U.S. denies Iraq moving toward chaos www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-02 05:27:47 WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The White House denied on Wednesday that Iraq was moving toward chaos as demonstrated in a classified military chart published by The New York Times the same day. "If you got the same report last week, you would have found out the national sectarian incidents from the 21st to the 27th (of October) dropped 23 percent; casualties nationwide dropped 23 percent; incidents of sectarian violence in Baghdad dropped 23 percent; sectarian killings in Baghdad dropped 41 percent," White House spokesman Tony Snow told a news briefing. The Times reported Wednesday that a one-page slide, prepared by the Central Command for a Oct. 18 briefing, showed Iraq was edging toward chaos. The slide, which included a color-coded bar chart used to illustrate an "Index of Civil Conflict," showed a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracked a further worsening in October despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad. Snow said the military conducted briefings on Iraq regularly that the slide, published by the Times, "was a snapshot taken at the height of the Ramadan violence." "You had a snapshot at a single point; when it was violent," he said. The Times report said that in fashioning the indexes, the military was weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy's fighting strength and the control of territory. The conclusions the Central Command had drawn were not encouraging, the report said. The slide showed Iraq as moving sharply away from "peace," an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, ared zone marked "chaos."

"There has never been an American army as violent and murderous as the one in Iraq" By Martin Lukacs The McGill Daily "The bad news," investigative reporter Seymour Hersh told a Montreal audience last Wednesday, "is that there are 816 days left in the reign of King George II of America." The good news? "When we wake up tomorrow morning, there will be one less day." Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine, has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government for nearly 40 years. Since his 1969 exposé of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which is widely believed to have helped turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War, he has broken news about the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia, covert C.I.A. attempts to overthrow Chilean president Salvador Allende, and, more recently, the first details about American soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. During his hour-and-a-half lecture - part of the launch of an interdisciplinary media and communications studies program called Media@McGill - Hersh described video footage depicting U.S. atrocities in Iraq, which he had viewed, but not yet published a story about. He described one video in which American soldiers massacre a group of people playing soccer. "Three U.S. armed vehicles, eight soldiers in each, are driving through a village, passing candy out to kids," he began. "Suddenly the first vehicle explodes, and there are soldiers screaming. Sixteen soldiers come out of the other vehicles, and they do what they're told to do, which is look for running people." "Never mind that the bomb was detonated by remote control," Hersh continued. "[The soldiers] open up fire; [the] cameras show it was a soccer game." "About ten minutes later, [the soldiers] begin dragging bodies together, and they drop weapons there. It was reported as 20 or 30 insurgents killed that day," he said. If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said. "In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation," he said. "It isn't happening now, but I will tell you - there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq." Hersh came out hard against President Bush for his involvement in the Middle East. "In Washington, you can't expect any rationality. I don't know if he's in Iraq because God told him to, because his father didn't do it, or because it's the next step in his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program," he said. Hersh hinted that the responsibility for the invasion of Iraq lies with eight or nine members of the administration who have a "neo-conservative agenda" and dictate the U.S.'s post-September 11 foreign policy. "You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants," Hersh said. "How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?" Throughout his talk Hersh remained pessimistic, predicting that the U.S. will initiate an attack against Iran, and that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate further. "There's no reason to see a change in policy about Iraq. [Bush] thinks that, in twenty years, he's going to be recognized for the leader he was - the analogy he uses is Churchill," Hersh said. "If you read the public statements of the leadership, they're so confident and so calm.... It's pretty scary."

