Repeating History: Toxic Lessons from Five Wars

Hattie Nestel is a long-term anti-war activist who lives in Athol, MA (HaleyAthol@aol.com). Her most recent arrest was Dec. 19, 1999 at Sanders in New Hampshire.

Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
--George Santayana

What goes around literally comes around when you consider toxic chemicals and our use of them. Not only does the world turn, bringing toxic rains and atmospheres from one part of the world to another, but also, with frightening implications, history repeats itself.

Reading the recent obituary of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. forced me to refocus my attention on the issue of US use of chemical warfare during the Vietnam War. Admiral Zumwalt ordered the spraying of Agent Orange, which contains an especially virulent form of dioxin, described as the most toxic molecule ever synthesized by man. Zumwalt acknowledged that his order was quite likely responsible for the death of his son who fought under his father's command. Coincidentally, the January edition of Mother Jones arrived with its main feature on Agent Orange. For those too young to know about this lethal substance, or who want an update, I recommend this important history still in the making.

The article is not easy--particularly the accompanying pictures showing people with no arms and no legs or with twisted limbs. But what really strikes me are strong similarities between Agent Orange of the Vietnam War and depleted uranium of the Iraqi and Yugoslavian wars.

Depleted uranium, DU, was first used as a weapon in 1991 by the US against Iraq. We also used it in Bosnia and, most recently, in Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO action. We fire it from Gatling guns on A-10 planes, delivering 30-mm DU shells at a rate of 65 rounds a second. DU was also fired in Yugoslavia by M1 Abrams tanks and Bradley armored personnel carriers. This chemically toxic and radioactive substance replaced tungsten which had previously been effectively used to penetrate armored vehicles. A major reason the US uses DU, according to an October, 1996 article by Bill Messler in The Nation, is that we have a surplus of more than 500,000 tons of it. It's a waste product left behind by the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear generators.

The legacy begun when the US dropped the first atomic bombs and left a radioactive wasteland of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 continued with the use of Agent Orange, leaving a wasteland and cancer ward in Vietnam. Then during the Gulf War in 1991 the US, along with Great Britain, became the first to use DU in combat. Secrecy, cover-ups, unwillingness of the government to compensate veterans, and willingness to poison the environment with no responsibility to the civilian population have trailed the use of both substances.

Agent Orange in Vietnam caused not only defoliation of the forest--which was its intent (ostensibly to expose the hidden Ho Chi Minh Trail along which we feared transport of North Vietnamese troops and materiel)--but cancers, immune-deficiency diseases, miscarriages, and gross malformations among Vietnamese and Americans and their children. The same diseases are being seen in ever increasing numbers in both Iraqi and US personnel exposed to DU. Some 436,000 US soldiers entered contaminated areas in Iraq, according to the National Gulf War Resource Center. As early as l974, an army study detailed precautions to be used by personnel handling or exposed to DU, it was never transmitted to those in the field.

The Government Accounting Office reported in 1993 that soldiers in the National Guard were not told of DU hazards even though they were ordered to recover US vehicles contaminated by DU in "friendly fire" incidents. It has been variously estimated that between 350 and 800 tons of DU were used in the Gulf War, with further exposure caused by the DU coating on US tanks, many of which were hit by "friendly fire." Also, the July 1991 fire at a US Army Base in Doha, Kuwait burned 660 DU tank rounds and four fully loaded Abrams tanks. Tank rounds represented more than 7000 pounds of highly toxic radioactive uranium. The 3000 US troops who served on the base inhaled uranium dust which can become lodged in the lungs as future cancerous hot spots. Service personnel who cleaned out burned armored tanks and shrapnel with their bare hands were never told what they were exposed to, according The Military Toxics Project in Lewiston, Maine, which has been recording case studies.

Like the Mother Jones pictures which showed the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam--barren landscapes and malformed young adults--a November 1995 Life magazine shows deformed children born to Gulf War veterans.

Incidents of Gulf War Veterans suffering from what is commonly referred to as Gulf War Syndrome are rapidly increasing and coming to government and public attention. Many of the 2.6 million US veterans who served in Vietnam have already died from Agent Orange related diseases. What will the statistics be in 25 years for Gulf War veterans?

I am sure many of us know both Vietnam and Gulf War veterans afflicted with diseases caused by highly toxic substances. We know of their pain and anguish. Their lives will not be the same.

There is something we can do to stop history from repeating itself even as we watch our children and the children of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Iraq, and Yugoslavia, all similarly afflicted. Here in Massachusetts we have companies that are central to the production and deployment of DU penetrators. Starmet, formerly Nuclear Metals Inc., in Concord, once affiliated with MIT as part of the Manhattan Project that created the first atom bombs, is a leading producer of DU penetrators. During production, from l958 to l985, Starmet dumped 400,000 pounds of radioactive waste into an unlined pit on their property, causing major ground water contamination. Citizens Research and Environmental Watch of Concord has found DU registering at 18 times the background level in Concord which incidentally has the highest level of thyroid cancer in the state, 2 1/2 times the state average.

Raytheon is another Massachusetts business complicit in the use of DU. Raytheon has engineering and manufacturing facilities throughout the state and enjoys millions of dollars in state tax subsidies and write-offs. The nation's third largest "defense" contractor, it produces components and guidance systems directly responsible for firing of DU munitions, and subcontracts to Starmet and to Primex of Florida for creation of weapons made of depleted uranium. Finally, A-10 aircraft, housed at the Westfield, MA Air National Guard station, fired most of the DU in the Gulf War.

We should protest at all such facilities. We should flush out our state and local representatives for their positions and their voting records on tax breaks and benefits for these corporations and facilities. We can deluge companies with complaints and stand in vigil at their facilities so that we are visible. Finally, we can join others, like the Raytheon Peacemakers who are taking nonviolent direct action.

We must remember that our own military faced US-manufactured weapons that had been sold on the international market during the last five wars. Now, with the US giving DU away to more than 17 countries, it is quite likely that our soldiers will be facing those weapons in future conflicts, continuing the saga of "what goes around comes around."

As we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, let us also remember his words: