Former Head of the Depleted Uranium Project in the Pentagon speaks about Depleted Uranium
The transcript is recommended reading. The reality of war most of us don’t want to know about. We are safe watching movies that depict war, but the real thing is another story. As a peace educator the two values that come to mind are Reponsibility and Empathy. There is no way we can harm another when we have the ability to respond and we can stand in their shoes. Imagine yourself as a soldier exposed to depleted uranium, how that feels. Imagine you are a mother in Afghanistan with cancer, how would you feel. That is what empathy opens us to, that we are indeed each others keepers. We are responsible for where our taxes go and if it has adverse affects on other people then as citizens we have a responsibility to bring it into the public forum. That is why I am writing this blog, to raise awareness that peace is not only possible it is who we are. When we cut through the power games, the justifications, the deception and sit peacefully, we see that in truth we defeat ourselves when we say it is not my problem or what can I do. There is plenty we can do. Major Douglas Rokke, who is the former Head of the Depleted Uranium Project taught me that speaking out with conscience is what can be done. He encourages others to speak up and face these issues which do not bring us freedom but send us down a pathway, we all don’t want to go.
The truth sets us free.
Gandhi is quoted as saying ‘if the mad race for armaments continues it is bound to result in a slaughter such as never occurred in history. If there is a victor left the very victory will be a living death for the nation that emerges victorious.’
INTERVIEW WITH MAJOR DOUG ROKKE
Interview by Plenty Valley 88.6FM, Melbourne Australia, 26.6.03
Please note that no responsibility can be taken for errors or omissions in the transcript. It is based on listening to the interview. Apologies for any names or words that are spelled incorrectly.
When the Gulf War started, Major Doug Rokke was assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and sent to the Gulf. What he experienced has made him a passionate voice for peace, travelling the country to speak out about depleted uranium.
Credentials:
- Major Douglas Rokke he has served in the US military for 35 years;
- He is a US Army expert on Uranium Munitions in war;
- Has a PHD in Health Physics;
- Trained as a Forensic Scientist;
- Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering;
- Served in Vietnam as a bombardier, still in the US Army Reserves. He used to fly B52 bombers;
- Director of Depleted Uranium Project;
- University of Illinois Physics Department;
- Gulf War – the U.S. Army health physicist assigned to 12th Preventive Medicine AM Theater command staff and the 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters;
- Involved in the war in Iraq;
- The Pentagon sacked for blowing the whistle on depleted uranium.
Q. Can you tell us briefly about your background?
A. Little bit of background during Gulf War 1 I was a US Army Health Physicist and I was specifically assigned to clean up the Uranium munitions mass contamination friendly fire contamination from Gulf War 1, that death with the United States Military personnel that were wounded or injured during friendly fire using uranium munitions. In 1994-95 I was the Director of the United States Army in the US Department of Defence Depleted Uranium Project. My specific task as Director was to develop the education and training necessary to ensure safe operations of everything around uranium munitions when used, before they are used or after they are used and also specifically tasked how to clean up uranium munitions contamination. What I have learned from first hand experience both from cleaning and doing the research and putting the program together and my own adverse health effects from uranium exposure is uranium munitions are a catastrophe, they leave a trail of health and environmental effects that very simply rule out their use forever.
Q What is the state of play at the moment?
A The United States has deliberately used uranium munitions during Gulf War 1 through Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. That was in 1990-91. The first use of uranium munitions was by Israel against the Egyptians in the Sinai desert during the 1973 war again the medical evidence the photographic evidence absolutely confirms that and then what happened is that in 1993 the United States was going to use them in Somalia on the horn of Africa. We got it stopped, issued specific medical directives requiring full radio bio analysis for anyone exposed to uranium contamination. That is within a building, structure, vehicle anything that is struck, work in contaminated areas or being downwind where the contamination arises from. Issued in October 1993. Then in 1994-1995 we used uranium munitions in the Balkans for the first time in Serbia, 1995-96 they shot Iraq, Okinawa. Then in 1999 despite all of our best efforts, up in the White House in Washington DC trying to stop it. They used uranium munitions again in the Balkans and then we turn around and then in this last year we deliberately used Uranium Munitions, and Vieques, Puerto Rico and then we deliberately used them in Afghanistan and now we have littered Baghdad and most of Iraq in the cities with uranium munitions again now in Gulf war II.
Q What impact is that going to have on the people actually using it, the people exposed to it and the land after all this is finished?
