FROM ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TO MARINES, SOLDIER'S DEATH SPOTLIGHTS IMMIGRANTS

Mexico refuses to support the US military invasion of Iraq

Arabs angered by Iraqi civilian deaths

US FORCES' USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IS 'ILLEGAL'

Brits win water fight

Saudi Arabia calls for ceasefire

Egypt Watch

Three British soldiers sent home after protesting at civilian deaths

Are Independent Journalists Being 'Executed' By the Bush Administration?

IRAQ: New Fears from Depleted Uranium

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Day 8 - Day of Dissent: 26 Mar 03
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The World Bank today endorsed the economists' viewpoint that a prolonged war in Iraq could adversely affect India's growth prospects in the new fiscal year.

The World Bank's analysis is based on the fact that India is a net importer of oil and if the war continues for long, the volatility in the international oil prices could impair India's growth prospects.

Giving out the bank's viewpoint while releasing the Global Development Finance report, the bank's economist, William Shaw, said the war had added more bumps to an uneven global expansion.

This was mainly because of higher oil prices, falling consumer and business confidence, increased volatility in financial markets and higher fiscal deficits. Moreover, he said war might have an impact on remittances flow as well.

Otherwise, the World Bank projected an average 5.3 per cent economic growth for India and other South Asian nations during 2003, which was marginally lower than 5.4 per cent projected in December 2002.

Turning to the report, Mr. Shaw pointed out that India topped the World Bank's list of workers' remittances at $10 billion, which worked out to over 13 per cent of the total $72.3 billion flowing to all developing countries during 2001.

India was closely followed by Mexico with $9 billion inflow while the Philippines received $6.4 billion, Morocco $3.3 billion, Egypt $2.9 billion and Turkey $2.8 billion.

Of the neighbouring countries, Bangladesh received $2.1 billion while Pakistan got $1.5 billion and Sri Lanka $1.1 billion. The bank report also said foreign direct investments and remittances outpaced debt as a source of financing the developing nations.

Considering the aggregate inflow into India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the report said South Asia was the largest recipient, with remittances of nearly 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2001.

According to the report, the net fiscal loss associated with Indian emigration to the U.S. was estimated at 0.24-0.58 per cent of India's GDP in 2001 but remittances amounted to at least 2.1 per cent of GDP in the same year.

The U. S. and Saudi Arabia were the largest sources of workers' remittances to developing nations followed by Germany, Belgium and Switzerland.

MEXICO CITY _ The family of every U.S. soldier who dies in combat is paid a personal visit from military authorities who deliver the news and offer condolences. For the sister of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jose Antonio Gutierrez, that knock at the door came at 2:20 a.m. on a Saturday in a slum in Guatemala City.

Gutierrez, who died in combat in Iraq Friday, is among those now proclaimed heroes who sacrificed their lives to liberate Iraq. But the Marine began his short life in the United States as an illegal immigrant, a group that generates far less sympathy among Americans. Journeying by rail, bus and foot and crossing into the United States illegally about nine years ago, Gutierrez was just a teen when he fled his war-torn native country of Guatemala and an extremely difficult childhood. Gutierrez became a rifleman in the Marine Corps last September and dreamed of eventually becoming an architect. Instead, he became one of the first two Marines killed in combat in the attempt to seize control of the Iraqi port city Umm Qasr.

Gutierrez's personal history has received ample coverage in Guatemala and in Mexico, where the deaths of two Mexican-American soldiers in Iraq and the capture of another have caught the public's attention and added to the polemic over the invasion. Gutierrez has a foster family in California. His sister in Guatemala hopes to bury him there with full U.S. military honors. "I do feel proud because not just anyone gives up their life for another country," Engracia Clarin, 32, told reporters in Guatemala. "But at the same time it makes me sad because he fought for something that wasn't his." Gutierrez remained very close to his sister, sending her money and photos regularly.

The U.S. ambassador in Guatemala joined military representatives who took the news to Gutierrez's sister. "We join Guatemalans in remembering Lance Corporal Gutierrez, who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to his adopted country, the United States. On behalf of the American people, I honor his service and express my gratitude for his valor and dedication," Ambassador John R. Hamilton said in a statement.

