Depleted uranium has killed 11,000 U.S. military veterans

Jerome Douglas

Highly toxic depleted uranium has created a death toll reaching the 11,000-soldier mark, and the continuing scandal is thought to have been the main reason behind the recent departure of Anthony Principi — the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.

Arthur Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, said “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given … however, a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the U.S. military.”

Over 11,000 of the 580,000 soldiers who served in the first Gulf War are now deceased, according the Bernklau. In addition, Bernklau indicated that by 2000, 325,000 additional Gulf War veterans had gone on permanent medical disability, and more than half of the soldiers who served in the first Gulf War now have permanent medical problems.

Bernklau went on to point out that “The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far back as 2000 … he and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, it is far too big to hide or to cover up.” He went on to indicate that exposure to depleted uranium is a virtual death sentence.

Bernklau added that “Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and was also involved in the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers now returning as ’spectacular’ — and a matter of concern.’”

Although pieces of this development have been published in a Washington newspaper and have appeared on wire services as well, the story has not been covered by the national media.