Massive use of Depleted Uranium in Afghanistan-Dr. Mohammad Daoud Miraki

'US destroys world with DU ammunition'

Interview with Dr. Mohammad Daoud Miraki, Afghan activist, politician and author, Chicago.
A slow genocide is resulting from the use of uranium munitions by the US and NATO in numerous countries around the world.


A new report shows US forces have used massive amounts of DU in Afghanistan -- causing a huge number of congenital deformities and cancers.

Several UN human rights commissions have prohibited the use of depleted uranium on humans, including during military conflicts.

However, the US government has used weaponized depleted uranium on humans, including: 340 tons during the first [Persian] Gulf war in 1991; every missile used during the 1998 Yugoslavian invasion; at least 1,000 tons in Afghanistan in 2001; and 2,400 tons in Iraq in 2003.

Depleted uranium is radioactive and extremely destructive to humans - with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. In other words, it takes 4.5 billion years for one kilogram of depleted uranium to reduce to a half a kilogram- - meaning that the US has contaminated certain countries almost forever.

Press TV has interviewed Dr. Mohammad Daud Miraki, Afghan activist, writer and politician from Chicago in an extraordinary and alarming account of off-the-chart child deformities and cancer rates of certain populations in Afghanistan and in other nations attributed to uranium bombs they received courtesy of US and or British forces - a NATO war crime that continues today. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Since this program is about the use of depleted uranium specifically in Afghanistan and the use of uranium munitions around the world, in one of your articles you've said that Afghanistan has become the disaster that words could not describe and you've posted photos of babies born deformed.

We are not able to show the pictures or not all of the pictures because they were so shocking. Tell us about your research and of course the use of depleted uranium in Afghanistan by the US forces.

Miraki: I'd like to point out that initially when the bombing in 2001 took place, everyone was on the lookout to see any type of unconventional conditions or diseases that emerged back in the 1990s when the war in Iraq took place. And in the first few weeks of the bombing many people started expiring and dying without having any physical conditions. In fact, villages, a large segment of the population have perished in eastern Afghanistan without having any physical illnesses.

And so a group of researchers of affiliates and colleagues have come and they collected urine samples from Afghanistan and these urine samples when calculated found uranium isotopes in the urine of Afghan victims were anywhere between 300 percent to 2000 percent higher than the normal acceptable level. The normal acceptable level is ten nanograms …

Subsequently, in various villages in Pashtun-dominated areas a lot of people tend to show various bizarre conditions: skin lesions, sudden deaths, spontaneous abortions among females - human and animals, as well as deformities - multiple cancers in one individual that also defied statistical standards.

That, by itself, along with the laboratory tests also indicated that there was Uranium isotope 236, which was a man-made isotope. This isotope you cannot find in nature only in laboratories except after a conversion process, through a conversion process that precipitates in this process and points out by itself that it definitely has come from the weapons and not from the environment.

Furthermore, one of the victims who had in fact uranium isotope levels of 2000 in his urine lost 27 members of his family and he was in this dust trying to collect his family members trying to save them and their remains. He had inhaled a great deal of this dust at that time.

Initially we were thinking we may have made a mistake at the Uranium medical research center and they redid the tests and then we found out that indeed the calculation was correct.

Press TV: What you're telling us then is that you have evidence then that depleted uranium has been used and it's been used in the amount that is causing these kinds of deadly consequences - not just deadly, but even consequences that are going to remain in families for generations to come.

So, what have you done about these reports that you've gathered and the evidence you've gathered - Have you been informing for instance the US government about this or the Afghan government about this?

Miraki: Yes indeed. We forwarded these reports to the US three years ago to the State Department and from US officials we have gotten only lip service unfortunately. But the Afghan government equally, since it has no control, it's an installed regime.

I even took these evidences to president Karzai and sat with him for two and a half hours about six months ago and he was shocked to find out all these statistical analysis and all these photos and promised to investigate. Subsequently, at a meeting two weeks thereafter his national security council, all of them opposed even to discuss this issue because they are all installed by the foreigners and they get their money and their food if you will from US funders and the so-called international community so.

This tragedy needs to be fully understood. Uranium 238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. So, for as long as the earth exists the Afghan people the Iraqi people will be dying from this disaster. If you look at Afghanistan as well as in Iraq as well as in Yugoslavia you find that wherever these weapons were used you find graveyards of people dying from cancer and other unusual diseases.

And in fact, I have tried for the past many years. Incidentally, we took these evidences to the International War Crime Tribunal in Japan in 2004 in which George W. Bush was indicted in absentia. And based on the evidences we had marshaled he was found guilty of 13 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, in absentia.