Gutierrez and his sister were orphaned before he was 10, and he was forced to work in a steel factory to survive. He was taken in for some time by a family, and then was discovered on the streets of Guatemala City by social workers for Casa Alianza, the Latin American branch of New York-based Covenant House, which takes in and shelters troubled youth.

Bruce Harris, director of Casa Alianza, knew Gutierrez when he first entered Casa Alianza in 1983. He said he found it ironic that Gutierrez died fighting for the armed forces of an adopted country where many do not appreciate the tough journey Gutierrez had already been through as a child. "It's great now that they're calling Jose Antonio a hero. But when he was up crossing the border they called him a wetback," Harris said. "In my mind he was a hero when he chose to leave the streets. The rest is just politics and window dressing."

It appears that Gutierrez, once he was an adult and out of Casa Alianza, chose to follow a dream and journey to the United States, traveling through Mexico and over the border with another youth. It also appears, Harris said, that Gutierrez was granted political asylum, probably because he was a street kid, a group often persecuted by Latin American police and security forces. Gutierrez was probably older than U.S. immigration authorities realized, Harris said. Casa Alianza's records show he was 28, not 22, as the Marines said, when he died. But he was probably so desperate to remain in the United States he told authorities he was a minor, Harris said.

Gutierrez reportedly spent time in a homeless shelter in Hollywood before he was taken into the custody of foster parents, Max and Nora Mosquera, who live in Lomita, Ca., near Los Angeles. Gutierrez learned English, went to high school, played soccer and was skilled at drawing. "He joined the Marines to pay back a little of what he'd gotten from the U.S.," Max Mosquera told the AP. "For him it was a question of honor."

The last letter Gutierrez sent his adopted mother, Nora, said, "Mama, there is so much sand here. I clean out my tent and 15 minutes later I've got to clean it again. Even in the food there is sand." He also said, "Please pray for all of us."

More on Latino Political Wires.
See related Covenant House article.

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Death of Jose Gutierrez: global solidarity
Sun, 30 Mar 2003; Quinones

Thank you for sharing Jose Gutierrez's story. As the descendant of a Guatemalan mother who was part of the Arbenz/Arrevalo association of friends and supporters I have questioned anew the madness of the difference in how the US of A has treated uprisings of Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, and Cubans in relation to the abusive dictatorships of Ubico, Somosa, and Batista respectively, and the resistance of the Iraqi's against Saddam Hussein. On the one hand, the US is going to "liberate" the Iraqis from this madman, but on the other hand, the US sends in the CIA to squash the democratically elected governments of Guatemala and Nicaragua who are trying to liberate their own people.

In the case of Cuba and Fidel: Fidel and his brave comrades took on a brutal dictator -- who perpetuated colonialism and racism -- to rescue the Cuban people. His term may have run its course, but a revolution against imperialism is a tough one to keep going and may require desperate measures, especially when you face the wrath of the US because you are receiving aid from her arch cold war enemy, the USSR.

Likening Fidel to Sadism is a travesty. The fact that Cuba has survived and flourished in so many ways is nothing short of a miracle -- yes the Creator is on Fidel's side whether one likes it or not!

Jose Gutierrez's escape from Guatemala is also a miracle, and perhaps the Creator chose Jose to help remind us of the struggles in Central America, particularly of the indigenous communities, and of the death squads in Guatemala -- and by extension, to remind us of the brave struggle being waged in Chiapas.

Gracias Jose for your sacrifice. Adios companero.

Mexico is meddling in US military, claiming jurisdiction over chicano servicemen. Mexico and the US military share a long history together. Here, the US Marines land in Monterey, 7 July 1846. Heroic Mexican-American soldiers and Marines have been among the earliest US casualties in Iraq. So it's not unusual that the Mexican press and government would be paying attention.

However, rather than honor Mexican-Americans liberating Iraq, the Mexican press - and Mexican officials - claim that the US military is using ethnic minorities as cannon fodder. Some newspapers refer to these Americans as "Mexicans."

And now, the Mexican government, according to the major newspaper El Universal, is taking "a census of persons of Mexican ancestry who belong to the armed forces of the United States and who are stationed in the war zone." Not just Mexican citizens or dual nationals serving in the US military, but anybody with Mexican ancestry.

