:More about DU

After reading the email by Andreas Anderson I offered 
Mohammed Daud Miraki an opportunity to reply. 
Please find below 
1.) Miraki's reply to Andreas Anderson's email
2.) Andreas Anderson's email
3.) Original article by Mohammed Daud Miraki
I hope the additional information helps better understanding.

Depleted Uranium / Natural Uranium
in Afghanistan

1.) Miraki's reply to Andreas Anderson's email
Dear Sir: 

Please forward this to [your] subscribers including this individual Andreas!

Let me start with an interesting comment I hear from TV
reporters, when they report about the casualty of Afghan
civilians, they say " There were claims of 200 civilians killed 
but could not be confirmed visually" As if the Afghans would
desecrate their dead spread all over to convince and
please the so-called experts/journalists.
This is where the individual Andreas fits:

I do not rely on only two sources--namely dai williams and durakovic. I have relatives civilians as well as tribesmen 
combatants killed by the US-UK bombs. Recently several of 
my relatives have given birth to children with unmistaken signs
of DU deformities. One of the babies had no head and one
arm, another had a mass of tissue developed protruding from 
inside the mouth--baby was dead--, the other, had elongated 
body with large head and puffed up stomach. These were my 
relatives, there were other such horrific cases of congenital deformities and health problems only more than a year after
the bombing. In this village alone, 23 babies had such horrific 
deformities. Now tell me Mr/Ms expert Andreas--What is the 
probability of having 23 babies from the same small village, 
where no such incident of deformities ever reported, but 
suddenly in year time, one finds 23 babies deformed.

This should not take a rocket scientist to figure out!!!

Moreover, many Taliban fighters from tribes in southeastern, southern and  southwestern Afghanistan have lost their lives 
after returning to their native villages. None of these men had 
any physical injuries. Most would vomit blood, while others, 
especially in southeastern Afghanistan have started
to lose from all over the bodies, passing blood through stool, 
vomiting blood, and severe pain in the back and kidney areas. 
Meanwhile, some young men returning from Shah-e-kot and 
Tora Bora had severe bleeding with their coughs, in addition to 
the other symptoms I pointed out, in eastern and southeastern 
Afghanistan.

And yes, there were bodies of large number of Taliban soldiers that had their rifles  melted in
their hands--this information I collected from 15 different sources--who had seen these bodies with
their own eyes!!! 

As to the DU per se, the urine samples of the victims in Jalal-Abad did not resemble

Durakovic and his team took soil sample from Kabul. They used electron microscope to establish
difference between natural uranium and uranium used in Afghanistan and were able to uncover the
presence of small ceramic particles produced by the high temperatures created on impact. So contrary
to the claims of Dan Fahey, it has been positively established through the presence of ceramic
particles that uranium based arsenals have been used. 

Meanwhile, Durakovic's team found: 

        "uranium found is not consistent with the "dirty bomb" scenario proposed by the US (in which stores of radioactive materials might explain the findings),   nor is it connected to DU, or an enriched uranium-type dust that has been found 
in Iraq and Kosova."

Also:

        "The only conclusion is that the allied forces are now possibly using   milled  uranium ore in their warheads to 
maximize the effectiveness and strength of their weapons"
 

Moreover, the issue of newly born in southern, southwestern, eastern and southeastern Afghanistan exhibit deformities 
similar to those exhibited in Iraq. According to Tehran Times, 
November 09, 2002: 

        "...in recent days there have been numerous reports about 
the birth of  many disabled and deformed children in 
Afghanistan. A large number of   health specialists in 
Afghanistan as well as international observers, including one of 
the officials of a local hospital, regard the increased 
number of birth defects in Afghanistan to be the direct result of 
the U.S.  dropping DU bombs on Afghanistan." 

Durakovic said the following in October, 2002 to Al-Jazeera Television network:
 

"...the amount of DU/uranium used in Afghanistan far exceeded that of past conflicts. He also warned that if the scale of the
attacks in Afghanistan was matched or exceeded in a 
forthcoming war in Iraq, then the consequences would be of 
appalling proportions for both civilians and military forces
alike."

Dr. Marc Herald, work also points to this direction. He points out that the munitions used in Afghanistan are:

        25 and 30 mm shells, bunker busting bombs and missiles [GBU 28, 15, 24, 27, 31 and 37, AGM-130C]

Delivery agents of munitions include:

F-15E, B-2, A-10, AC-130 Spooky, and Apache helicopter [AH-64], GBM- 109 Tomahawk and AGM-86D CALCM cruise missiles. 

