[WCUSP] Fwd: US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? [heavily referenced article, part 1 of 3] IMPORTANT

[Odile Hugonot Haber]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karen deslierres <karendes at umich.edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:11:59 -0500
Subject: US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? [heavily referenced
article, part 1 of 3] IMPORTANT
To: Karen deslierres <karendes at umich.edu>



DIME is an LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed at the US
Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial
deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast
within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated "micro-
shrapnel" of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA)
The DIME bomb, yet another genotoxic weapon.

US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? Part 1 of 3
By James Brooks
Online Journal
Dec 5, 2006
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1502.shtml

It's been almost five months since the first report that Israeli
drone aircraft have been dropping a "mystery weapon" on Palestinians
in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run
stories depicting the strange and "horrific" wounds inflicted by the
new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian
doctors and medics who say Israel's new device is a kind of chemical
weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the
victims of Israeli attacks. [1] [2]

In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence
that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of
US "counterinsurgency warfare." Combined with photographs of the
victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points
to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). [3]

DIME is an LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed at the US
Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial
deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast
within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated "micro-
shrapnel" of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific
studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune
system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic). [4-11]
It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the
story of Israel's new weapon, not least because our own military may
soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have
told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of
Israel's war on the Palestinian people -- reason enough for the
media to suppress it. [12]

Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have
introduced Americans to their government's DIME weapons program.
This three-part article will ask whether Israel is `testing' US DIME
bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and
projected use of DIME weapons and their roots in depleted uranium
(DU) research. These parallels will lead us to consider DIME in its
historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military's
long-running development of genotoxic weapons.

"They cannot return to life again"

The first reports about `Israel's new weapon' came from Dr Joma Al-
Saqqa, chief of the emergency unit at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-
Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using "a new `chemical'
weapon" and its siege was "a live exercise on a new ammunition that,
so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200."
He observed that, "despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the
bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray.
In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body."
[13]

"There were usually entry and exit wounds," Dr. Al-Saqqa
reported. "When the wounds were explored no foreign material was
found. There was tissue death, the extent of which was difficult to
determine. . . . A higher deep infection rate resulted with
subsequent amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher
mortality." The effects of the weapon seemed "radioactive." [14] [15]
According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa "confirmed that
there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been
burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot
return to life again." [16]

"When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that
destroy the tissues around the bones . . . it burns and destroys
internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other
organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon,
I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was
like this weapon." [17]

However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre
wounds. On the first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had
conveniently destroyed Gaza's only crime laboratory. [18]
Despite his pleas to the "international community" to investigate
and lend assistance in treating the victims, "no one has lifted a
finger," the doctor was quoted in mid-July. "What we found were
journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical
community, nothing." [19]

On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
reported that Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-
Saqqa's hospital, "where the staff is struggling to deal with wounds
resulting in an unusually high number of amputations." Commissioner
AbuZayd commented that "what we saw in Al-Shifa . . . was rather
horrific." [20]

According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), "75
per cent of war-wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed
amputations" following an Israeli attack on Gaza City. [21]
The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an
investigation into the injuries. Physicians for Human Rights -
Israel "agreed to take away fragments of tissue from the bodies of
Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza
for possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an
international investigation." [22]

Tungsten in tissue samples: A DIME weapon?

On October 19, Italy's Rai24news televised an investigative report
that supplied crucial new information. The Italian investigators had
tissue samples from the victims in Gaza analyzed by Dr. Carmela
Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr. Vaccaio reportedly found "a very
high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials,
such as copper, aluminum and tungsten." The doctor concluded that
her "findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon
in question is DIME."

Rai24news reporters also talked to Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel,
former chief of the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF's) weapons
development program. General Ben-Israel appeared to be familiar with
DIME weapons. He explained that "one of the ideas is to allow those
targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other
persons." [23]

The US Air Force refers to this emerging realm of weaponry as FLM
(Focused Lethality Munitions). FLM is expected to provide
the `weapons of choice' for targeting "terrorists hiding among
civilians," as a cheerleading Wall Street Journal article put it.
[24]

With "focused lethality [and] higher energy materials . . . nano
particles, intelligent fuzing, [and] mass focus lethality," the Air
Force "will be able to strike effectively, wherever and whenever
necessary, with minimal collateral damage." Ominously, the military
thinks these weapons will allow it to target sites "previously off
limits to the warfighter." [25] [26]

This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been
doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells,
and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like
DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian
casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by
inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims? These
disturbing questions will be explored in the next installment of
this article.

References
1) Palestinian injuries suggest Israel is using chemical weapons in
Gaza, Ma'an News, 7/10/2006
2) Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza, Jean Shaoul,
wsws.org, 10/24/2006
3) Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip,
Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006
4) Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME), GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006
5) Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and
tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic
transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel,
Miller, AC, et al, PubMed, 11/26/2006
6) Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the
tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal–tungsten alloy particles:
induction of genotoxic effects, Miller, AC, et al, Carcinogenesis,
Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, Oxford University Press
7) Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten
Alloys, Alexandra C Miller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed
Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)
8) Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of
significant, alpha particle decay, Miller, AC, et al, Journal of
Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002 pp. 246– 252
9) Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces
Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats, Kalinich et
al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005
10) Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals,
depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression
in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2), Miller, AC, et al,
SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004
11) Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals
like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring, Alexandra C.
Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5:
Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc Amer Assoc Cancer Res,
Volume 47, 2006
12) If Americans Knew
13) Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza, Duraid Al Baik,
Centre for Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
14) Are New Weapons Being Used In Gaza and Lebanon?, David Halpin MB
BS FRCS, Electronic Intifada, 8/14/2006
15) Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by
Gaza City medical sources, Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
16) ibid.
17) Doctors Report Unusual Weapon Used in Gaza, Pacifica/Free Speech
Radio News 7/11/2006
18) Israel 'is using chemical ammunition' in Gaza, Centre for
Research on Globalization/Gulf News, 6/13/2006
19) Ministry of Health report on toxic Israeli weapons confirmed by
Gaza City medical sources, Palestine News Network, 7/13/2006
20) UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd: "Please don't forget
what's going on in Gaza," ReliefWeb/UNRWA, 8/3/2006
21) Hospitals in Gaza overwhelmed and running out of supplies,
Electronic Intifada/Merlin, 8/8/2006
22) Gaza doctors encounter 'unexplained injuries', Donald Macintyre,
The Independent 9/4/2006
23) Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip,
Ha'aretz, 10/12/2006
24) Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang, Greg Jaffe, The Wall
Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006
25) Munition Technology Drivers, Col. Thomas "Mas" Masiell, Air
Force Research Laboratory, 12/1/2006
26) USAF Unfunded Priority List (UPL), SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007,
February 2006, Page 54

James Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in
Palestine/Israel. He can be contacted at jamiedb @ wildblue.net.

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