U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques Editor and Publisher November 2, 2006 The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. On Tuesday, we explored the case of Kenny Stanton, Jr., murdered last month by our allies, the Iraqi police, though the military didn't make that known at the time. Now we learn that one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq died by her own hand after objecting to interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She was Army specialist Alyssa Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Az., native serving with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal-Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge." She was only the third American woman killed in Iraq so her death drew wide press attention. A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian." But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, unsatisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told E&P today. He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here's what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday: "Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed...." She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. "But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle," the documents disclose. The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were." Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, revealing that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He has now filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note. Peterson's father, Rich Peterson, has said: "Alyssa volunteered to change assignments with someone who did not want to go to Iraq." Alyssa Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and then sent to the Middle East in 2003. The Arizona Republic article had opened: "Friends say Army Spc. Alyssa R. Peterson of Flagstaff always had an amazing ability to learn foreign languages. "Peterson became fluent in Dutch even before she went on an 18-month Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Then, she cruised through her Arabic courses at the military's Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., shortly after enlisting in July 2001. "With that under her belt, she was off to Iraq to conduct interrogations and translate enemy documents." On a "fallen heroes" message board on the Web, Mary W. Black of Flagstaff wrote, "The very day Alyssa died, her Father was talking to me at the Post Office where we both work, in Flagstaff, Az., telling me he had a premonition and was very worried about his daughter who was in the military on the other side of the world. The next day he was notified while on the job by two army officers. Never has a daughter been so missed or so loved than she was and has been by her Father since that fateful September day in 2003. He has been the most broken man I have ever seen." An A.W. from Los Angeles wrote: "I met Alyssa only once during a weekend surfing trip while she was at DLI. Although our encounter was brief, she made a lasting impression. We did not know each other well, but I was blown away by her genuine, sincere, sweet nature. I don't know how else to put it-- she was just nice.....I was devastated to here of her death. I couldn't understand why it had to happen to such a wonderful person." Finally, Daryl K. Tabor of Ashland City, Tenn., who had met her as a journalist in Iraq for the Kentucky New Era paper in Hopkinsville: "Since learning of her death, I cannot get the image of the last time I saw her out of my mind. We were walking out of the tent in Kuwait to be briefed on our flights into Iraq as I stepped aside to let her out first. Her smile was brighter than the hot desert sun. Peterson was the only soldier I interacted with that I know died in Iraq. I am truly sorry I had to know any."

Depleted uranium Cancer risk 'ignored' November 1, 2006 BBC News UK and US forces have continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings they pose a cancer risk, a BBC investigation has found. Scientists have pointed to health statistics in Iraq, where the weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars. A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2001 said they posed only a small contamination risk. But a senior UN scientist said research showing how depleted uranium could cause cancer was withheld. The UK Ministry of Defence said that there was no evidence linking depleted uranium use to ill health. Depleted uranium is extremely dense and hard, and is used for armour-piercing bullets or shells. Fears over health implications led to a study by the WHO in 2001. Dr Mike Repacholi, who oversaw work on the report, told Angus Stickler of BBC Radio Four's Today programme that depleted uranium was "basically safe". "You would have to ingest a huge amount of depleted uranium dust to cause any adverse health effect," he said. 'Risk from particles' But Dr Keith Baverstock, who worked on the project, said research conducted by the US Department of Defense suggested otherwise. He described a process known as genotoxicity, which begins when depleted uranium dust is inhaled. "The particles that dissolve pose a risk - part radioactive - and part from the chemical toxicity in the lung," he said. Later, he said, the material enters the body and the blood stream, potentially affecting bone marrow, the lymphatic system and the kidneys. The research was not included in the WHO report, and Dr Baverstock believes it was blocked. Mr Repacholi said the findings were not collaborated by other reports and it was not WHO policy to publish "speculative" data. He denied any pressure was brought to bear. But other senior scientists have pointed to worrying health statistics in Iraq, which show a rise in cancer and birth defects. Prof Randy Parrish of the Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in the UK said environmental and health assessments were needed in Iraq to establish the facts. Iraqi scientists trained by the UN are seeking to carry out such an assessment, but Henrik Slotte of the United Nations Environmental Programme said without clear information from the US on what was used and where, it was "like looking for a needle in a haystack". He said there was "no indication" this information was forthcoming from the US. A spokesman for the UK's Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, told the BBC that there was "no scientific or medical evidence" to link depleted uranium use to sickness in Iraq. He said the MOD was aware of recent research into the effects of depleted uranium at cellular level, but that it had to be guided by "the professional advice of the Health Protection Agency and the International Commission on Radiological Protection".

