SOURCE: Asahi.com, March 19, 2004
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Self-Defense Forces troops have been dispatched to Iraq, where violence shows no signs of abating. It is debatable whether sending the SDF to such a dangerous area constitutes an international contribution that does not violate the Constitution.

And we have to face up to the issue of depleted uranium. Between 800 tons and 2,000 tons of depleted uranium ordnance were fired in the Iraq war. Residual radioactivity from spent shells now contaminates the entire nation.

As a prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan formed under the initiative of a citizens' group, I surveyed scientists' reports on how depleted uranium affects the living. In October, I took part in an international conference on the subject in Germany, where I was shocked to learn that depleted uranium ordnance is causing irreparable damage to the people.

Depleted uranium, a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium, is a highly toxic, radioactive substance with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. When shells made from depleted uranium are fired, they discharge large quantities of radioactivity. If a human being absorbs that radiation in the air or drinking water, contamination continues within the body, damaging cells and triggering diseases such as cancer or causing congenital abnormalities among the children of people exposed to the radiation.

A declassified 1943 memorandum, addressed to a general and written by a U.S. scientist who took part in the Manhattan project, explains in detail the deadly effectiveness of the ``radioactive weapons'' that eventually became the model for depleted uranium ordnance. Records kept by the U.S. Department of Defense that I have read show that the U.S. military has been conducting studies on depleted uranium, including animal tests, since 1974.

At the international conference in Germany, I spoke with Doug Rokke, who led a project that examined the effects of depleted uranium in soldiers at the Pentagon in 1994. According to Rokke, the project's findings made clear to him how serious the effect of depleted uranium is on humans. He urged that such weapons be banned, but his warning was ignored by the military and the project eventually disbanded.

More than 200,000 U.S. soldiers returned from the Persian Gulf War suffering physical disorders, and about 10,000 of them have died, Rokke said. While certain vaccinations are thought to have had an deleterious impact on their health, depleted uranium also contributed to their health problems, he said. Rokke asked whether Japan does not care if its soldiers now face the same danger.

Was this danger taken into account when the government decided to go ahead with the SDF dispatch?

Even more ominous is the effect depleted uranium will have on the health of Iraqis. The southern city of Basra was bombarded with depleted uranium shells during the Persian Gulf War. In recent years, cancer and congenital abnormalities have risen sharply among local children. An Iraqi doctor handed me a large number of photographs of patients suffering from depleted uranium-related disorders. They left me speechless.

If we sit back and do nothing to stop the spread of radioactive pollution during this Iraq conflict, many more people will die. We must put an end to the occupation, and advance Iraqi reconstruction under the initiative of the United Nations as soon as possible, so that international society together can prevent the ravages of depleted uranium from spreading. Research on the contamination must be done, remaining pieces of depleted uranium ordnance must be collected and contaminated soil removed.

An Iraqi doctor told me: ``We don't want you to send us an army. We want you to help us. We need more anti-cancer, antibiotic and intravenous medications.''

Deploying SDF troops is expected to cost tens of billions of yen. If all that money were instead put toward medical aid in Iraq, it would help a great many more people. Japan, a country that endured World War II's atomic bombings, has the medical skill and technology to treat patients suffering from radioactive contamination. We should put medical aid ahead of any other kind of assistance.

Many people are dying slow, quiet deaths because of their exposure to depleted uranium pollution. What can Japan and the world do? To start, the government should withdraw the SDF from Iraq and concentrate on peaceful humanitarian relief, especially medical aid. That, I believe, is the only honorable choice for Japan's international contribution.

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The author is a lawyer. She contributed this comment to The Asahi Shimbun.(IHT/Asahi: March 19,2004) (03/19)

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