Green Party of Rhode Island
http://www.greens.org/ri/
JUNE 27, 2005
Contact:
Jeff Toste - Co-Chair, GPRI - (401) 455-1775
Cynthia Rose - Co-Chair, GPRI (401) 996-2044
The Green Party of Rhode Island (GPRI) demands an
end to the use of Depleted Uranium.
(Providence) The GPRI today urged our local and
national elected officials to take action to end the use of a growing
danger to our communities: Depleted Uranium. Depleted Uranium (DU) is
a radioactive material used in weaponry developed by the U.S.
military. It is currently used in the ongoing Iraq war, and previously
used in numerous US military operations including the Gulf war.
In a recent interview with Leuren Moret, a
Geoscientist and geologist (http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/19news03.htm
) Ms. Moret describes DU as not only a threat to U.S. soldiers, their
families, and innocent victims of the war(s), but to the U.S. and
world peoples.
"Of 251 Gulf War I veterans in Mississippi,
in 67 percent of them, their babies born after the war were deemed to
have severe birth defects," said Ms. Moret. "They had brains
missing, arms and legs missing, organs missing. They were born without
eyes. They had horrible blood diseases. It’s horrific."
Depleted uranium weapons systems first appeared on
record in the U.S. patent office in 1968 for the Navy. They have been
sold by U.S. weapons manufacturers around the world and used by the
U.S. military in the current Iraq War, Gulf War, Yugoslavia and
Afghanistan.
DU is released as radioactive dust and is feared
to raise cancer rates worldwide. According to the article, vast
regions around the world including the atmosphere in the United States
are contaminated with depleted uranium. The amount of radioactivity is
the equivalent number of atoms as over 400,000 Nagasaki bombs.
According Ms. Moret regarding the speed at which DU travels in the
atmosphere, "What is over there [in Iraq] is over here [US] in
about four days."
DU radiation is linked to mutation in DNA, birth
defects, leukemia, rectal cancer, uterine cancer, burning syndrome,
increased global infant mortality, damage to mood-control mechanisms
in the brain, and many other illnesses and irreversible damage to
plant and animal life. It is a systemic and a radiological poison.
The GPRI calls upon all elected officials to act
upon the international movement to bring about an end the use,
manufacture, storage, sale and deployment of this life threatening
material.