A. Uranium munitions and the amount that we used were looking at from Gulf War 1 alone over 350 tonnes of solid uranium waste was spread all over and ignored and deliberately left there. The estimates right now form the British Royal Society Dr Bryants, Brad and myself both concurred on in his estimates and when we did Latenight Live on the ABC radio network here in Australia – is 500 tonnes in Iraq now with Gulf War II and the estimates are over 1,000 tonnes in Afghanistan. What happened to us personally and again this goes back and concurs with the known medical and health effects that go back as far as documenting US documents to 1943 is that we got sick within 24 to 72 hours with respiratory problems and rashes. That is being reported today on the news here in Australia that the residents of Iraq are having those same problems. It has been known that the US troops have had those problems. Everybody is having those problems. So your seeing those that are immediate and those kidney and cancer problems that come about from this and remember that unless you physically clean up all of this solid uranium waste it will remain there and cause health effects for 4.5 billion years, that is the current age of the earth.
Q Can you explain to us what is depleted uranium?
A Depleted Uranium there is nothing depleted about it. It is actually the radioactive isotope 238 its contaminated with neptunium and reisium and the most toxic radioactive substance known to man, plutonium it also has uranium 236 from reactor fuel recycling and that it also has a very small component of uranium 234 and 235. Uranium 238 is the by-product of the uranium enrichment process or the recycling of reactor fuel for every 100 grams of solid uranium that goes into this process you have 3 primary isotopes. You have over 99.2 grams is your Uranium 238 and 0.8 grams the fissionable component of uranium 234 and 235 during the enrichment process you remove 0.6 grams out of every 100 and that is the fissionable component that is uranium 234 and 235 that is used to make nuclear bombs and reactor fuel and as a consequence for every 100 grams that you have you have 99.4 grams is just radioactive waste which needs to be disposed of. They call that depleted uranium. They have found the best way to dispose that and get it out of the sites at … Kentucky or Oakridge Tennessee or Port.. in the US is put it in munitions because it is fantastic. It destroys everything that it hits, they can also put it in commercial aircraft as ballast and actually put it in the back of forklifts to keep forklifts from turning over. Then they put it in concrete called… in other words any place that can take the waste and dispose of it they are going to hide it and dispose of it. As a munition it is awesome because individually the uranium munition fired by the Abrahams tank, the individual missile is over 4,700 grams of solid uranium it is a giant uranium dart. The A10 fires a round that is over …. solid uranium each over 4,000 rounds per minute. Then we got a whole host of others including landmines and sub-munitions, the cluster bombs …. That are causing so much devastation on the children that pick them up that didn’t go boom originally.
Q Isn’t using depleted uranium isn’t that against all the rules of the United Nations?
A. Absolutely the United Nations ruled in 1996 that the use of uranium munitions is illegal. But it is common sense, what right does any nation have to take even 1 kg of solid uranium and throw it in anyone’s backyard or sandback, the school yard, their neighbourhood, much less the hundreds of tonnes that they have thrown and they have walked away? Even though the United States own medical treatment requirements require medical care within 24 hours for depleted uranium exposures. That medical care has been denied for the majority of US casualties in Gulf War 1. And it is absolutely not provided for any of the non-combatants. Any place in the world where uranium munitions have been used.
Q What impact will it have on their health?
A. Their sick and dying just like all my staff and my friends are. You can’t get heavy metal or uranium into your body and not get sick. Think about this, we know from Vietnam that agent orange had a devastating consequence. The US and other nations deliberately used Agent Orange. We know today that asbestos has a terrible consequence. And everybody and their brother knows that you can’t eat lead paint. In uranium munitions it is far worse then any of these, far worse than lead paint even. It is not only a heavy metal like lead it is radioactive heavy metal. Nobody would advocate that you would get a few micrograms of lead paint or a few grams of lead paint in there but we are going to spread the world with depleted uranium, hundreds and hundreds of tonnes, refuse to clean it up. Refuse to provide medical care and then claim that we don’t have to. That is a crime against god that is a crime against humanity.
Q If the US Government was gong to clean up it up how would they do it?
A I was the individual responsible in the US Department of Defence in the army that developed the procedures to clean it up. Physically what you have to do, this is what I tested and verified and did in Gulf War 1, you have to physically pick up the destroyed building, bunker, tanker package for disposal. The only way you can do that is to dig a massive big hole and put it in that big hole. Then you have to collect all of the spent uranium penetrators. In Gulf War 1 there was well over 1 million of them spread all over. I don’t how many in Gulf War II but I can guarantee just from the video and photographic evidence and first hand discussions, Baghdad is littered with them. I mean video footage that I have seen shows just a half of a block, hundreds of them, laying there. Yet to physically pick up every spent penetrator then you have to take a bulldozer and remove all of the dirt to about 100 metres to at least 12 cm and put that into a big hole. Once you put this in the big hole how do you mark this big hole for eternity. Because in the future maybe someone is going to build a school or a hospital or a church on that big hole with that radioactive waste is buried, they will unearth it and then everybody will get sick again. You have to understand uranium munitions are solid uranium 238 contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, americium and they still have a remaining visible uranium 234 and 235. It is not in a small concentration. It is 100% uranium and god knows probably close to 1,000 tonnes in Iraq alone now. You can’t clean it up. That was the reason why after I had the responsibility to do this I made this strong recommendation to the United States Department of Defence in the world, do not use uranium munitions ever again.
Q That was ignored?
A Deliberately and wilfully but more importantly the individuals that are responsible for this in the United States point blank refuse, your press release on your ABC news network said the other day ‘none of us’ repeat ‘none of us that were involved in friendly fire and depleted uranium were .. or did the clean up were sick.’ It was an absolute lie. Deliberate and wilful lie in order to comply with the Los Almos memorandum. To sustain the use of uranium munitions even though there are known adverse health and environmental effects.
Q What is the Los Alamos Memorandum?
A The Los Alamos Memorandum was written by Michael Zeem who was sent to me in March 1991. And it very specifically said that when we prepare our reports on what we found on the use of uranium munitions that we lie so that we make sure we can always use them. Ignore the health and environmental effects. But more importantly and yet another thing in 1992 the Assistant Secretary of the Army Walker by directive of the United States Senate in DC sent a memorandum to the United States Army Environmental Policy Institute directed a study on the environmental effects. In one of the very specific directives was to figure out ways to reduce the toxicity of the munitions. One of the conclusions of our study was that you can not reduce the toxicity of uranium munitions. That is common sense. Who wants even 1kg of solid uranium waste put in your backyard. I don’t. What right does any nation have to take their radioactive waste that they can’t dispose of in their nation and throw it in someone else’s backyard?
Q Are you saying that because they have no where to keep it in America they have too much radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants etc. that this is one way of using it?
A Absolutely. This is deliberate you can go and read the Environmental Impact Statement from the United States of Energy for Uranium Hexofloride which is the actual chemical name for DU. Yeah it says point blank take radioactive waste from the United States and throw it in someone else’s backyard. We don’t have it anymore and we don’t care what happens to them.
Q But there are American troops there at the moment who are walking around I all that. Even if you forget about the Iraqi people you have thousands of troops there.
A. Absolutely and the actual country, America’s finest sons and daughters from Gulf War 1 as recorded by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in a report released in September 2002, that right now over 221,000 of America’s finest sons and daughters are permanently disabled as a result of duty from Gulf War 1 in the first Gulf region from August of 1990 through May of 2002. Over 221,000 are permanently disabled and over 10,000 have died. That proportion is the same all over the world. If you look at the adverse health effects from Iraq and all of these exposures not just uranium but all the environmental contaminants of war and you look at those reports or look at the photographic and medical records called the Children of the Gulf War its all there.
Q So you are saying that most of the problems for the Iraqi Children is a result of this depleted uranium.
A. Combination of depleted uranium deliberate destruction of Iraq’s chemical and biological warfare materials beginning in December of 1990 until the present that the United States gave to them and they also manufactured in all of the hazardous materials that were totally released when that nations infrastructure was destroyed. You got to remember that we used chemicals, biological and radiological materials … industry, education, manufacturing and medicine, correct. When you destroy all of these companies and … when you destroy the infrastructure, then all that material is released. War is a toxic wasteland. Because we can no longer deal with the adverse effects of war and all the releases whether it be from DU munitions or any other munitions and conventional munitions leave toxic waste. In all of the materials released during warfare, war has become obsolete. We are poisoning our planet. We are poisoning the future generations. And it is flat wrong.
Q I wanted to ask you a question in relation to the mindset of the people who would send troops into an area and fire depleted uranium missiles. What sort of mindset would you describe of the sort of people who would do this type of thing?
A It is real simple I have been a combat veteran of multiple wars and I am a warrior and still classify myself as a warrior and a patriot. The reason or purpose of war is to kill period. You kill all living things and you destroy everything that is not living. When you are a warrior that is what you do. You don’t think twice about this, you don’t even give concerns. You know the term collateral damage that is used… as if it is nothing, collateral damage means destroying everything that is not military. That means killing, killing and wounding the children. It means destroying schools, hospitals and churches. And everything else, that is what collateral damage means. They don’t even count the collateral damage in war. They just ignore it and say it is ok. It is justified. There is no justification for killing and harming the children of the world.
Q So what would you advise people in the community after hearing this type of story, very disturbing for everyone.
A What I recommend is that we ensure that all the citizens of the world stand up, ensure, demand that medical care be provided for all of our warriors, sons and daughters, military personnel. We have to give the same medical care to the enemy whoever they are if we classify them as an enemy of war, and we have. We have to give that medical care to all the non combatants the woman and the children of the world. Then the next thing we have to do is that we have to clean up the environment of all the contaminants of war. You can’t continue to contaminate god’s earth and cause harm. And then finally what we have to do, we have to ban, uranium munitions have already been banned, we have to make sure they are permanently banned and if anyone uses them hold them individually responsible for the individual use of uranium munitions. Think about it if somebody comes out and takes 10kg of solid radioactive waste and throws it into your local schoolyard they should go to jail right? Same thing needs to apply every place in the world. It is as simple as that.