The ostensible reason is to help Mexican-American servicemen make contact with relatives living in Mexico. But Allan Wall, an American writer living in Mexico, sees a larger purpose: "The Mexican government is compiling this database for political purposes. It refuses to support the U.S. military. It has refused to honor these Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as American fighting men. But it wants to exploit their situation in the Iraq war, to score political points at home and - how can it be doubted? - to gain their loyalty."

Such concerns wouldn't stand on solid ground were it not for Mexican President Vicente Fox's policy speech that he claims jurisdiction over all Americans of Mexican descent, and that is goal is to erase the northern and southern borders of the United States.

Many Americans view Fox as a friend of the US. He isn't. He has been meddling aggressively in US immigration, welfare, education, and social policies, and has retained his predecessors' tradition of sticking it to the United States in the UN, refusing to support the liberation of Iraq. Now he's meddling inside the US military in time of war.

What does it all mean? It's difficult to say. But it's something that the US must start watching very closely.

Photo: President Vicente Fox, speaks during a meeting in the Palacio Presidencial de Los Pinos, Thursday, March 20, 2003 in Mexico City. In the speech addressed to Mexicans who live in the U.S., Fox said Mexico has to actively work with Iraq and other countries to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by the war. (AP Photo/Gustavo Benitez)

AMMAN, JORDAN - The rising number of civilian deaths in Iraq is enraging the Arab public and undermining attempts by the British and U.S. military to portray themselves as liberators.

"We see them on TV and people are being killed and you can't liberate people while you are killing them," said Hassan Barari, a newspaper columnist and frequent analyst on Arab television. Large numbers of civilians casualties have turned the entire Arab public against the United States, he said.

The front page of Wednesday's Jordan Times shows a photograph of Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaj, an Iraqi man in Hillah, south of Baghdad, throwing up his arms to the sky in a gesture of grief. At his feet are the coffins of his three children, one an infant less than a year old.

Photographs of al-Khafaj's grief appear in major Canadian newspapers, as well, including The Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Star.

The man says he lost 15 members of his family when the pickup truck they were in was blown up by a rocket fired from an American Apache helicopter.

U.S. Central command in Qater says it's impossible an Apache Helicopter was involved in this attack, but it's investigating.

Located near the ruins of ancient Babylon, Hillah is thought by the U.S. military to be home to a camp belonging to Saddam's Fedayeen guerrillas.

White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said President George Bush regrets the deaths of Iraqi civilians, but believes most civilian deaths have come at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his henchman.

British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children.

Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defence with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'.

Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such double-standards are repellent.'

The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when an American A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British soldier and injuring three others in a 'friendly fire' incident.

According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts.

DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war syndrome -- typified by chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and memory loss -- among 200,000 US soldiers after the 1991 conflict.

It is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number of birth deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war.

'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and deformities between four and six times,' according to the UN subcommission.

The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts say 1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.

In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert.

The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.

A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers.

Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions.

'To do so is a crime against humanity.

'We must do what is right for the citizens of the world -- ban DU.'

He called on the US and UK to 'recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation'.

He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic wasteland behind them and kill indiscriminately.

'It is equivalent to a war crime.'

Rokke said that coalition troops were currently fighting in the Gulf without adequate respiratory protection against DU contamination.

The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the Ministry of Defence had test-fired some 6350 DU rounds into the Solway Firth over more than a decade, from 1989 to 1999.

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

• U.S. TO USE DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS IN IRAQ (3/16/2003):
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4762

• U.S. STOCKING URANIUM-RICH BOMBS? (3/11/2003):
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4687

• URANIUM MUNITIONS: THE WAR AGAINST OURSELVES (2/18/2003):
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4493

• DEPLETED URANIUM TOXICITY IN AFGHANISTAN (& IRAQ) (12/11/2001):
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2385

UMM QASR, Iraq - The American who will run Iraq after the war crossed into the country yesterday and promptly had to settle a dispute between American and British allies over how to distribute water.