Flashback: Horror Of US Depleted Uranium In Iraq Threatens World James Denver 29/04/2005 American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." The information which some governments are concealing is presented here. 'I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car.' American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." The information which some governments are concealing is presented here. 'I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car.' The speaker is not some alarmist doom-sayer. He is Dr Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best kept secret of this war: the fact that, by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that - whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukaemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time. These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used. A dirty Tyson 'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. For 'depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: 'The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited.' (Daily Mirror) The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb - and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies. A terrible legacy Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukaemia since 1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate'. In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase. In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (.1) On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defence a special report on the potential damage to health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU - although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining. The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time. We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world. But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so called 'safe limit' of uranium in their urine. The lack of government interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there. Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumours where their eyes should be, or with a single eye - like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific. Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present. Blue on blue What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. Yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return - even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist. Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq - that's 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government's failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans' associations say that, of 40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU death row, waiting to die'. Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and leukaemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukaemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU. The vital evidence Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level' radiation DU is harmless. Award winning scientist, Dr Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied 'low level' radiation for 30 years.(2 )She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells 'like flashes of lightning' again and again in a single second.(2) Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such 'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer. Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that Dr Bertell has found that this particular type of radiation can cause the body's communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments. In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This 'radiation induced genomic instability' is compounded by 'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation - rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation - with some being far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way proves that DU did not damage others. The price of truth That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.('3) Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money. The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.(4 O)ne American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity - causing kidney damage'. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage, non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects(.5) A culture of denial In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as 'weapons of mass destruction' 'incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law'. Since then, following leukaemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned. Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkan and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, 'The [US government's] Veteran Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium... does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.' Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked. During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation effects from...possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called 'some'. The way ahead Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use - from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons - as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war - but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000 pound bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in lethal particles - any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air - again and again and again as the bombs rained down - ready to be swept worldwide by the winds. The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq - and, indeed, the world? So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq, for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history - along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

UN Human Rights Body Declares Saddam Detention And Trial Illegal As A Violation Of Human Rights Law Arno Develay 02/11/2006 A United Nations expert on human rights law body has declared the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before an Iraqi special court is illegal because it violates the right to fair trial under international law. In the decision hand down on 1 September 2006, but not provide to the former Iraqi President's lawyers until just a few days ago, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the "deprivation of liberty of Mr. Saddam Hussein is arbitrary, being in contravention of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights to which Iraq and the United States are parties." The Working Group-which consists of legal experts from Iran, Algeria, Paraguay, Spain and Hungary-spent more than two years collecting information and reviewing the case before making its decision. The Working Group's decisions are based on its interpretation of international treaties, primarily the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. In this case the Working Group found article 14 of the International Covenant to have been violated in numerous ways. On 30 November 2005, the Working Group had issued a Preliminary Opinion and requested the United States and Iraq to remedy the situation. Since then, as a second trial began, another defence lawyer has been killed, the United States government has continued to fail to provide adequate security, a relative of one of judges has been killed, the defence lawyers have been threatened to the extent that they can no longer safely participate in proceedings, and the violations of due process in the courtroom have continued. "The decision of the UN Working Group is not surprising. Anyone who has been following the trial knows that it has been a gross abuse of law. The Working Opinion vindicates what I and other international legal experts have been claiming for months. The ball is now in the United States' court. Together with the occupation government it have installed in Iraq, the United States government must decide if it will respect international law or whether it continue to act with disrespect for this law," said Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler, a professor law at An-Najah National University and the lawyer for the former Iraqi President who filed the case. Doebbler added, "If the United States continues to so blatantly violate international law, the rest of the international community must impose very serious consequences. If they do not, we will have lost the war to all those who say that law does not count and that violence is the only way forward. Is this the message George Bush wants to send? It is the message he is sending." The Working Group lacks authority to enforce its decisions, however, states that act contrary to the decision of the Working Group have been viewed a pariah state in the international community and often been subjected to sanctions, restrictions on the travel of their officials, and boycotts.