The New York Times revealed something unexpected in a brief article on Iranian nuclear plans hidden on pageg 13 of the international section of the Sunday, November 27, paper entitled "Iranian Attacks West's Efforts to Cut Back Nucler Plans". According to the story, Iran's president objected to Bush administration pressure on Iran to drop its nuclear program. Iran claims that it is developing nuclear energy, but the US claims the program is part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons. Iran's president Ahmadinejad suggested that the U.S. should be "tried as war criminals in courts" because it has "used uranium ordinance in Iraq." The Times goes on to state that "[s]ince the Iraq war started in 2003, American forces have fired at least 120 tones of shells packed iwth depleted uranium, an extermeloy dense material used by the United States and British militaries to penetrate tank armor."
The mainstream media has not reported much about the US use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons at all. It is not on Fox News or other programs. It has not been covered in the LA Times or the Washington Post. The Salt Lake Tribune covered it last year, here, when it reported on Envirocare's lobbying for a DU clean up job. It is covered in much more detail on websites such as counterpunch , webcom (scroll down to DU section, mostly covering the first Gulf War), International Action Center, TruthOut.org or the cutting edge or, of course, foreign news outlets such as this story in 2003 about the first Gulf War's use of DU ordinance and this story in the Herald about the health dangers from DU in Iraq and this story in the Herald about the illegality of use of DU ordinance. As Professor Rokke notes in the last Herald story cited,
'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 US used about 300 tons of DU weaponry in the first Gulf War and 120 tons inthe second. The US military also used considerable DU ordinance in Afghanistan, including a new "bunker-buster" weapon. See a detailed story about depleted uranium ordinance use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the increased cancers likely to result, here.
So why have mainstream media outlets decided that information about use of DU ordinance in Iraq and Afghanistan and explanations of the level of radioactive contamination to which Iraqi civilians and US troops are exposed do not merit considerable attention? Just think what might happen if Americans understood that our own military used WMDs against Saddam Hussein's country, even though Saddam did not have WMDs. The media should make information about DU ordinance use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the health effects it is likely to cause for Iraqis and US soldiers, a continuing subject of their reports. Americans should understand the extended harm that the military is causing through this war and occupation of choice in Iraq.