background information about depleted uranium (DU) and use it to describe a physical model of how on the battlefields in Kuwait and Iraq a large number of unprotected Gulf War veterans could easily have acquired dangerous quantities of DU in their bodies.

We examine how U-238, which comprises more than 99% of DU, decays radioactively, producing two decay progeny that are always present with it and add significantly to its radioactivity. The pyrophoric nature of uranium metal causes it to burn (oxidize rapidly) when heated by impact or in fires to form invisible aerosol particles that become airborne.

We refer to scientific measurements that have been made of the atmospheric wind-borne transport of uranium aerosols over distances up to 25 miles (42 km) from their sources. Stokes' well-known physical law helps to explain how airborne transport of DU particles can occur over large distances.

We describe how gamma rays and energetic beta particles become absorbed in body tissue and can traverse large numbers of body cells, potentially causing damage to genetic material in the nuclei of living cells. We describe a biokinetic model developed by the International Commission on Radiation Protection that explains how uranium microparticles can enter the body and spread to vital organs. The model predicts that an acute intake of uranium particles can result in urinary excretions of uranium for years afterward.

We review estimates of the tonnage of DU munitions fired during the Gulf War. Even if only one or two percent of a low estimate of 300 metric tons of DU fired had burned up, this would have produced 3,000-6,000 kg of DU aerosols.

This background information allows us to propose a plausible contamination model at a battle site. It consists of three steps:

1. a source of hundreds of kilograms of DU aerosols generated suddenly against concentrated Iraqi armor;

2. widespread rapid dispersal of DU aerosol particles by wind action;

3. inhalation and ingestion of DU particles by unprotected U.S. service personnel on the battlefield.

The U.S. military and its representatives claim that DU munitions are safe, but they have not publicly addressed health and safety issues that apply after DU munitions have been fired. Apparently the official view is that in a combat situation it is acceptable for unprotected personnel to be exposed to the combustion products of fired DU munitions and assume any health risks involved.

We mention that 22 U.S. service personnel have been reported to have suffered imbedded fragments of DU in their bodies from "friendly fire." More than five years after the Gulf War, few of these fragments have been removed and the long-term health situation for these veterans has not yet been determined. We note the astonishingly high incidence of serious birth defects in families of Gulf War veterans in the State of Mississippi.

Finally, we mention how commonly used DU flight-control counterweights in aircraft and DU munitions can burn in intense fires and produce dangerous concentrations of airborne DU aerosol particles that can be inhaled and ingested.

Dr. Jay M Gould

The Department of Energy has recently admitted that in the haste to produce plutonium for the first atomic bombs, the Hanford nuclear weapons complex released 550,000 curies of radioactive iodine in 1945. In terms of picocuries, the unit now used to measure radioactivity in a liter of milk or water, this means that in 1945, one-hundred-fifty million Americans were unwittingly exposed to more than four billion picocuries per-capita of this lethal radionuclide, comparable to releases from the Chernobyl accident—the worst in human history.

This was followed by two decades of atmospheric bomb tests recently estimated by the Natural Resources Defense Council to be equivalent to exploding forty thousand Hiroshima bombs. The effects of this testing were revealed by a sudden epidemic increase in cancer among children five to nine years old. Since 1945, female breast cancer incidence has nearly tripled, and we have established that a significant number of the eighty million baby boomers born in the bomb-test years 1945 to 1965—literally the worst time in history—did in fact subsequently display evidences of the damage to hormonal and immune systems sustained in utero.

We can show that in the period 1945-1965 there had indeed been an anomalous forty percent increase in underweight live births, perfectly correlated with the rise in strontium-90 found in human bone and especially in baby teeth. In fact, it was the concern expressed by mothers, as in the Women's Strike for Peace movement that helped prod President John Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev to finally terminate above-ground nuclear tests in 1963. There was a brief period of improvement thereafter until fallout from civilian power reactors replaced bomb-test fallout, especially after the Three-Mile-Island and Chernobyl accidents of 1979 and 1986. Since 1979, the ominous rise in the percentage of underweight live births that first surfaced in 1945 has resumed.

*******

 

*******

Are you really referencing "Global Research" and expecting to be taken seriously? 

In the future, please try finding a source that isn't on the lunatic fringe.

'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: "The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited." (Daily Mirror)  

The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.  

A Terrible Legacy

 Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.1

JAMES DENVER, GLOBAL RESEARCH, MAY 6, 2005

 

This is blowing in on a tradewind near you.

I mean the mythical United States of America...you know, the one sold to the immigrants to get them to support the revolution, then immediately subverted to the uses of some rich white men, then sold in book, song, finally movies and television to keep the population quiet and herdable.

You and I both know why the deleted material is gone.