In his first visit to the nation of 25 million he would effectively administer, retired Gen. Jay Garner rejected the American plan to set up Iraqi vendors to sell water to people in the impoverished city and endorsed the British effort to give away water here.

"I think we're beginning to get a handle on this," said Garner, who will head the Defense Department's new Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid in Iraq.

"I think the British are doing a great job. We're working great together," he said.

Garner, an affable Southerner with a reputation for getting factions with opposing views pointed in the same direction, said the goal of his office is to restore services until the Iraqis are ready to resume their own governance.

"We'll begin to turn things over right away," Garner said, but he could not give a timetable for the rebuilding effort that several Washington think tanks estimate could cost more than $90 billion and take at least five years.

"We want to show the Iraqi people that we're not here to occupy Iraq. We're here to liberate Iraq," he said.

The first test for Garner is in this port city of about 40,000, which is also the first major urban area liberated by the coalition.

Garner sought to gloss over what had become an increasingly angry U.S.-British dispute on the direction and goals of the relief effort. The Americans wanted to jump-start a free-market economy by letting Iraqi contractors sell water at a modest profit to encourage private business in general.

But British officers were exasperated at what they viewed as a heavy-handed and unrealistic American attempt to impose supply-side economic theory on what is essentially a barter economy in the aftermath of dictatorship and war.

"We're going to build on what the British have done," Garner said, putting an end to the initial U.S. approach that was enthusiastically outlined Monday by Army Col. David Bassert of the 354th Civil Affairs Brigade.

Free of charge

Bassert grudgingly admitted defeat yesterday.

"Please accept my apologies for being incorrect yesterday, but what I told you was correct yesterday," he said.

Bassert said seven Iraqi contractors had been hired to distribute water, and "they are not to charge for water."

But he made clear he has reservations about the new plan. He said selling water was meant to nudge the Iraqis into free-market practices "so that they don't get used to a welfare system."

Whether the policy was succeeding its first application in Umm Qasr was difficult to gauge, as the military has limited access to the city.

The first representatives of the U.S. Agency for International Development arrived here yesterday and attempted to visit a tiny makeshift fruit and vegetable market. The agency personnel were met with sullen stares and beat a hasty retreat to their sport-utility vehicle after a five-minute stay. They returned to the heavily guarded U.S. outpost at the port compound.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia once again called for an immediate ceasefire in the Iraq war and the return of all parties in the conflict to a diplomatic settlement through the United Nations. At the end of a cabinet session headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, the Saudi Information Minister, Fo'aad Al-Faresi, announced that the Saudi government is following war developments with deep interest while regretting the destructive impact of the war on the Iraqi population. According to the Saudi official, the Saudi cabinet also condemned Israel's opportunistic policies to take advantage of the crisis in Iraq to continue its anti-Palestinian aggression, asking the international community to force Israel to abide by UN resolutions about Palestine.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians participated in a rally organized by the ruling National Democratic Party to condemn the US foreign policy in the region and the war in Iraq. The demonstrators, who were shouting "No Iraq War", "Death to US and Israel" and "We are ready to sacrifice our life to defend Baghdad", burned the US, British and Israeli flags decorated as a Dracula. The crowd called for the boycott of US commodities, a call to jihad and the continuation of the Palestinian uprising (Intifada).

(For more see Egypt Struggles to Control Anti-War Protests
http://lmno4p.org/news/04.01.htm#egypt).

Three British soldiers in Iraq have been ordered home after objecting to the conduct of the war. It is understood they have been sent home for protesting that the war is killing innocent civilians. The three soldiers - including a private and a technician - are from 16 Air Assault Brigade which is deployed in southern Iraq. Its task has been to protect oilfields.

The brigade includes the Ist and 3rd battalions of the Parachute Regiment, the 1st battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, a Royal Horse Artillery regiment, and a reconnaissance squadron of the Household Cavalry.

The three soldiers, based in Colchester, Essex, face court martial and are seeking legal advice, defence sources said yesterday.

The Ministry of Defence said it was not prepared to comment on individual cases. It said it had "no evidence" to suggest the soldiers had been sent home for refusing to fight.

Soldiers could be returned home for a number of reasons, including compassionate and medical, as well as disciplinary grounds, defence sources said.