According to his rough estimates, dating back to November 13, 2002, 500-600 tones of depleted uranium used in Afghanistan. After November of last year, many bombing raids by larger planes, F-series, A-10s and Helicopters increased that number further. 

Incidentally, Professor Durakovic also made similar claims:

"...U.S. forces used more DU weapons in Afghanistan than they used in the Persian Gulf War and the Balkans wars" 

Let me conclude that the incidents in Afghanistan are not 
unique, similar symptoms and deformities have been reported 
in Balkans and Iraq. Thus, based on those findings, a calculated judgement would be valid. Nonetheless, the team that went to Afghanistan have uncovered ceramic particles  after viewing the soil sample under electron microscope. This is the physical evidence to prove in addition to urine samples etc. More than 35 samples of munitions, soil, etc are still sitting in the labs
waiting for funding to cover the cost of analysis!!!!!!

Andreas, read my article carefully, and wrote real fast and did not include these facts that I pointed out. You yourself claim that you do not know where the uranium comes from--the teams that went to Afghanistan have ruled out the natural deposits, industrial sources and Al-Qaida sources. In fact, the Al-Qaida and dirty bomb notion is more propaganda than fact. Furthermore, thus far, there has not been any report either from within Afghanistan or outside Afghanistan of Russians using uranium based weapons.

This leaves, the US-UK bombing as the only source of DU and/or milled uranium ore in their hard target weapons. 
Andreas: BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO MAKE ANY SUCH HASTY COMMENTS--THERE IS A HUMAN FACTOR INVOLVED
HERE!!!!! IN FACT, THE BEHAVIOR OF US-UK IN SUCH CRIMINAL MANNER ONLY FURTHER JUSTIFIES TERRORISM IN
THE EYES OF THOSE THAT HATE THESE COUNTRIES AND THEIR ALLIES.

Sincerely,

Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD
Socioeconomic Development 

2.) Andreas Anderson's email

Hello,

I want to make some comments related the issue of the use 
of uranium-based weapons in the recent Afghan war. For many 
it seems clear that DU or even NU (natural uranium) was 
widely used overthere. What is the basis of this assumptions 
and all the speculations? For me it seems that the UMRC and 
Dai Williams research are the main/only sources for this.
The message I replied to link to an article, which is full 
of false information, miss-interpretation and speculations 
(see weblink)

http://www.rense.com/general35/perp.htm

This relates atleast to all the text, which is related to 
the use of NU or DU weapons, U contents in urine and Afghan 
soils etc. and other information from the UMRC. How can I 
trust any part of the text when I know the other half is 
wrong. I can only strongly advise everybody to have a more 
critical view to all information supplied to this news 
group and not take speculations of other as simple truth.

Okay now back to Afghanistan. First of all I have to say 
that some information on the UMRC web page are already 
speculative to highly speculative. There is so far no 
evidence of the use of DU as well as NU-based weapons 
in the Afghan war. Dan Fahey is absolutely right in 
his recent press release (14 Feb. 2003, see attachment 
in message 6355). There have been found elevated U contents 
in urine of people from JalalAbad (webpage UMRC, however not 
published). There is only one Team working on this and as I 
know is until now, no other data available/released to the 
public: No spectacular U data from soils, no ceramic particles 
were found in soil etc.!!! The source of the elevated urine 
U concentrations are unknown but the explanation might 
be simple, much simpler as the NU theory (use of natural 
uranium in the weapons) which is going around. Little is 
known about U content in urine and worldwide variation 
in civilians. Most methods for detections are not precise 
at all and there are not so many studies that we can say we 
know and understand all. 
I don't know the explanation for the high U contents but I 
simply want to say that is to early for too much speculations 
and we don't know the truth yet. I only know that it is wrong 
to say we know that it is related to the bombing and the use of 
uranium-weapons. Yes, 
there has to be further investigations in all directions. 
More urine, soil and bomb shells in Afghanistan, Iraq and 
perhaps at the sites where the DU weapons were tested 
intensely (near village, wells etc.). 
Now to Dai Williams speculations –yes as far I can understand
this these are all speculations. He himself admits this in his 
report. Perhaps he is right that some DU/NU weapons were used, 
however, he is certainly not right with his worse-case scenario 
that 3times (or even more) the amount as in the Iraq war was 
used (but this is what many now assume as the truth). So far 
there is no real evidence to support his speculations about 
the use of U-weapons (which not prove that he is wrong). 
This has to be investigated further and more research is 
necessary.
In case I am wrong with what I wrote I would be glad when you can 
prove it to me and let me know about other investigations, 
information etc.

