On the battlefield, DU has been hailed as the best, and what country does not want its soldiers to be given the best of tools in a time of war? Yet the bloody afterglow of radiation and its dire consequences for civilization have caused others to describe DU as "death unlimited."

We were told by the U.S. military in Iraq that there is no longer a need for depleted uranium munitions there and that, indeed, the current deployment is not using DU. However, this past week it was announced that the Army has placed a $38 million order for new DU munitions, extending the original contract for fiscal year 2006 up to $77 million.

DU is a controversial subject.

The Iconoclast attempted to get some answers.

We were pleased that some individuals were forthcoming when we attempted to interview them and we were disappointed at others who broke promises to call us back after they learned the subject matter was depleted uranium.

Although the quantity of text in this report tends to weigh heavier for individuals opposed to the use of depleted uranium, the Iconoclast spent considerable time attempting to obtain Q&A viewpoints that might be on the other side of the argument. It was in this venue that promised phone calls were not returned and our reporters got multiple run-arounds in reaching the "top brass."

Nevertheless, The Iconoclast has produced this special feature which provides our readers a chance to listen in on some of the conversations and draw their own conclusions.

Among those interviewed, in the order they appear in this feature, were:

• Chris Busby, author of the study: "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe?"

• Leuren Moret, geological scientist and international radiation expert.

• Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass, Emeritus Professor of Radiological Physics in the Department of Radiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

• Dr. Rosalie Bertell, PhD, GNSH, President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), and Editor in Chief of International Perspectives in Public Health.

• Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D. (retired), former director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project, Vietnam and Gulf War Veteran.

• Major Denise Nichols (retired), Gulf War Veteran and retired U.S. Air Force Reserve Major,Vice Chairman of the National Vietnam Veteran and Gulf War Veterans Coalition.

• Ann Ham, Public Affairs, U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine.

• Captain William Roberts, Multi-National Forces Iraq Spokesman.

• Tim Hix, Vietnam Veteran exposed to Agent Orange, dying of cancer.

• Karl Schwarz, presidential candidate, author, technology company founder whose son served in Iraq.

We lead off with the news story about the study.

John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."

Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse.

"It is certainly as bad," he said. "It extends over a much wider section of the population than it did under Saddam."

Pace, currently a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, spoke as sectarian tensions in Iraq push the country to the brink of civil war.

There has been a surge in religious violence in Iraq since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and a spate of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.

The situation has been made worse by extremist Shiite militia operating within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, said Pace, who singled out the Badr Brigade, which makes up a large chunk of the Iraqi security services and military.

He said militia and insurgents are responsible for threatening morgue staff in Baghdad not to perform autopsies on bodies of apparent victims of torture and killings.

"They are told it is not necessary, and not in their interests," he said, adding that both militia and insurgents were "trying to minimize any chances" that their activities could be investigated and prosecuted.

Pace, who spent much of his two years in the post in Iraq, said he visited the morgue in Baghdad once a week when he was in the city and regarded it as a "barometer" of the level of violence in the country. He declined to provide more specific details about the threats, citing fears for the safety of morgue workers.

He said that around three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to the morgue each month were categorized with "gunshot wound" as the cause of death - a phrase Pace says is a euphemism. "Nearly all were executed and tortured," he added.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which ran the Badr Brigade. Badr claims it is no longer an armed militia.

But former Badr commanders hold key posts in Interior Ministry commando units, which are regarded by Sunnis as nothing more than death squads. In November, the U.S. Army raided an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad and found 158 tortured and starved Sunni prisoners.

"They have caused havoc," said Pace, referring to the Badr Brigade. "They do basically as they please. They arrest people, they torture people, they execute people, they detain people, they negotiate ransom and they do that with impunity."

Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

Gen. Caslen said that two years ago the Department of Defense had not settled on a clear definition of the nature of the war. Moreover, because each government department had its own perspective, "we all had different strategies," he said.

The Defense Department now has defined the nature of the war, he said. The enemy, he said, is "a transnational movement of extremist organizations, networks and individuals that use violence and terrorism as a means to promote their end." It is not a global insurgency, the general said.