But it is understood that the three soldiers have been sent home for complaining about the way the war is being fought and the growing danger to civilians.

The fact that they are seeking legal advice makes it clear they have been sent home for refusing to obey orders rather than because of any medical or related problems such as shell shock.

MoD lawyers were understood last night to be anxiously trying to discover the circumstances surrounding the order to send the soldiers home.

Any refusal of soldiers to obey orders is highly embarrassing to the government, with ministers becoming increasingly worried about the way the war is developing.

It is also causing concern to British military chiefs who are worried about growing evidence of civilians being killed in fighting involving American soldiers around urban areas in southern Iraq.

Since the war started, a total of at least half a dozen journalists have been killed - an outrageously high percentage of casualties - the highest for any single group of people in the war zone, from the civilian support personnel to the soldiers themselves. It seems way, way beyond coincidence that most of the fallen journalists are non-embedded writers dedicated to telling the truth. The latest death is British reporter (Channel 4, ITN) Gaby Rado, covering the action in Northern Iraq. Rado died under mysterious circumstances in a "fall" from a hotel roof. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2900379.stm Not long before, fellow ITN journalist Terry Lloyd was killed in Iraq by 'friendly fire' from Allied forces. Lloyd was one of the "unilateral" reporters, travelling freely around the war zone, as opposed to being "embedded."

A Frightening Overview:

MARCH 11: British veteran Journalist Kate Adie warns that US. plans to target independent journalists. (story on Adie's interview on an Irish radio station: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8238

MARCH 30: As of this date, at least 5 independent and/or non-embedded journalists in Iraq have died from car bombs, friendly fire or mysterious accidents or have mysteirously disappeared.

FALLEN HEROES

DEAD or presumed dead:

Gaby Rado, ITN journalist, in northern Iraq from mysterious fall from roof
Terry Lloyd, ITN journalist in southern Iraq - "friendly fire"
Fred Nerac, ITN cameraman "" "friendly fire"
Hussein Othman, ITN translator "" friendly fire
Paul Moran, 39 Freelance cameraman with the Australian Broadcasting Corp., no. Iraq - car bomb

INJURED (partial list)

Daniel Demoustier, ITN cameraman - friendly fire
Eric Campbell, ABC correspondent - friendly fire

MISSING:

Matthew McAllester, journalist, Newsday, Baghdad
Moises Sama, cameraman, Newsday, Baghdad

These two newsfolk were declared missing as of March 25 from Iraq after being ordered to leave. Their hotel room was completely cleaned out, no word left. Here's the story from Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/ny-bzjour0328,0,5484723.story?coll=ny-top-adrail

There are two alternative theories here:

1. They were killed by the Iraqi government: This is the story that is being heavily implied by US government sources, because the Iraqis officially expelled them. But why "pre-announce" an execution and thus clearly draw the world's outrage? This isn't the Saddam regime's style. They would have been more likely to arrest and "try" the reporters very publicly as "spies," levying highly-publicized, specific charges.

2. The two were real journalists who had acquired information that would be damaging to US/UK interests. They were intercepted on their way out of Iraq, or even in Syria, and murdered to prevent them from filing these stories.

I am putting my money on theory 2, especially as McAllester has written extensively on the plight of Iraqi children in the wake of UN sanctions and received the full accreditation of the Iraqi government to write on Iraq just a few months back.

Here's a story from Newsday (3/30) that offers more evidence of the menacing attitude of US military official toward independent-minded journalists: "Four journalists, two Israeli and two Portuguese, trailing coalition troops in Iraq, were arrested by American soldiers and expelled from the country after a harrowing period of custody in which they said they were mistreated and accused of being Iraqi spies." http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-wojour303198274mar30,0,2508841.story?coll=ny%2Dtop%2Dheadlines

Meanwhile, back home, in the safety of their comfy studios and dressing rooms, Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw, George Will, Katie Couric, Dan Rather, et al, continue to promote the war and disseminte propaganda with a callous disregard for the safety of American troops or the honor of their nation.