Unfortunately of course there is no body to enforce this finding. And of course the rhetoric is quite easy - you can label anybody a terrorist, but a nation state that used weapons of this magnitude that is against international law, that is against US law and against any law that exist on the books that these weapons are weapons of mass destruction.

Press TV: You're telling us that you have given this evidence and that you have raised this issue in the International Criminal Courts in Japan you're telling us in 2004. Can you confirm for us that right now or even in the past few years that depleted uranium is or is not still being used in Afghanistan?

Miraki: We call it non-depleted uranium when we found it. There is a slight composition difference from the uranium that is called depleted uranium, btu it is basically the same thing. These weapons are still used. In fact, a US aircraft called A-10 warthog, normally, even if it doesn't use a uranium projectile, in the machine gun every third projectile is a uranium projectile and that's the working horse of the US army in Afghanistan - they use it left and right. Equally, apache helicopters and Bradley vehicles also utilize these projectiles in these weapons.

On top of the uranium munitions, microwave weapons and energy beams are widely used in Pashtun areas. You see, the insurgency controls 70 percent of Afghanistan and that 70 percent of Afghanistan is bombed it complements the 62.7% of the population of Afghanistan and they have been totally targeted.

But the non-Pashtun population tends to forget that these weapons are weapons of mass destruction; it does not discriminate between people - who's who and who's not. It kills everybody not only Afghans, these weapons do not recognize borders, it goes to Pakistan; it is susceptible to air and goes to Iran and the entire region. And this is unacceptable. This is illegal and unacceptable according to international law; it's unacceptable according to US law.

Press TV: Let's look at reaction the US is showing to all this. I do remember when viewers back when these allegations first emerged, the US even European countries were denying that depleted uranium weapons have been used in Afghanistan.

Then later on, we had acknowledgements that depleted uranium has been found in countries like Afghanistan and also as you referred there in Iraq and elsewhere.

So when the US government says that it depends on the amount of uranium begin used or maybe depleted uranium does not have that effect or the consequences that we are speaking about - What do you say as an expert in this field, because you've been investigating it, what do you say to that response?

Miraki: It is a very good question. Usually we get this rhetoric that, look, these are not very radioactive weapons, even your clothes, even your skin protects you. That is very true, but they seem to cover up this fact: when these weapons - projectiles and bunker buster bombs hit the target they pulverize; they pulverize so that they become nano-particles, which becomes susceptible to wind and water flow and these nano-particles are inhaled by people.

They precipitate in their lungs and in their lymph system. Once they precipitate in their lungs and in their lymph system they precipitate at a cellular level of the body and causes inter-cellular radiation. This inter-cellular radiation is what we are concerned about, not actual radiation targeting the skin.

In fact, inhalation of this totally compromises the DNA of people. That is why when children are born they are deformed. The nano-particles affect the sperm and the eggs of the men and women. As well, it targets the mitochondria of the cell and that is why you have various, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome; various conditions such as multiple cancers in the body as well as unexplained conditions - spontaneous abortions, mental retardation; all these things.

So, their rhetoric of saying this is not going to harm anybody because the radiation level is low… yes indeed, but this pulverizes and becomes nano-particles; people inhale it and the inhalation causes intercellular radiation.

Press TV: Now that you've been going on with these investigations you've been giving your reports various authorities. You said earlier on that you sat down with the Afghan President Hamed Karzai about this. Tell us, what actions now are being planned to save people from this and to stop their use? Are you hopeful?

Miraki: Well, unfortunately the Afghan government whatever they do is inconsequential because Afghanistan is an occupied country and the Afghan president is absolutely incapable of doing anything. I sat with him for two and a half hours - it absolutely has no future in terms of doing anything in Afghanistan and dealing with this menace.

However, my hopes are that countries around the world especially our neighbor Iran and other countries could come forward and address these issues. I propose a general monitoring station throughout Afghanistan in various parts of Afghanistan a large research center where these issues can be debated as well as a mechanism where efforts could be introduced whereby the longevity of people's lives could be implemented rather than having no solution - there is no solution, you could pick up a bullet and say OK we'll discard it.

But at least whereby we could produce certain supplements, certain mechanisms whereby people's lives can be improved and where some education protocols could be introduced by people who know how to behave and how to conduct themselves when it comes to dust and so forth.

This unfortunately requires a great deal of funding and the US is not interested to provide this funding. My hope is and all along has been that I hope the Muslim countries can contribute.

SC/MYA

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