Dear Dirk,
Here is Dai Williams' evaluation of the weapons. Julia doesn't believe that the fireballs Colette saw could
have been the daisycutters as they were used quite a way out of Baghdad and visiblity is very poor due to the
heavy barage of smoke from the oil fires. I don't believe even the US would use a daisycutter inside a city!?!
Don't know what else though. I agree that the terrible slicing of people would have been cluster bombs and the
bus bombing an anti tank missile with shaped-charged warhead.
In rage!!
Jo
joanne baker <wildsandcat@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Date: Sun, 6
Apr 2003 23:59:58 +0100 (BST)
From: joanne baker
Subject: Fwd: Time to question US weapons of indiscriminate effect
To: jobak17@yahoo.co.uk
--- Dai Williams wrote: >
From: "Dai Williams"
To:
CC: ,"joanne baker"
Subject: Time to question US weapons of indiscriminate effect
Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 13:10:14 +0100
Dear Weekend programmes and WATO team Please can you ask the Pentagon to explain why and how many Daisy
cutters, fragmentation bombs and suspected uranium weapons it has used in the last week in the region around
now in the outskirts of
Baghdad? And please can you ask the UK Government whether it condones the use of Daisy cutters in populated
areas with large numbers of civilians?
I have been investigating US guided weapons as an independent researcher for 2 years. My
primary concern are the 23 suspected uranium weapon systems. But my investigations include similar weapons
like thermobaric bombs, daisy cutters etc.
Full weapons identification requires inspection on site by trained and independent weapons analysts. This must
be a high priority for the UN. Ex-military personnel, HALO or similar demining organisations may help. Serving
military personnel will simply lie about more advanced, prototype or illegal weapons.
Less trained observers can partly narrow down suspected weapon systems from descriptions of their explosions
and from injuries on victims.
The following reports were received yesterday via CASI (the Cambridge University based
Campaign Against Sanctions in Iraq) forwarded this report from two Belgian Doctors in Baghdad.
Partial answers to their questions are as follows(colours are my highlighting of relevant
text):
[INCIDENT 1 ] "I have two awful stories to tell", Geert immediately starts
when I get him on the line. "Today we drove to Hilla, a small town near Babylon that was heavily bombed
yesterday. One poor district was hit by 20 to 25 bombs. The hospital of Hilla
received in the next half an hour 150 seriously injured patients. Dr. Mahmoud Al-Mukhtar said that the wounds
were caused by clusterbombs. These are bombs that explode into many small bombs that again explode
individually and cause enormous damage.
Clusterbombs are banned by the International Laws on War, but Bush completely disregards these! In the
hospital I have seen very many abrading situations. A family of eleven persons, of whom six are dead. A father
who is left with one child; his wife and two
sons are dead. Small children with amputated limbs."
Incident 1:
is a clusterbomb description. These are already recognised as weapons of indiscriminate effect by the media.
[INCIDENT 2 ] "My second story is even more horrible", warns Geert.
"About a bus with civilians that was fired upon. Not the one in Najaf, which reached the news everywhere,
but a case that according to me has not yet been covered by western media. Three days ago, In Al Sqifal, near
Hilla, a passenger bus was fired upon from an American checkpoint, with ghastly results. According to
witnesses the bus stopped on time and had, on orders of the American Military, turned back. Dr. Saad
El-Fadoui, a 52 years old surgeon who still has studied in Scotland, was immediately on the place of incident
from the hospital in Hilla. When he told me
what he had seen there, he again became very emotional, three days after it had happened. 'The bodies were al
carbonized, terribly mutilated, torn into pieces, he sighs. 'In and around the bus I saw dismembered heads,
brains and intestines,..' One wonders what a criminal weapon of massdestruction could have caused these
horrors. Nobody had heard the sound of an explosion; on the bodies no traces of shrapnel were found. A
journalist spoke of a heat-weapon with liquid cupper or something like that.. Can the Americans be really that
cruel? Dr. Saad El-Fadoui asked us repeatedly to do everything to help stop this horrible war of aggression.
Incident 2:
3 April, Al Sqifal, near Hilla 'The bodies were al carbonized, terribly mutilated, torn into pieces,....One
wonders what a criminal weapon of massdestruction could have caused these horrors. Nobody had heard the sound
of an explosion; on the bodies no traces of shrapnel were found. A journalist spoke of a heat-weapon with
liquid cupper or something like that..