"We do not go as far as to say it is a global insurgency, because it lacks a centralized command and control," he said.

Groups such as al Qaeda, though, are constantly trying to increase their capabilities, and in some cases are outstripping the United States, Gen. Caslen said.

"We in the Pentagon are behind our adversaries in the use of communications -- either to recruit or train," he said. Compared with historical jihads, or enduring Muslim wars, this one "is accelerated because of its capability in communications."

The Pentagon official said Muslim thought ranges from secular and mainstream to extremist and intolerant.

The takfir (infidel) view of the world that falls under the Salafist teachings of the Sunni sect -- such as al Qaeda in Iraq -- is an example of the extremist view that condones violence to accomplish ideological ends, he said.

The general said the extremists' goal is to remove U.S. troops from Iraq and establish a radical state under Shariah, or Islamic law, remove what they consider the apostate governments of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, and destroy Israel.

But the enemy has vulnerabilities.

"The ideology is not popular among most, even Muslims," he said. "We need to undermine support by amplifying the moderate forces and undermining the enemy's repressive and corrupt behavior."

Gen. Caslen said the government and military are working to integrate their strategies and plans, and that a national strategic presidential directive and homeland security presidential directive are being drafted to face the terrorist threat.

Leading the war on terrorism is Special Operations Command based in Tampa, Fla. The command is writing a military global campaign strategy with a specific plan to deal with each terrorist organization.

Gen. Caslen said a governmentwide plan to assign tasks and responsibilities to all U.S. government departments and the military also is being created.

"When they took the cover off his body I could see his nose was badly broken," said Daoud Moussa, a senior Iraqi police officer. "The skin of his wrists had been torn off. The skin on his forehead was torn away. On the left side of his chest there were clear blue bruises. On his legs I saw bruising from kicking."

Almost three years later, three soldiers belonging to the Queen's Lancashire Regiment are awaiting trial in Britain over Baha's death, one of them charged with manslaughter, the other two with "inhumane treatment."

Why there isn't a straightforward murder trial is a telling question about British sincerity to fully prosecute soldiers accused of torture and other war crimes. What's even more telling is that this week there was a small report in the British media that the commander of the troops charged over Baha's killing is to be promoted. Despite also facing trial for negligence, Colonel Mendonca has been selected to attend a top military college aimed at "grooming the next generation of generals," according to The London Times.

The signal that this sends out cannot be understated. It signals that the British authorities are not serious about dealing with allegations of war crimes. As the lawyer acting for Baha Moussa's family said, the British government is perpetuating a "history of impunity."

Amnesty International says there is a clear "pattern" of killings, torture and ill treatment by British soldiers of detainees in Iraq. Yet only a handful ever result in prosecutions.

Not one British soldier has been convicted of murder or the lesser charge of manslaughter since hostilities officially ended in Iraq, in May 2003. In one high-profile trial which collapsed last November, seven members of the Parachute Regiment were cleared of murdering 18-year-old Nadhem Abdullah whom they had apprehended in a village in south Iraq. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to convict any individual soldier, even though traces of the victim's blood were found on a rifle butt.

One is tempted to conclude that a small sample of cases are cynically taken to trial to give the impression that British authorities are addressing allegations of war crimes but, in effect, do nothing about it. This has the added appeal for the government and army brass of creating the impression that only a tiny element within the forces are involved in misconduct.

As for torture and ill treatment of detainees, again there is something of a cynical game being played by the British (and US) authorities. Firstly, it should be noted that over a two-year period it is conservatively estimated that 30-40,000 individuals were detained in US/UK prisons in Iraq since the official end of "the war." Given that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was in itself illegal, according to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the subsequent use of massive, prolonged detention without trial should surely also constitute a serious breach of international law, if not a war crime.

Out of the countless reports and images of gross mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, Camp Breadbasket, Camp Bucca and other "black sites," again only a relative handful result in disciplinary action. From press reports, it is estimated that only four British troops have been court-martialled while in the US two soldiers have been given prison sentences, and some 20 others have been discharged or disciplined.

