"You are not being truthful about the purpose of your visit to Italy. What is your interest in diabetes and depleted uranium?" the Italian consul in Bombay demanded to know.
"I am just traveling to Italy to meet with Leuren Moret," the famous Indian doctor answered.
Leuren Moret recounted the episode in an interview June 29, 2006. She said, "The doctor had never mentioned either diabetes or depleted uranium."
The Italian government official was grilling one of the leading doctors in India. This "interview" at the Italian embassy took place June 27, 2006, in Bombay, India. The doctor had traveled to Italy several times before and did not expect such outrageous treatment. The consul denied the doctor permission to travel to Italy to meet with Moret.
The doctor had said nothing about diabetes and nothing about depleted uranium. The embassy official had just let the cat out of the bag and confirmed the link between the global epidemic of diabetes and the use of depleted uranium by the U.S.-U.K. expeditionary forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia.
The official could only have known about the diabetes link to depleted uranium from the U.S. State Department and the source of it all: the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, "managed" for 61 years by the University of California. The University of California nuclear weapons labs are the core of the nuclear weapons program in the U.S., the only remaining superpower.
The clumsy intervention by a superpower in the travel plans of a private individual to confer with a scientific colleague about global public health concerns highlights the explosive significance that the U.S. attaches to uncontrolled information about the global epidemic of diabetes.
On May 29, Moret charged the University of California and the Los Alamos and Livermore Nuclear Weapons Labs with engineering the largest global increase of diabetes in history and trying to cover it up.
Fine uranium dust, vaporized into a poison radioactive gas by exploding uranium bombs, missiles and bullets, hitches a ride on dry desert winds to circle the globe in days.
Dr. Chris Busby, a leading British radiation expert, got data from a nuclear weapons air monitoring facility at Aldemaston, England, which identified depleted uranium in the British atmosphere only nine days after the "shock and awe" carpet bombing of Baghdad, started in March of 2003.
Bob Nichols is a Project Censored Award winner. He is a correspondent for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and a frequent contributor to various online publications. Nichols is completing a book based on 15 years of nuclear war in Central Asia. He is a former employee of the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. Nichols can be reached by email, and readers are encouraged to write to him at DUweapons@gmail.com.
Only problem is depleted uranium has only one use. Heavy Armor killing rounds. We have used neither in either Yugo or Afghanistan so it is all just another propaganda lie by the wacko Socialist Leftists.
Turns out his source is a just a con man.
http://30 Dead or Zero Dead?
Military Spokesman Contradicts Fatalities Claim by Doug Rokke
I recently received an email (indirectly) from a military source having the following email address: (special.assistant@deploymenthealth.osd.mil)
The gist of the email is that Doug Rokke's claims about the health effects in members of his gulf war clean up team are not accurate. I decided to see what I could find on the Internet about those claims before posting this government response. The most common claim, attributed to Doug Rokke, is that 30 members of his "100 member team" have died, with the implication being that the death was from depleted uranium. Here is a typical quote where the information seems to come from Doug Rokke. This article is by Larry Johnson in the Seattle Post - Intelligencer but it is certainly not the only one as there appear to be dozens of similar texts on the Internet:
"Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems".
-- Doug Rokke as quoted by Larry Johnson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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The following information from the military "Special Assistant on Deployment Health" paints a quite different picture. Unless Rokke can come up with the names of most of the 30 who he alleges have died, I will have to believe the government information, rather than Rokke's claim. Rokke seems to have exaggerated both his role and the number of people who have died since the cleanup. Here is the email from the official government source:
>>>>We can offer some accurate information to correct the record. Rokke is a private citizen and does not represent the Department of Defense. Following the ground war, Rokke was attached for duty to assist technical experts in the recovery and decontamination of radioactive material and equipment. The team of approximately 10 people was led, not by Rokke, but by a civilian from the Army Munitions and Chemical Command (AMCCOM). Rokke's primary role was to facilitate the recovery operations by ensuring the team had the proper support. Over the past years, Doug Rokke has reported varying numbers of ill or dead members of "his team." These claims have been researched and are unsubstantiated.
In 1998, our office compiled a list of 29 names of people Rokke reported to be on "his team." Staff members were able to interview 22 of them. Approximately 15 of the 29 people Doug Rokke had identified as being on "his team" actually worked on DU-contaminated vehicles. Two of the 29 had died, however, in interviews with the others, neither of these two veterans was named as having worked with depleted uranium. While we respect Rokke's right to express his opinions, the fact that he presents himself as an expert, does not make it so. His role in the Gulf War and at the Chemical School, as well as the specifics of his educational background, do not qualify him as a depleted uranium expert. These areas fall well outside of his area of expertise and responsibility.<<<<
End of quote.
My comments: It seems that as of 1998, not a single member of the team had died of exposure to uranium, contrary to Rokke's claim. Before posting the above text, I contacted Doug Rokke and asked him to comment on this material. He refused to say anything in support of his earlier claim that 30 people had died from his organization and instead showed an intense desire to change the subject.
--
Traprock, Doug Rokke and the Groves Memo - A Misleading and False Claim
Activist groups, such as the Traprock Peace Center, sometimes make serious errors when discussing technology issues, especially involving nuclear science. The reason seems to be that they do not have sufficient expertise to discuss the technical details of the causes that they promote. One such serious mistake can be seen on the website of the Traprock Peace Center, which will be discussed below:
Traprock apparently thought they had found a solid expert (Doug Rokke) on the subject of depleted uranium who happened to agree with their view, that it is criminal to use depleted uranium in armed conflicts. Sunny Miller of Traprock accompanied Doug Rokke on a nationwide tour in opposition to depleted uranium. For whatever reason, Ms. Miller did not always give an accurate description of Rokke's credentials, sometimes claiming that he has a Ph.D. in Health Physics, a claim that he did not correct in at least one radio interview. Doug Rokke does have a little experience in health physics, in the military, but does not have a degree in that area. The Traprock Center has recently corrected their written transcript of one interview to accurately show that Rokke has a Ph.D. in education, not Health Physics, as they had at first claimed. Rokke's fairly modest background in the nuclear field can best be shown by his mistake in his writing that can be found at the URL above, on the Traprock website. Doug Rokke, in the text that is posted at the above URL, discusses a 1943 memo written to General Leslie Groves. According to Rokke, the memo is on the subject of uranium. Unfortunately for Rokke's interpretation, the memo is not on the subject of uranium but is rather about fission products. Rokke's text is in brackets, with the text from the 1943 memo in italics:
[A letter sent to General Leslie Groves during 1943 is even more disturbing. In that memorandum dated October 30, 1943, senior scientists assigned to the Manhattan Project suggested that uranium could be used as an air, water, and terrain contaminant. According to the letter sent by the Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee on the "Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon" to General Groves (October 30, 1943) inhalation of uranium would result in "bronchial irritation coming on in a few hours to a few days."]
----- Doug Rokke as quoted on the Traprock web site
The above quote is incorrect and misleading and it is tempting to conclude that it was carefully constructed to be deliberately misleading. I suspect that Doug Rokke constructed this misleading quote more out of ignorance than dishonesty but even so it does not lend confidence in his ability to understand issues related to uranium. Note that the words 'uranium would result in' are not included in the quotation marks. That is because uranium was never mentioned in the memo. Doug Rokke concluded, incorrectly, that the memo was about uranium. In fact it was about fission products, which have quite different characteristics.
What does the 1943 memo actually say if it does not mention uranium? To explain that it is necessary to include more text than quoted by Rokke. Here is the quote in context, also in brackets:
[Particles larger than 1µ[micron]in size are likely to be deposited in nose, trachea or bronchi and then be brought up with mucus on the walls at the rate of 1/2 - 1 cm/min. Particles smaller than 1µ [micron] are more likely to be deposited in the alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed into the lymphatics or blood. The probability of the deposition of dust particles anywhere in the respiratory tract depends upon respiratory rate, particle size, chemical and physical nature, and the concentration in the atmosphere. Hence the probability of f products causing lung damage depends on all of these factors.
While only fragmentary information is available, it is felt that the injury would be manifest as bronchial irritation coming on in from a few hours to a few days, depending on the dose.] End of quote.
The last paragraph includes the quote Rokke used and you can see that uranium is nowhere to be seen. From the preceding paragraph it is obvious that the material is "f products" which means fission products. In another part of the letter, f products are plainly described as fission products. As for Doug Rokke's qualifications and experience, I question his competence in nuclear science because most professionals would not have made the mistake of concluding that uranium was the subject of this memo. The characteristics of fission products, as described in the letter, are so different from the characteristics of uranium that only an amateur would make the mistake that Rokke made. From that and other comments that he has made, it seems clear to me that Rokke's expertise in regard to depleted uranium is far less than he claims and far less than what is claimed for him by the "movement".
I believe that some impartial observers might conclude that Rokke dishonestly constructed the quote as it is given on the Traprock web site. But whether it was from dishonesty or stupidity, the quote is a false one and as of February 21, 2004 it still appears on the Traprock website. The fact that I pointed this out to Sunny Miller (Traprock Director) weeks ago and nothing has been done, suggests to me that Traprock is not greatly interested in correcting false information if it happens to support their viewpoints.
This particular mistake is not insignificant, because if it were accurate, it would be damning evidence against those who use depleted uranium. This particular falsehood has been spread far and wide on the Internet, and it can be found on half a dozen sites. This is an important matter because it will speak volumes about the integrity of activists and Traprock if it is not removed.
The entire 1943 memo to General Groves is given at the link below. Because the characteristics of fission products are quite different from the characteristics of uranium, any competent nuclear scientist would not make the mistake of confusing uranium with fission products. In some of his interviews, Rokke makes the admission that he had never heard of depleted uranium prior to 1991. Again this is the sort of telling comment that shows that Rokke is not the expert that he is claimed to be by the "movement". For some months, Rokke's biographical information was posted on the Traprock website until it was mysteriously removed. Possibly Traprock removed the resume because Rokke's current employment was listed as a substitute teacher, an odd situation for an "expert" in Health Physics.