The reference to a heat weapon with liquid copper sounds like a misquote of someone describing an anti tank
weapon with a shaped charge warhead. (HEAT also stands for High Explosive AntiTank weapons).
Shaped charge warheads use a focussed explosive blast with a copper (or uranium) core that is melted by the
blast and travels at very high velocity to cut through armour plating. "Heat" in the context may
also be describing the obvious effects of an incendiary weapon.
If the weapon was fired from the check point (ground to ground) it must have been an anti-tank missile e.g.
JAVELIN which uses a tandem shaped charge warhead. Recently purchased by UK forces I question whether JAVELIN
warheads use a depleted uranium core
like the prototype that DERA and the MOD made and tested in 1999 (refer MOD website). This would produce a far
higher temperature (5000 degrees) blast than copper and may account for the characteristic severe burns on
victims."Carbonisation" was typical of uranium weapon victims on the highway of death in 1991.
Shaped charge weapons do not create shrapnel - they work by projecting a lance of burning molten metal, almost
a plasma, into the target.
Similar effects would have been caused by the larger Hellfire or Maverick missiles though
these are fired by planes or helicopters, not referred to in this report.
QUESTION: What weapon was used by US forces in this incident? Did it contain a Uranium warhead?
[INCIDENT 3] Geert understands me poorly when I say something, the line is not always
clear. "We are momentarily without electricity", he explains. "Large blocks in Baghdad are
without electricity, last night the bombardment was very severe. Colette
(Geert's collegue-doctor Dr. Collette Moulaert) saw from her hotel room, just behind the mosque in this
neighborhood, two enormous fireballs coming down. I think that these are containerbombs of about 7-8 tons each
that cause enormous vibrations. "I am
shivering of the cold", Collette said, but this was the vibration caused by the bomb explosion.
Incident 3:
"Colette saw from her hotel room, just behind the mosque in this neighborhood, two enormous fireballs
coming down."
The only weapons that match this description are the BLU-82 Daisy Cutter bombs. Developed in Vietnam for
clearing jungle into runways they created immense pressure (1000 lbs / sq inch) over a large area - lethal
from 300 to 900 metres.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm
They literally mash and burn any human beings under the blast area causing extensive internal injuries, severe
burns but no shrapnel wounds from the high pressure blast. Rather like high-blast napalm in effect but the
bombs are 10-20 times larger.
The two doctors providing these reports are in Baghdad. Dirk, their contact in Belgium, is on 0032-6833 9670.
A reliable UK contact is Joanne Baker in Bristol who knows Collette. Jo is on 0117-902 6534.
===
Incident 4
- is from a separate report from BBC reporter Adam Mynot yesterday (5 April) described civilian casualties
with severe burns near Nasiriyah. "The Phosphorus turned the inside of his house white hot". This is
the first reference I have heard to Phosphorus weapons in the current war.
A more likely alternative may have been a guided bomb with a uranium warhead e.g. GBU 31 or
32 (for increased penetration and incendiary effects). UK researchers located US patents for upgrading the
2000 lb BLU-109/B hard target warhead (used in the GBU-15, 24, 27 and 31 guided bombs) with a choice of
tungsten or depleted uranium. See Appendix 2 of my summary "Hazards of Uranium weapons in Afghanistan and
Iraq", October 2002 at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/u23.htm
and extracts at
http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/pdfs/USpats.pdf
These mini (just under 1 ton) bunker busters were used extensively in the earlier Baghdad bombing. The
explosions with intense fireballs at ground level and incandescent metal in their explosion plumes are highly
suspected of using uranium warheads.
The existence and use of guided bombs and missiles with uranium warheads is vigorously
denied by the UK MOD saying that the Pentagon have assured them that such weapons don't exist. I don't trust
either statement. In addition to causing horrific burns on
casualties near the fireball such weapons are likely to be causing hundreds, possibly up to 1500, tons of
uranium oxide contamination in target regions of Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad.
==
It is really important that media reports question what kinds of weapons are being used by US (and UK) forces
- especially when large numbers of casualties or fatalities are seen with unusual injuries e.g. the fire and
blast effects described in the incidents above.
The civilian casualties cause most obvious outrage. But there are very few questions about, or reports of, the
forms of mutilation and death inflicted on Iraqi troops. It is customary in times of war to demonise the
enemy. But much of the Iraqi army are conscripts..
Injuries to every involved in war - civilians and troops of all sides - are very serious issues. After World
War 2 there was sufficient horror for consensus about the Geneva Conventions. The US Military and arms
industry have shown supreme contempt for international humanitarian law ever WW2.
