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December 04, 2007

At the Waikaloa Community Church on Friday Nov. 16, I attended the first of a series of joint U.S. Army and Hawaii Health Department informational hearings on Depleted Uranium (DU) held at Kona,  Hawaii. The hearings were the result of Big Island citizens monitoring high background levels of radiation downwind from the Pohakuloa gunnery range during Army Stryker  maneuvers at the range, April 22. Normal background levels are in the area of 10 to 20 counts per minute (CPM) but on April 22nd the citizens’ measurements went as high as 93 CPM. Public outcry and concerns over dangers from radiation prompted two front page stories in the Honolulu Advertiser May 11 and May 14.  The military only then admitted the possibility that DU had been used at Pohakuloa. Earlier on Oahu in 2005, the American Friends Service Committee obtained a U.S. Army email through the Freedom of Information Act.  The email referred to an ordinance clean up at Schofield Barracks Oahu.  It read as follows:We have found much that we did not expect, including the recent find of Depleted Uranium. The disclosure culminated in the release of the discovery of 15 M-101 rounds containing DU to the Honolulu media.

In June 2007, citizens and groups demanded that Russell Takata of the Hawaii State Health Department Radiation Branch begin immediate testing for DU on all military bases in Hawaii. In response to the cumulative public and media outcry, the Army began helicopter aerial surveys at Pohakuloa and discovered 1960’s cold war “Davy Crockett” M–101 spotter rounds made from DU––the same DU rounds found at Schofield. The Davy Crockett was a classified tactical nuclear weapons system which would launch a .01 Kiloton nuclear bomb toward advancing enemy ground forces.
 
The DU spotter round would mimic the Davy Crockett trajectory and impact area with a visible two- meter diameter explosion. As a result of the Pohakuloa DU discovery, the Kona informational hearings were held to inform the public and address their concerns.

Upon arriving at the church I spoke with the pastor.  He gave me permission to film the event, and I began to set up my camera. The army information officer was quick to the scene. She asked why I was there and I replied that I wanted to share the information provided that night with the outer-island public. I also wanted to use the information to back up any proposed 2008 Bills regarding DU testing. She was immediately interested and asked “Bills? What kind of Bills?” “Legislation to test returned Iraq military veterans and air and soil monitoring of military bases for DU,” I replied. We then exchanged business cards. After the pule,the facilitator, host and Kona representative Cindy Evans introduced Russell Takata who gave a power point presentation on the history of DU in Hawaii and the results of  air testing  the perimeters of Pohakuloa Gunnery Range. He said that the area showed no abnormal radiation levels and dismissed the idea of dangers from windblown DU.

Representative Evans then introduced Colonel Howard Killian to the 60 people attending the meeting.  Colonel Killian is the spokesperson for the Hawaii DU project.  His slide show detailed the U.S. Army DU survey at Pohakuloa. We were shown the areas at Pohakuloa where the Davy Crockett spotting rounds were used and we looked at photos from the helicopters of the 45 year old spotting rounds laying in the lava flow.

We were told that classified archives indicated that 714 M-101 DU spotting rounds were sent to Hawaii in the 1960’s and that DU has not been used in Hawaii since 1968. He explained that the use of DU has been prohibited by the Department of Defense (DOD), on U.S. military target ranges since 1996. Killian assured us that Uranium oxides are too heavy to be spread by wind and that DU saves our soldiers lives as it is a superior “one shot, one kill weapon.” To date the military has spent $2.2 million in Hawaii on recent surveys, including 5,000 man-hours collecting 1,600 soil/vegetation samples for DU testing.  Finally, Killian again reassured all present that DU poses no health threats.