Q But Doug your Government is just accepting no responsibility for any of this?
A How about that. And there is a lot of us who are warriors and patriots who are speaking out because it is flat wrong.
Q Well it certainly is and your very courageous to speak out against it. But is there any way of stopping this. You mentioned that in the first Gulf War there are 221,000 sons and daughters who have been affected by this depleted uranium.
A. And other contaminants of war. I’m just a school teacher aren’t I.
Q I don’t think you are just a school teacher you are a fantastic courageous individual.
A Somebody said you can think of yourself as just a garbage man. That is probably right I am trying to clean up the garbage of war. I am trying to ensure people are taken care of. What it all comes down to. We have to work together for peace. All nations and all peoples and all governments and all religions and all cultures and all societies. We can no longer deal with the consequences of war. War has become obsolete. And always in my lectures and to me it is very important, we say, let their be peace on earth. Peace has to begin with each one we have to take care of it, and ourselves, make a commitment and take action but what is more important that prophesy of peace that comes about 1,000 years ago. And a child shall lead us to peace well if we continue to contaminate god’s earth the flora the fauna and harm the children I don’t know where that child will come from that will be able to lead this world to peace. I don’t know but I am sure going to do something about it. One seed at a time.
Q What impact. That is a fantastic goal to have. Can I just ask Australian soldiers were also out there what impact would that have on their health?
A The same as everybody else, it doesn’t matter who you are if you inhale radioactive materials, get it into your body you are going to get sick. If you inhale, ingest or absorb all these other contaminants of war you are going to get sick. Today in The Australian, reading the newspaper they admitted that there are Australian troops all over Baghdad right now. Gee Baghdad is littered with radioactive waste the whole area is littered with the contaminants of war. Australians came back sick and dying from Vietnam they came back sick from Gulf War I, the Balkans, Afghanistan. No doubt it occurred already, because they called me, they are sick already from Gulf War II.
Q The ones that have just returned?
A Absolutely , I haven’t been in the country 24 hours before I got a call from veterans from some place called the Sunshine Coast.
Q Good heavens that is terrible. You yourself are affected by this?
A Absolutely I have a 40% combat disability from the Department of Veterans Affairs for uranium poisoning.
Q What impact does that have on veterans who turn around and father children?
A Well the children have all kinds of birth defects ok, and that is a known thing. But when the veterans try to seek medical care within the military for their children they lose, they are told if they speak out you… won’t be taking care of you. …Me and my united States Congressman had to intervene it is because I have been speaking out, even though I have a 40% disability which guarantees my medical care for combat injuries, free medical care , the United States Department of Veterans Affairs was billing me for my medical care. They went so far as to garnish my wages to pay for medical care that is supposed to be free. That is because I spoke out.
Q That is pretty frightening and this is the democracy that we are going to bring to Iraq?
A (Laugh) It was on the news again last night and this morning kids throw rocks and the soldiers shoot them with machine guns.
Q that is a very equal sort of a battle reminds me of the Israeli’s and the Palestinians.
A. Same thing is happening there.
Q Yes and we talk about terrorism. We are fighting terrorism.
A No we are trying to do what is right for the citizens of the world, live together in peace. If there is a bad guy we take care of the bad guy ok no doubt about that. I’ll defend my nation I’ll defend Australia any time I have to. I’ll definitely charge machine gun nests if I have to defend my nation and also defend Australians because you are an ally. But I sure expect the medical care before I charge that machine gun nest. And if I shoot the enemy and they live it is my obligation under god to provide them medical care. And it sure is my obligation under god to provide medical care to the non combatants to the woman and children that were affected by charging that machine gun nest. To me that is right.
Q I believe you are off to Tasmania today?
A To Hobart, and then from Hobart to Sydney and then to Perth, from Perth to Adelaide and then back to Brissy. I have the distinct pleasure of going to Adelaide because a woman who helped to raise me that lived two doors away from my parents she was a war bride from Adelaide and she sure had a great influence on my life I think that is evident huh.
Q Sounds like providence to me. This is really fantastic. Dougl I’d like to thank you for your generosity for talking with us and spreading the message even to this Plenty Valley Community Radio out here in Mill Park.
A I just try to help people I need people to help people, as Denise Nichols said one of the true heroes of Vietnam and the Gulf War people very sick, if we mobilise god’s army one by one we can achieve peace on earth.
Q That is your job for the future?
A That is all of our jobs isn’t it?