“Bring ‘Em On?”
A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush’s Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops
By By Stan Goff for Counterpunch.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the ‘non-existent’ Iraqi guerrillas to “bring ’em on,” the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who’d been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he’d be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He’s been eating MRE’s three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others’ nerves. The rumors of ‘going-home, not-going-home’ are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people–as well as for official narratives.

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Did the Shrub actually dare the Iraqi Militants “To Come And Get Our Troops?”
No, not quite. He only said “Bring them on.”
But it’s still pretty tasteless and inappropriate if you ask me. (Not that anyone did.)
It’s bad enough that we rushed over there without properly training our troops in how do deal with post-battle civil matters in urban areas.
It’s even worse that, two months after we tell them the hard part’s over and promise to send them home to their families, it turns out that we’re actually going to send even more of our boys and girls over there (and without telling us why it’s necessary exactly – or who we’re even fighting).
But that’s not all folks! On top of everything else, our “President” and Commander in Chief has pridefully encouraged this latest nameless, faceless enemy to give us the best they got.
Is this the new Rambo movie? Nope. This is reality, folks. This is the United States of American in the year 2003.
Let’s make this next year the last for the Shrub Regime. For GW, Jeb, or any other relatives of theirs we haven’t heard about yet that they might be saving for future elections.
Bush Taking Heat for ‘Bring Them On’ Remark
By Steve Holland for Reuters.

President Bush has used colorful language before to great effect, but he is taking some heat for his “Bring them on” challenge to Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces, who he said were tough enough to take it.
Even some aides winced at Bush’s words, which Democrats pounced on as an invitation to Iraqi militants to fire on U.S. troops already the subject of hit-and-run attacks by Saddam Hussein loyalists and others.
“These men and women are risking their lives every day, and the president who sent them on this mission showed tremendous insensitivity to the dangers they face,” said Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
Another Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, said condemned the comment, saying, “The deteriorating situation in Iraq requires less swagger and more thoughtfulness and statesmanship.”

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Warning: The effect of this article is subtle and hard to explain, but I don’t recommend reading this if you’re at work or something and about to go into a meeting where it might be uncomfortable to be a tad emotional. Email yourself the link and read it at home later when you can get teary and it won’t interfere with the productive flow of your day. (Or just take a deep breath before you read it so you can have your guard up…or, of course, you can decide to just go ahead and get emotional. It is healthy and good for the soul and all. I just wanted to warn you and give you the option — Articles like this can really mess me up sometimes and screw up a group dynamic if they catch me off guard. — ed.)
Kudos to the team of writers at USA Today that worked on this one.
Nice job guys.
Troops, families await war’s real end
By Jack Kelley, Gary Strauss, Martin Kasindorf and Valerie Alvord for USA Today
(Kelley and Strauss reported from Fallujah and Baghdad; Kasindorf from Los Angeles; Valerie Alvord from San Diego).

For the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the war doesn’t seem to end. Some feel angry that they’re still here, guilty that they’re not with their families and perplexed that their reward for capturing Baghdad has been extra duty in a country they have grown to dislike.
Their families, who watched the liberation of Iraq on TV, expected a clean end to the a hard-fought war. Instead, they worry their loved ones could die keeping peace in a country where U.S. forces are widely regarded as occupiers, not liberators.
Iraq is still a dangerous place. During the 43-day war, 139 U.S. servicemembers died

This one comes right on schedule, unfortunately. Soldiers are starting to notice symptoms of “vaccine overload.” Such symptoms are similar to that of Gulf War Syndrome.
‘War vaccines poisoned us’
By Rebecca Mowling for the Evening Standard.

Four British soldiers who received jabs for the Iraq conflict are to sue the Ministry of Defence claiming they are suffering from a new form of Gulf War Syndrome.
The revelation comes as a veterans’ support group predicted today that thousands of UK servicemen will come forward with mystery illnesses linked to “vaccine overload”.
Tony Flint of the National Gulf Veterans and Families’ Association, confirmed he now anticipates a fresh wave of health cases. “We are expecting at least 6,000 new cases as a result of the Iraq conflict – about 30 per cent of the 22,000 troops who had the anthrax vaccination.”
Danger zone: Several troops claim vaccinations made them ill
The first four soldiers from the latest conflict who are set to sue – two reservists and two regulars – are blaming depression, breathing problems and eczema on injections they were given before being sent to the Middle East.
Professor Malcolm Hooper, chief scientific adviser to the veterans’ association, said the MoD did not seem to have learned from “the mistakes of the 1991 conflict” in relation to multiple vaccinations. “These guys are clearly suffering from vaccine overload,” he said.
The key concern centres on soldiers given anthrax vaccines on top of other more routine inoculations.
Professor Hooper added: “The problem was one which was there in 1991. Our studies have shown that these people have excessive symptoms – three to four-fold compared with people who have not been vaccinated in the same way.”
…Lawyer Mark McGhee, who is acting for the four men, said: “The symptoms that these four individuals are experiencing are identical to those of the individuals I represent in relation to the first Gulf war.” The High Court is due to rule within weeks on whether Gulf War Syndrome can be recognised in law.