best wishes
Andreas

3.) Original article by Mohammed Daud Miraki
PERPETUAL DEATH FROM AMERICA 2-24-3
By Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD,  Afghan-American Freelance Academic Mdmiraki@ameritech.net

"If they had killed us once, it would not be so bad. But what the Americans have brought upon us is not only depriving us but our future generations of our basic god given human right, the right to live. They will be killing us for generations to come" (An Afghan Victim of US-UK bombing).  In Afghanistan, elders used to cite an ancient saying "we are made for death and death is made for us" to point to the inescapable reality of facing death sooner or later. However, when this natural phenomenon changes form from its natural course to one tailored by humans, it becomes a tool of life deprivation. 

This tailored and forced deprivation of life on millions of people took a form of its own when used for cleansing generations of people of their basic human right, their right to live. Specifically, for millions in Afghanistan, their natural course of life and death took a sharp turn when US-UK military used uranium based weapons. This violation of immense proportion transformed the natural process of birth, growth and death into the inescapable horrors of perpetual death. 

Perpetual death is characterized by continuous murder of people of a community, state or nation. It takes several forms. It could be exercised by conventional means of imposing war and destruction on people. The Russians have institutionalized this horror in Afghanistan by its invasion of the country in 1979 and sustained perpetual death there by planting millions of mines scattered all over country. The United States government also shares this responsibility after it abandoned the Afghans, leaving them to death and despair and refused to help them by clearing the millions of mines left behind after the Soviets'  retreat. These mines have been maiming and killing Afghans daily since the early 1980s. 

However, the form that is exercised currently is the indiscriminate use of the Weapons of Mass Destruction, namely the usage of uranium based weapons. This mode of the perpetual death lives up to its name because it continues to foster deaths of thousands silently and indiscriminately. In fact, the usage of the Weapons of Mass Destruction alters the texture of the ecosystem wherein the victims reside. This ultimately condemns the people living there and future generations to death, and deprives them of their fundamental human right, the right to live. 

The perpetrators of this horrible crime are the governments of the United States and that of the United Kingdom. The US and the UK are the only two countries used these horrible weapons indiscriminately in Iraq during the Gulf War and Balkans in the 1990s and in Afghanistan from October 7th, 2001 onward. 
Meanwhile, based on past experiences with victims of the US-UK bombing in Iraq and the Balkans, every informed source suspected to have similar situation in Afghanistan. Tragically, the US-UK armed forces have used three times more uranium based weapons in Afghanistan than they did in Iraq or in the Balkans. In fact, the types of Weapons of Mass Destruction used in Afghanistan are more potent than those used in Iraq. 

This became evident with the recent report by the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC), establishing the presence of a mysterious metal in Afghan soil samples and urine samples of victims. The investigation carried out by the two teams of experts, one concentrated on the city of Jalal Abad while the other on the capital Kabul. The two teams gathered data and established the use of uranium-based weapons there. They discovered symptoms in population of illnesses associated with exposure to depleted uranium contamination similar to that in Iraq and Balkans. This added to the curiosity of the investigators and collected soil samples from impact sites to investigate them here in the US. 

The investigators were also surprised to find high concentration of uranium in the urine of subjects from Jala Abad. In fact, the level of uranium was 400%  to 2000%, the highest level of uranium ever recorded in civilian population. 
Incidentally, the uranium discovered in the urine samples from subjects in 
Jala-Abad exhibited characteristics more potent than depleted uranium. The report said the following in regards to the impact of the uranium-based weapons: 

"Dr Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine and radiology and a former science adviser to the US military, who set-up the independent UMRC, has been testing US, British, and Canadian troops and civilians for DU and uranium poisoning over the past few years. His findings confirm significant amounts in the subjects' urine as much as nine years after exposure." 