Those wishing to completely understand all aspects of the 1943 memo to General Leslie Groves, can read the entire memo at the link below. The link below has reproduced the text clearly so that you don't have to read an image of the 1943 letter:
Memo to General Leslie Groves
When the mistaken interpretation of Doug Rokke is understood by the movement, they try to dismiss the memo as being unimportant. But the large number of internet sites that have quoted Rokke's false interpretation indicates that the movement has been greatly influenced by this false information.
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September, 2005 - A skeptical analyst recently had the following comments about the Doug Rokke version of the Groves memo:
I have been looking at Mr. Rokke and his claims for depleted uranium for some time. His acceptance by the "peace" community continues to baffle me. His "Groves memo", while it does suffer from the "out of context" flaw, is subject to much more fundamental criticism. The "Memo", as presented by Rokke (hereafter the "Rokke Memo"), is itself a fabrication. If you look carefully at the four pages of the Rokke memo, several things cry out for notice. The pages are oddly numbered - there is one "page 1", and three "page 2" sheets. They are typed with a mix of Pica and Elite typewriters. There is no continuity in paragraph and sub-paragraph numbering among the pages. The grammatical transitions from page to page either extremely strained, or missing altogether. There is no "signature block", a cardinal sin in military correspondence. I was able to verify that the four pages actually come from four separate documents. References for the first two pages comes from "Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments' public meeting, 13-14 June 1994, Tab F. The second two pages are found in "Correspondence ("Top Secret") of the Manhattan Engineer District 1942-1946" National Archives Microfilm Publication M1109, Roll 1. Page one is the only page that is actually part of the original "Groves Memo". The second (and last) page of the actual memo is missing in the Rokke Memo, and shows the actual author of the memo to be K. D. Nichols, Colonel, Corps of Engineers. The first "Page 2" of the Rokke memo is actually the second page of a three-page summary written by the same Colonel Nichols. The first page and the third page of this summary are not included in the Rokke Memo. The document he summarizes is the document actually written by Doctors Conant, Compton and Urey. The second "Page 2" of the Rokke memo is from an seven-page document entitled "Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon". It was part of a package of information used in a then "top-secret" project known as "Operation Peppermint" early in 1944. This document is probably an accurate version of the original paper written by the three scientists above. The final "Page 2" of the Rokke memo is actually page 2 of "Appendix I. Effects of Gamma-Rays on People" authored by a "Dr. R. S. Stone". I hope some of this information is useful to you.
Sincerely, Gary F. Giesecke
If you would like to send an email to Traprock Peace Center objecting to their misleading and false description of the Groves memo, you may reach them at
traprock@crocker.com
Comments by Dr. Otto Raabe, Health Physicist, in regard to Doug Rokke
The following text was published on the Radsafe list. It is from Dr. Otto Raabe, former President of the Health Physics Society. Dr. Raabe has far more education and experience in Health Physics than Doug Rokke.
November 26, 2002 Davis, CA
Last night I went to hear Doug Rokke's performance at the Davis Community Church concerning the "poisoning of whole nations by the use of DU munitions by the U.S. military". In his talk Rokke made numerous technical errors concerning uranium toxicology and health physics including saying that a beta dose to the skin of 300 mrem exceeded the standard for whole body exposure. I strongly objected to his misrepresentation of the DU toxicology facts during the comment period. I think my objections fell on closed minds, however, since this was a cultist group of "peace activists" who think disarmament of our nation will lead to peace. Rokke's stated purpose is to get the U.S. to stop using some of our best field weapons that employ DU projectiles.
Rokke's performance was clever and polished. I think he has had professional drama coaching. Not since Helen Caldicott have I heard such masterful manipulation of the audience. He credited himself at every turn with being highly principled while always casting the U.S. military as nefarious and cold-blooded. He claimed he was fired by the government because of his dedication to health and safety.
Much of his talk involved references to toxic chemicals released by our military action in the Gulf War, contaminated food provided by the Saudis, and claimed poisoning of people by DU dust. He said he was a "health physicist" and implied that he had a Ph.D. in physics by reference to being in his "physics lab" while working on his doctorate. Actually, his doctorate is in "Education Methodology", which I got him to admit during the questioning. He is certainly not a qualified health physicist. According to reliable sources, he is currently a substitute teacher in a middle school in Urbana, Illinois, and a director of a children's camp in the summers.
Rokke said that in the Gulf War he was the "Director of the Army Depleted Uranium Project," and that virtually everyone who worked on the project was sick from exposure to DU. The diseases and ailments that he claimed for DU conflict with 50 years of research on DU toxicology and with the findings of the Department Defence who are carefully evaluating military personnel who were exposed to high levels of airborne DU aerosols. See
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii Unfortunately, the audience of about 100 people were enthralled with Rokke and angry with me for objecting to his erroneous statements and misrepresentation, but I think it was important to cast some doubt on this charlatans's proclamations.
Otto
Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D. CHP
Center for Health and the Environment
University of California, Davis, CA 95616
www.ntanet.net/traprock.html