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The Christian Science Monitor sent its own reporter with a radiation detector to verify whether or not the depleted uranium bullets used by U.S. forces in Iraq were leaving radiation behind.
The answer is a frighteningly loud and clear: yes! The whole place is contaminated and no one is warning or protecting the inhabitants.
Remains of toxic bullets litter Iraq
The Monitor finds high levels of radiation left by US armor-piercing shells.
By Scott Peterson for the Christian Science Monitor.

At a roadside produce stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, business is brisk for Latifa Khalaf Hamid. Iraqi drivers pull up and snap up fresh bunches of parsley, mint leaves, dill, and onion stalks.
But Ms. Hamid’s stand is just four paces away from a burnt-out Iraqi tank, destroyed by – and contaminated with – controversial American depleted-uranium (DU) bullets. Local children play “throughout the day” on the tank, Hamid says, and on another one across the road.
No one has warned the vendor in the faded, threadbare black gown to keep the toxic and radioactive dust off her produce. The children haven’t been told not to play with the radioactive debris. They gather around as a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.
The Monitor visited four sites in the city – including two randomly chosen destroyed Iraqi armored vehicles, a clutch of burned American ammunition trucks, and the downtown planning ministry – and found significant levels of radioactive contamination from the US battle for Baghdad.
In the first partial Pentagon disclosure of the amount of DU used in Iraq, a US Central Command spokesman told the Monitor that A-10 Warthog aircraft – the same planes that shot at the Iraqi planning ministry – fired 300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 – a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq.
The Monitor saw only one site where US troops had put up handwritten warnings in Arabic for Iraqis to stay away. There, a 3-foot-long DU dart from a 120 mm tank shell, was found producing radiation at more than 1,300 times background levels. It made the instrument’s staccato bursts turn into a steady whine…
During the latest Iraq conflict Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and A-10 Warthog aircraft, among other military platforms, all fired the DU bullets from desert war zones to the heart of Baghdad. No other armor-piercing round is as effective against enemy tanks. While the Pentagon says there’s no risk to Baghdad residents, US soldiers are taking their own precautions in Iraq, and in some cases have handed out warning leaflets and put up signs.
“After we shoot something with DU, we’re not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer,” says a sergeant in Baghdad from New York, assigned to a Bradley, who asked not to be further identified.
“We don’t know the effects of what it could do,” says the sergeant. “If one of our vehicles burnt with a DU round inside, or an ammo truck, we wouldn’t go near it, even if it had important documents inside. We play it safe.”
Six American vehicles struck with DU “friendly fire” in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump.
Television footage of the war last month showed Iraqi armored vehicles burning as US columns drove by, a common sign of a strike by DU, which burns through armor on impact, and often ignites the ammunition carried by the targeted vehicle.
“We were buttoned up when we drove by that – all our hatches were closed,” the US sergeant says. “If we saw anything on fire, we wouldn’t stop anywhere near it. We would just keep on driving.”

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Britian’s Royal Society is very upset that the Shrub Administration misrepresented that it agreed with the assessment that DU wouldn’t be dangerous to the inhabitants of the area.
Of course, this means that the dangers to our troops have also been misrepresented.
Scientists urge shell clear-up to protect civilians
Royal Society spells out dangers of depleted uranium
By Paul Brown for the Guardian UK.

Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the United States in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society said yesterday, contradicting Pentagon claims it was not necessary…
The society, Britain’s premier scientific institution, was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.
In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.
DU is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and is also recovered after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. There are thousands of tonnes of it in stores in the US and UK.
Because it is effectively free and 20% heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons. It burns at 10,000C, incinerating everything as it turns to dust.
As it proved so effective, it was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf war despite its slight radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US.
DU has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqi civilians, particularly children, since the previ ous Gulf war. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame.
Among those against the use of DU is Professor Doug Rokke, a one time US army colonel who is also a former director of the Pentagon’s depleted uranium project, and a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University. He has said a nation’s military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions. He has called on the US and UK to “recognise the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation”.
The UN Environment Programme has been tracking the use of DU in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table. Seven years after the conflict it has recommended the decontamination of buildings where DU dust is present to protect the civilian population against cancer…
Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said that a recent study by the society had found that the majority of soldiers were unlikely to be exposed to dangerous levels of depleted uranium during and after its use on the battlefield.
“However, a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator.”

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Here’s Why:
Thin Ice.
By Patrick Farley.
(via BoingBoing)

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