Dr. Lorrin Pang, Maui District Health Officer, spoke next. He was allotted five minutes “because he spent his time and own money to come to Kona to share his thoughts,” said Rep. Evans. Dr. Pang spent 24 years as a U.S. Army health officer, worked at Walter Reed testing drugs and vaccines and since 1985, has been a researcher with the World Health Organization (WHO). His biggest concern with DU and Uranium is that when micron sized particles become oxidized, they can be aerosoled and inhaled internally. These non-soluble particles position themselves in the lung tissue and are picked up by the lymph system.  The uranium oxides emit alpha radiation and thus become the “most dangerous form of radiation when internalized,” bombarding cell nuclei with alpha-rays resulting in mutations and cancers. These nano-levels of uranium are of the greatest concern to Dr. Pang. He compared DU to a cigarette, “a cigarette by itself is harmless but when burned and inhaled it becomes dangerous, so with DU when it is weaponized, burned (oxidized), and inhaled it becomes dangerous.”

The meeting then opened up to public testimony and questions. One heart wrenching testifier mentioned that her sister was dying from leukemia. She began to cry while describing the agony of it all and remarked that her sister had told her of “many Iraq war veterans at the hospital, suffering and being treated for the same type of rare blood disorder she had.”

The highlight of the meeting was an unannounced surprise speaker introduced by Col. Killian as simply “Mark.” He described himself as an Army Physicist specializing in radiation. I was later able to identify him as Dr. Mark Melanson, who often appears in public on behalf of the military.  He specializes in discrediting the DU radiation activists working to raise awareness about the health effects and illnesses caused by Depleted Uranium. Among his many outrageous claims, was the answer he gave  to a question about the high rates of cancer among civilians in Iraq and the Balkans. He said that the high rates and huge levels of cancer in Iraq was merely a claim by Saddam Hussein and was not verified by the WHO.

 He went on to say, “all the studies known and all research shown does not show any relationship between uranium exposure and cancer and any other health effects-except with radon in uranium miners.”

I was experiencing an uncanny sense of Déjà Vu.  Here I was, listening to the same things tobacco industry hired-gun doctors and expert witnesses were paid to say when they said smoking doesn’t cause cancer during the tobacco trials and hearings. I was especially concerned that the Army spokespersons ignored the devastating effects of DU use upon civilian populations in the battlefield.

 Needless to say I was shocked  by Dr. Mark’s blatant lies, so I did some further research for this story. My cousin, Dr. Doug Rokke, Major U.S. Army Retired, was in charge of the DU clean up during the Gulf War amd  wrote a 1992 DOD training program mandating that U.S. soldiers be trained on the dangers of DU uranium exposure.
To date, the program has been shelved and ignored. He told me that members of his Iraq clean up crews (including Doug) are sick and dying from illnesses as a result of the radiation exposure from tanks and armor hit by “friendly fire” that they rehabilitated and removed from the battle field.

In 1996, the United Nations passed a resolution making DU weapons illegal under international law.  In the BBC film documentary The Doctor, DU and The Dying Children,  Iraq war veteran, Teddy Wyman of the Uranium Medical Research Center, Toronto, investigates civilian illnesses from DU radiation in Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Illnesses attributed to DU according to UMRC doctors include high rates of  birth defects, still births, cancers, leukemia, diabetes, skin disorders, eye problems  and thyroid disease to name a few.

In one interview, Wyman talked about eyewitness civilian accounts to DU “bunker buster” bombardments where neighbors to the blasts related “chronic fatigue and flu-like symptoms lasting for weeks and months
afterwards.”

Wyman accompanied a medical group to the villages near Tora Bora Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda and Bin Laden had been cornered in caves and subsequently bombed with tons of DU “bunker busters.” Measuring the springs percolating from ground water, the team found that the water supply was radioactive and thus undrinkable.

In conclusion, the military use of DU can only be attributed to its incredible effectiveness on the battlefield, its “one shot one kill quality.”  However, the devastating effects on civilian populations, and the destruction of the environments and the economies of these countries make the weapon immoral and unethical.

As Ted Wyman, Dr. Rokke and many, many international leaders and scientists have  proven,  the use of  Depleted Uranium is nuclear warfare.  It should be forbidden under all international treaties and laws and by plain common human decency.

Lance Holter