The above quote points to the perpetual death imposed on population of any country where the USA and the UK had used uranium-based weapons. 
"Durakovic and his team have searched for possible alternative causes, such as geological or industrial sources, or the likelihood of Al Qaeda having uranium reserves. But the uranium found is not consistent with the "dirty bomb" scenario proposed by the US (in which stores of radioactive materials might explain the findings), nor is it connected to DU, or an enriched uranium-type dust that has been found in Iraq and Kosova." 

In Iraq, it took up to five years to have any significant effects of exposure to depleted uranium, however, in Afghanistan only after one year, the UMRC research group suspects that 25% of newly born show symptoms of exposure to uranium weapons. The latter factors further strengthen the hypothesis of the UMRC that the US-UK militaries are using uranium ore in their weapons in order to increase its destructive capability. The usage of uranium ore also makes it difficult to trace these weapons to the US-UK militaries and creates a distortion as if the uranium had come from the local uranium deposits. The conclusion of the report was: 

"However, marked differences between natural uranium and the uranium used in the metal fragments found in Afghanistan was uncovered with the use of an electron microscope, which revealed the presence of small ceramic particles produced by the high temperatures created on impact. This method of disguising uranium would benefit governments that are under pressure from the growing anti-DU lobby." 

"The only conclusion is that the allied forces are now possibly using milled 
uranium ore in their warheads to maximise [sic] the effectiveness and strength of their weapons, as well as to mask the uranium, hoping that it may be discounted as part of any local natural deposits." The destructive effects of the uranium-based weapons became evident in the beginning of the bombardments in Afghanistan, when Reuters reported that people died from minor injuries. Public Health Minister Mullah Abbas said: "Our findings prove that this is true. These bombardments have radioactive rays and chemical materials that also cause cancer." (Reuters, October 29, 2001) 

The news report continued with quotes that further added credibility to the 
claims of many that the US and the UK had used uranium-based weapons in Afghanistan. Dr. Wazir a surgeon at Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital had said the following amidst the bombardments: "We have some patients with superficial injuries with symptoms of chemical weapons." (Reuters, October 29, 2001) 

According to Dr. Wazir a 10 years old boy, who had superficial injuries died from respiratory problems after the bombing, while another individual, a 50 years old woman also died from minor injuries. The doctor continues by citing three of his other patients-two girls aged 12 and 15 and a boy aged 15-who had only sustained superficial injuries from the US bombings, died hours later from breathing difficulties and internal bleeding. 

Dr. Wazir continued: "These are only three examples. There have been other cases where we suspect chemical weapons have been used. Most of the victims have had respiratory problems and internal bleeding for which there is no apparent cause." (Khalifa.com, October 30, 2001) 

At the fighting front north of Kabul, where Taliban forces were pounded night and day, many dead Taliban soldiers had no visible injuries except blood flowing out of their mouths, internal bleeding consistent with uranium based and chemical weapons. 

Furthermore, many dead Taliban soldiers had severe discoloration of the skin, orange, without being burned, while others had their rifles melted in their hands. 
This aroused suspicion among Taliban and others that weapons used by the US-UK military were not conventional weapons. 

Many Taliban soldiers that survived the bombing in the north have died after returning to their native villages in the south and southeast of the country. 
They had no physical injury upon their death, however, died from internal 
bleeding and other bizarre symptoms including uncontrolled vomiting, diarrhea, and blood loss in urine and stool. Their families were shocked with disbelieves. 

Another bizarre, yet tragic scene was reported near Rish-Khor military base in Kabul. Multiple witnesses reported seeing dead birds on tree branches with blood coming out of their mouths. As one witness put it: "We were amazed to see all these birds sitting quietly on [tree] branches; but when we shook the tree the birds fell down and we saw blood coming out of their mouths. Then we climbed the trees to see those that were still stuck on tree branches, all of them had bled from their mouths. Two of the birds appeared to be partly melted into the trees branches" 

These various claims by witnesses of the US-UK bombing amply establishes that Weapon of Mass Destruction have been used. Amidst the nonstop bombing, Taliban Public Health Minister Mullah Mohammad Abbas had expressed concerns about the utility of depleted uranium by the US in Afghanistan. The Minister was anxious about the long-term contamination of large areas in Afghanistan. He was aware of the US indifference to the well being of people in other regions and said: "They 
used uranium in Kosovo and our concern is that they will do the same thing in Afghanistan." 