Given the scale of the abuses, the relatively few prosecutions enable the authorities in Britain and the US to peddle the notion that the violations are being perpetrated by "a few bad apples." Again, this disingenuous response sends out the signal of impunity to members of these forces.

The latest apology for misconduct among British troops came this week from Defence Secretary John Reid, who said that the public and media should be "a little slower to condemn and a lot quicker to understand." He was speaking after video evidence emerged of British troops viciously beating unarmed Iraqi teenagers.

Mr Reid said: "One observer with one videophone standing in a vast and hugely complex theatre of operations can convey an oversimplified and sometimes misleading picture." He said the good reputation of the vast majority of British troops was tarnished by the "offences of a few."

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair added: "It should not become the only thing that people think our troops are up to in Iraq. Our troops are helping Iraqis to achieve democracy."

It is notable that this self-congratulatory delusion or deception about the real behaviour of British forces is shared by senior British politicians across all the parties. The benign self-image is also reflected in all the major news media.

On the latest scandal of troops thrashing youths, the BBC quickly reminded viewers that the army is performing "an essentially peacekeeping role." The Times described the incident as "a shot in the foot." Even the liberal-left Guardian lamented "rogue breaches," while The Independent said it was "a propaganda gift to our enemies."

This uniform assumption that killings, torture or misconduct are somehow aberrations in the noble cause of British troops in Iraq is an indication of how deep-seated the culture of impunity is in British society. This is what historian Mark Curtis means when he described Britain as "a single-ideology totalitarian state."

In his book Web of Deceit, Curtis points out that torture of civilian populations is a deliberate policy of control by British colonialism and imperialism, whether under the direction of Labour or Conservative governments.

An official British investigation in 1971 observed that the British army had engaged in the torture of detainees, using methods including "wall-standing, hooding, noise, bread and water diet and deprivation of sleep."

These techniques in torture, the investigation admitted, were "important" to counterinsurgency operations in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, British Cameroons, Brunei, British Guiana (now Guyana), Aden, Borneo/Malaysia, the Persian Gulf and in Northern Ireland.

This puts what is really happening in Iraq into a more comprehensible historical perspective, a perspective of unrelenting British violence and crimes against humanity. I think it's a perspective that would be more readily recognised by Baha Moussa's family and thousands of other families in Iraq, rather than Mr Blair's assurances about helping to "achieve democracy."

The writer is a newspaper journalist in Dublin - Email: fpcunningham@yahoo.ie

A second Palestinian, 18, was wounded by Israeli gunfire.

An Israeli army spokesman told AFP that "our soldiers were conducting an arrest operation in Nablus. They saw an armed man on a roof, opened fire against him and identified a hit".

The source said troops shot a second person who threw an object, believed to have been a bomb, at the soldiers during the raid.

Residents said Basyuni was not armed.

Death toll

Basyuni's death brings to 4971 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in 2000.

Over three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinian.

Israeli troops arrested three Palestinians, including two suspected members of the Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades factions, in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, security sources said.

A fourth Palestinian was lightly wounded during the raid.

Elsewhere, an army spokesman said four people had been arrested in southern Israel after being suspected of infiltrating the Egyptian border.

Israel began a series of raids against Palestinian fighters in the northern West Bank after Hamas group won the 25 January Palestinian parliament elections.

Israel has also worked to internationally isolate Hamas in an effort to force the group to renounce violence and recognise Israel's right to exist.

Several countries have ignored the Israeli efforts and invited Hamas leaders for visits even though the group has refused to change its ideology.

Military officials warned that disclosing the location of the aircraft's new base would violate security provisions of rules governing media access to U.S. installations.

The four-engine gunships, whose home base is Hurlburt Field in Florida, have operated over Iraq before, flying from airfields elsewhere in the region. In November 2004, air-to-ground fire from AC-130s supported the U.S. attack that took the western city of Fallujah from insurgents.

Basing the planes inside Iraq will cut hours off their transit time to reach suspected targets.

Planes heavily armed
The left-side ports of the AC-130s, 98-foot-long planes that can slowly circle over a target for long periods, bristle with a potent arsenal - 40 mm cannon that can fire 120 rounds per minute, and big 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The plane's latest version, the AC-130U, known as "Spooky," also carries Gatling gun-type 20 mm cannon.