Meanwhile, the courageous, honest - and honorable - reporters in the war zone must be wondering: "Who's next?" See also:
http://newsinsider.org
http://democrats.com

Comment: Re: Are Independent Journalists Being 'Executed' By the Bush Administration?
by Cheryl Seal
30 Mar 2003
Update: On 3/30, the US bombed the Iraq Ministery of Information in Baghdad Was Strike on Iraqi Ministry of Information a Murderous Attack on Western Journalists Likely to Tell the Truth?

When the Bushfeld Ministry of Propaganda released the news of the strike on the Baghdad Ministry of Information, they described it as the destruction of the Iraqi "propaganda center." What they didn't mention was that the building was also being used by western reporters - reporters who, as eyewitnesses inside Baghdad, are in a position to report the TRUTH. So far in this war, nearly 10 reporters have been killed orinjured by car bombs, friendly fire or "mysterious accidents" or "disappeared" None of them wereUS-government-controlled "embeddees". Was thisbombingan attemptto "eliminate" as many troublesome reporters as possible in murderous attack?

Story

LONDON, Apr 1 (IPS) - New fears have arisen over the long-term damage that can result from use of depleted uranium in the coalition attacks on Iraq.

"We are particularly worried because the tactics have changed in this war," Henk van der Keur from the Laka Foundation, an independent group based in Amsterdam that researches nuclear energy told IPS. "The guerrilla tactics employed by Iraqis mean more tanks and fighting vehicles are operating in towns, and that means greater danger for people living there."

Depleted uranium, a form of low-grade uranium is used in shells and rockets, usually alloyed with titanium to make them harder. These shells are fired to pierce the armour of tanks and against heavy concrete installations.

Depleted uranium is extremely dense material that remains when enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. The fissionable isotope Uranium 235 is separated from uranium. The remaining uranium is called depleted uranium.

United States and British forces are firing these weapons hardened with depleted uranium from the U.S. M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks, from the Bradley Fighting Vehicles and from the A10 ground attack aircraft known as the tank-buster. The British Challenger tanks are also firing weapons using depleted uranium, Keur says.

"The danger is that when these weapons hit their targets, microscopic particles are liberated, and people inhale these particles," Keur says. "Many soldiers who fought in the last Gulf War are reported to have fallen ill from depleted uranium, but these reports have not been fully investigated."

The Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence in London both deny vigorously that depleted uranium can be harmful either to troops using those weapons or to people living in areas where they are used. Keur acknowledges that fears from depleted uranium have "not been backed by a full empirical study."

But the lack of a full investigation is itself cause for worry, he says. A United Nations Environment Programme study in the Balkans expressed concern about long-term consequences and asked for more study of the effects of depleted uranium. "But it is remarkable that there has been no major study by the World Health Organization in Iraq," Keur says.

The Pentagon has admitted using about 300 tons of depleted uranium in the last Gulf War. Other independent estimates have suggested that about 1,000 tons may have been used.

"Depleted uranium is almost certainly an illegal weapon under a variety of international agreements including the Geneva Convention," says Ian Willmore from Friends of the Earth in London. "It sets off radiation, and the consequences will inevitably be worse when such weapons are used in large cities or in confined space."

Several of the battle tanks being used by the U.S. and British forces are themselves strengthened with depleted uranium to toughen them against anti-tank fire.

While there have been no definitive studies in Iraq, there are alarming signs. Just one hospital in Baghdad has reported eight cases of babies born without eyes, anophthalmos. "The normal incidence is about one case in 50 million," Willmore told IPS Tuesday.

"About half to 95 percent of the particles released by the explosions where depleted uranium is used are of respirable size," Willmore says. "The body has no system of removing these radioactive particles that remain in the system."

Clearing up an area where depleted uranium has been used is also very difficult. "It can cost up to US$5 billion to fully clean up an area of just 200 hectares," says Duncan McLaren, head of policy and research at Friends of the Earth.

There is "scientific consensus" that high exposure causes damage to kidneys, neurological disorders, and cancers of the lungs and bones, Willmore says. Use of depleted uranium has been blamed for the 'Gulf War syndrome' that brings fatigue, memory loss and joint pains.

There is evidence also that depleted uranium can get into the soil and stay there a long time, Willmore says. "The longer this conflict goes on, the greater the damage it will cause to people and to the environment," Willmore says.

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