According to Dai Williams, independent DU researcher, there has been 50 to 100 times greater health hazard in Afghanistan than had been in Balkans from the usage of uranium based weapons, depleted uranium, dirty uranium and uranium ore. 

As pointed out above, the efforts of UMRC to expose the so-called mystery metal used in the bombing in Afghanistan strengthened by the efforts of other researchers aimed to explore the ongoing 'Afghan War Syndrome' similar to the 'Gulf War Syndrome', which has caused horrific congenital deformities in Iraq. 

According to the Washington based Center for Defense Information, several hundred tonnes of weapons - smart bombs and cruise missiles - enriched with the so-called mystery metal aimed for hard targets such as caves, bunkers and command and control installations were used in Afghanistan. The problem becomes more severe when one compares, the hard target weapons used in Afghanistan to the ones used in Balkans. Dai Williams compares the weapons, namely har target weapon in Afghanistan to that in Balkans as follows: 

"The mystery metal is 50-75% of the weight of the bombs - up to 1.5 tons in the GBU-37 Bunker Buster bombs. If this is DU then target zones will be 50-100x more contaminated than by the pencil-sized 30 mm (0.27 kg) anti-tank shells used in the Balkans War, and more like the DU ammunition fire in the Gulf War. DU oxide is known to travel up to 25 miles by wind so large areas may be affected by each bomb." 

What this translates into is more deaths, morphological changes in people, 
congenital deformities and various types of cancers. In this tragedy, an 
intertwined horrifically fatal relationship emerges between the individual and his/her environment. Since Afghans, as other people worldwide, live in their respective localities, where they have lived from childhood on, are forced to make painful choices. On the one hand, they do not want to leave their villages and cities because those are their homes. On the other, hand, they can not remain there out of concerns for the safety of their families from uranium poisons as well as further bombings. Tragically, they have no choice and no place to go. Even if they could, for the overwhelming majority it is too late because uranium dust has already determined their fate, diseases and inevitable death. 

In their attempts to "smoke-out" the Taliban and Al Qaida, the US has bombed these ancient tunnels and caves that villagers throughout Afghanistan have been using for water supply. This not only worsened the existing situation characterized by drought and lack of water, but it also permanently destroyed the ecological centers in east, southeast and southwestern Afghanistan, and created a perpetual source of disease and death for populations living in those areas. According to Fred Pearce's article "Dying of Thirst" in the New Scientist, November 17, 2001, the US military bombed the Kajaki dam, which waters land in southwestern Afghanistan that supports over 1 million people. In the same article, Fred Pearce articulates the following: 

"Afghanistan, which is in the third year of an unprecedented drought, relies on a mixture of ancient and modern water-supply systems. As well as relying on the Kajaki dam, the south of the country is peppered with hundreds of water-supply tunnels, often running for tens of kilometres [sic] into hillsides to tap water reserves deep underground. The tunnels, known in Pashto as karez, are now a [sic] target for American warplanes. Military strategists claim that bin Laden and Taliban troops may now be hiding out in the karez, many of which are wide enough to accommodate companies of men. They say the karez made impenetrable hideouts for the mujahedin during their guerrilla war with Soviet occupiers in the 1980s." 

Therefore, the traditional systems of water, karez system of tunnels, whereupon thousands in Afghan countryside rely, have been permanently tailored to serve as sources of perpetual death for locals living there. The following photos are reminders of the US-UK murderous legacy of perpetual death experienced in Iraq but now in Afghanistan 
[PHOTO]

Iraqi Baby Deformed thanks to the US-UK depleted uranium
[PHOTO]

Thanks to the Liberators - victim of the US-UK depleted uranium
[PHOTO] 

Another US-UK liberated child
[PHOTO]

What would you do, if your entire family except a young sister had perished in the US liberation attempted in Afghanistan?

These beleaguered souls are probably dead due to depleted uranium dust.
If they are alive, they will most likely die from dreadful diseases. This is 
one example among thousands in the tragedy of perpetual deaths imposed 
on the poor and gallant people of Afghanistan. I wish to conclude with the 
following quote from one of the victims of US-UK bombing in Afghanistan: 
 

"Tell the Americans, they kill us to sustain your way of life, when they 
enjoy living, they better think about the 15 members of my family. Tell 
them that they are guilty. Only if they have any conscience, they would 
know that they are as guilty as their government." 

Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD,  Freelance Academic
Afghan-American Interviews, December 2002 
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