The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops. In Vietnam, for example, they were deployed against North Vietnamese supply convoys along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where the Air Force claimed to have destroyed 10,000 trucks over several years.

The use of AC-130s in places like Fallujah, urban settings where insurgents may be among crowded populations of noncombatants, has been criticized by human rights groups.

The slow-moving AC-130s also offer an intelligence gathering advantage in the Iraq fight: sophisticated long-range video, infrared and radar sensors.

American commanders are marshaling all available tools to detect the Iraqi insurgents' stealthy operations, especially at night, when they plant roadside bombs targeting American road patrols and convoys.

The Air Force's senior tactical commander in Iraq said the AC-130 can be both a high-intensity and low-intensity weapon.

"It's got tons of guns, and it's got all kinds of stuff on it that can be applied to the problems you have," Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, who refused to discuss the current AC-130 deployment, said in an AP interview.

That "stuff" includes "the ability to take these high-tech pods and to use them to find guys planting (bombs) and to find other nefarious activity," he said.

The Predator drone - the MQ-1 unmanned aerial vehicle - has been a reconnaissance workhorse in Iraq, but Air Force officers say they don't have enough to meet demand for missions. The fiscal 2007 Defense Department budget proposed last month by the Bush administration envisions spending $1.6 billion on additional reconnaissance drones.
© 2006 The Associated Press.

On nuclear weapons, I believe people of the world have chosen abolishment, but the governments are ignoring the wishes of their people. So, we have entered the second nuclear arms race, led by current US Administration and being followed by many other countries. If our governments don't, at this point in our history, take seriously their international obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to start decommissioning all nuclear weapons, there will be a serious proliferation within the next few years and we will truly be unable to abolish nuclear weapons. We will pass a frightful legacy to our children and grandchildren, a legacy of nuclear weapons and nuclear debt that will endanger them and their world. It is not only the next generation we will burden, but the cost of nuclear weapons in the past and today has robbed the materially poor of their rightful inheritance to be nurtured with basic rights of food, education and health care.

Governments are elected to take care of their citizens. But governments have not only a responsibility to nurture their own people; they have a responsibility to all of humanity. I believe this can best be done by all governments if, before taking serious policy decisions, they ask themselves, "Does this policy uphold domestic and international laws, and how will it benefit our nation's people and humanity as a whole?"

This question is particularly relevant to the current American Administration. The whole world is now being affected by American foreign policies and American culture. All around the world, American television is beamed into billions of homes, Americanizing many people's way of life. This recognition places enormous responsibility upon American government, media, corporations and people, to ask if what you are exporting is good for the world, or damaging it. What kind of ethical and moral values and example are you sending out to the world's people, particularly an impressionable and vulnerable younger generation? Is offering the example of increasing nuclearism, ongoing wars, and the ignoring of international treaties and laws really going to make the world a safer place for us all? Yes, terrorism is a threat and we all want human security, but meeting terror with terror is not an answer. I believe that such approaches to date have made the world a more dangerous place both for Americans and many people throughout the world, and especially our Arab brothers and sisters.

After the horror of the Second World War, the world community recognized the need for legislation to protect citizens. Since then many international laws have entered into force. In the past, America played an important role in setting up many laws that would protect human rights. In l945, America gave full support for the United Nations. It supported the drafting of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which affirmed the dignity of every human being. This Declaration has affected the policies of the United States and other countries all over the earth for more than half a century. The preamble to the UDHR states: "Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms" and it upholds "the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people."

Under the UDHR, every citizen on the planet has a right to be free from fear of nuclear weapons, and every citizen on the planet has a right to be free from poverty, which condemns so many to lack of health care, education, shelter and the very basic necessities that enable human beings to lead full and dignified lives.

I believe we all have a human right to a nuclear free world and, in proclaiming that right, we affirm that we have chosen to live together, as the human family and friends, and not to die together as fools in a nuclear holocaust.


Mairead Corrigan Maguire received the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize and the 1991 Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.