PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Doug Rokke: Human Costs of Depleted Uranium
by Patrick Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2003 at 6:15 PM
Cleveland IMC

About 100 people attended a screening of documentary and lecture by US Army whistleblower on the use, clean up, and effects of depleted uranium in military ammunitions. 6pm & 7pm Jan. 25, 2003 - Part of Pittsburgh Regional Anti-War Convergence Weekend.

About 100 people attended a screening of documentary and lecture by US Army whistleblower on the use, clean up, and effects of depleted uranium in military ammunitions. 6pm & 7pm Jan. 25, 2003 - Part of Pittsburgh Regional Anti-War Convergence Weekend.

Doug Rokke is a Vietnam and Gulf War veteran; a health physicist assigned to the US Army Depleted Uranium Assessment team in the Gulf War; and U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project director from 1994-1995. Thirty of roughly 100 DU team members have since died. All but one is sick; that one did mostly paperwork. While the official word from the Pentagon and US administration continues to be that DU is acceptable for military use; Rokke and others have a completely different view on the subject.

The US government is using data that his team collected but according to Rokke they present incorrect analysis and in some cases they are blatantly lying about the data he and his peers collected.

The US troops that are preparing to go to war in the Persian Gulf Region are completely unprepared to deal with what awaits them in the toxic wastelands left from the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. Rokke told of how he was in contact with a group of US troops who were preparing to ship out for possible military action in Iraq. A soldier told Rokke that not only were they equipped with defective gas masks that leak, but also that the army does not have in its supplies the type of gas mask able to filter out the small particles of depleted uranium. Rokke helped the soldier and his unit fight to get newer more effective masks, but worries that they won't help against DU.

Rokke stated many times that the US military is not following the procedures he wrote for proper safe handling and protection from DU. He also suggested that one of the main reasons the military insists on the continued use of DU ammunition is its ability to create maximum damage to almost any target regardless of its composition.

Rokke also pointed to obvious connections between the current White House administration and the military industrial complex and arms dealers as reasons why the military continues to uphold its policies on DU.

Depleted Uranium has not only been used in the Gulf War but also in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo (former Yugoslavia), and recently in Afghanistan. It has been used in tests inside the US at Nevada test sites and off the shores of Washington State in the Pacific Ocean as well as in Puerto Rico and Japan.

Earlier, a screening of the documentary "The Invisible War: Depleted Uranium" was attended by 100-200 people and focused on many of the issues and effects of depleted uranium. Originally produced in France with help from Rokke and other experts on DU it has only recently been available in the US, and was only seen once prior to the screening in Pittsburgh. The video shows the effects of DU in the form of genetic mutations in both the children of US Gulf War veterans and those living in Iraq. It documents the struggle to get health care for veterans affected by DU exposure and the fight of scientists and health professionals to raise awareness about the danger of DU and end its use world wide.

More information can be found at the following websites:

http://www.ngwrc.org
http://www.traprockpeace.org
http://www.unobserver.org

www.ngwrc.org

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