If this war shows one thing it is the need for the World to start to get control over the barbarity of the US
military industrial context. Criticisms of Saddam Hussein's record of atrocities fade into history as they are
eclipsed by the industrialised killing that US Forces have spent billions of dollars perfecting.
A new War Crimes Tribunal will be needed in Iraq as soon as hostilities cease - to inspect the targets and
casualties of US weapon systems throughout Iraq. This will of course require a dramatic awakening of the UK
Government and Conservative Opposition from
the "war-trance" spell cast on them by Pentagon propaganda.
There will be one mighty reckoning to follow soon for the US and UK Governments (if and) when independent
international observers are allowed into Iraq.
Dai Williams
Woking, Surrey
eosuk@btinternet.com
01483-222017 07808-502785
======= original message ===========
Dirk Adriaensens wrote:
From: "Dirk Adriaensens"
To:CASI
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 19:52:31 +0200
Subject: [casi] reports Belgian medical team, from Baghdad
Dear list,
here are two more reports from the 2 Belgian doctors who are still in baghdad. Tomorrow, saturday, Medical Aid
for the Third World, in cooperation with SOS Iraq, will send 2 more medical doctors to Baghdad to reinforce
their medical team. We think it is very important that impartial reports of "non-embedded" sources
keep reminding us about the horrors of this war. This war is particularly
"dirty", and many innocent civilians die. And the lies keep coming. Remember that independent
journalist are being harrassed, locked up, tortured and even killed by "friendly fire". A Belgian
TV-journalist, who is in the south of Iraq, has described the hostilities of British troups against him
yesterday in the 8 o'clock news. Disgraceful.
Now the US/UK-aggressors are using new types of bombs and ammunition. Can anyone tell me more about this type
of bombs, which Geert describes in the first report? It has something to do with liquid copper or something.
Horrible. Why doesn't the BBC report about this? Surely they must have access to these places, have knowledge
about these incidents, because these regions are under US/UK control, they say. To me and others all around
the world, the BBC has lost all its credibility. They can't be trusted anymore. They have proven to be a part
of the US/UK war-machine. Masks have fallen. Shame on them.
Greetings.
Dirk Adriaensens.
www.irak.be
More Explanation of new type of ammunition used by US Forces.
dirk,
this just came in from leuren morett concerning the mystery weapon.
Thank you Davey. I think that weapon that fried the busload of people is a version of the microwave
weapon that the US Marines revealed in a press conference 1-2 years ago - they wanted to use it in the US for
"crowd control". These are called NLW, non-lethal weapons, but all you do is turn the dial a
little more to the right and "oops we fried them"....
Many of the new weapons and the military research has been on "directed energy" - pain beams, heat
the enemy up until his skin is burning, fry his brain or scramble it, alter moods, its really really really
really wicked. What are the Brits there for? The US is going to ruin their reputation...
It would seem that most of the civilian casualties have been caused by cluster bombs but the
bus attack weapon may have been something different. It would not be a microwave bomb. They are something
different. They fry electrical circuits and chips. The crowd control weapons (non-lethal supposedly) are gas
and there doesnt seem evidence of their use as yet.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/clus-a05.shtml
Thank you very much for your email with this important information which I will pass on to Karen Parker
International Human Rights and Humanitarian Lawyer and Philippa Winkler, people working on the DU and weapons
issue with the UN Human Rights Commission.
I am not familiar with the different weapons systems so well detailed by Dai Williams but I do know what the
environmental and public health effects of DU are. The explanations by Dai Williams are very good and I
believe his careful research has been extremely
important in addressing the DU issue as well as other illegal weapons now being used.
There are many types of microwave, EMF and pulsed and shaped energy weapons which have been developed and
which we may or may not know about not know about because they are classified. Dai has demonstrated the
information it is possible to get from patent applicaitons. It would be reasonable to expect new types
of weapons to be tested in this war. I agree with Dai that the US has spent billions on creating
military weapons and the military industrial complex should be put in check. We as the citizens of the
world should stop the endless development and use of these on helpless populations.
Please thank the Belgian and other doctors working in Iraq for the Iraqi people. I am very concerned
that they will now be contaminated with DU as a consequence. I am attaching some articles I have written
for circulation and a letter I wrote to
Congressman McDermott with important scientific information about DU:
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm
With best wishes - Leuren Moret
President Scientists for Indigenous People
City of Berkeley Commissioner
Past President, Association for Women Geoscientists