Noam Chomksy - Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe

The level of contamination left from US atomic testing in the Marshall Islands is immensely troubling, but so too is what might be transpiring in Iraq and other areas of the Middle East due to the use of depleted uranium. There seems to be ample evidence that the use of DU in Iraq by the US is causing a catastrophic health crisis. Some have even referred to it as “low-grade nuclear warfare.” [33] When Dr. Helen Caldicott was asked whether she thought this description was apt, she responded, “I would describe it as nuclear war without the blast, the effects of which will be endless.” E-mail correspondence, February 16, 2012. Where do you stand on this issue?

The levels of birth defects, cancer, and other consequences of the US assault on Iraq are shocking. Whether the cause is DU remains uncertain—same in other areas. There are many sources of toxicity in warfare. The authors of the published studies have suggested that DU might be the cause, but report that they cannot be confident. To my knowledge, serious weapons specialists and nuclear scientists deeply concerned about these issues have reached no definite conclusions.

The people of Vietnam also suffer from an inordinate number of birth defects. In comparing that situation to the use of DU in Iraq, is it possible that the inability to reach definite conclusions about health and environmental issues is intentional? [34] A joint project between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and Vietnam to study possible links between Agent Orange and health and environmental degradation never got off the ground. The study “was expected to provide evidence for a class action suit on behalf of millions of Vietnamese plaintiffs against US manufacturers of Agent Orange.” Declan Butler, “US Abandons Health Study on Agent Orange,” Nature 434 (April 2005): 687, doi:10.1038/434687a. On outcome of suit, see note 12, this chapter. Are there political factors that get in the way of scientific research that has the potential to establish causation?

There is a valuable new study of the effects of Agent Orange on South Vietnamese by Fred Wilcox, Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam —a very serious work, beyond anything else I’ve seen. He had an earlier book on its effects on US soldiers: Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange . [35] Fred A. Wilcox, Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011); Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange , 2nd ed. (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011). Since we last spoke there have been some investigations of the impact of US weaponry in the attack on Fallujah. One technical study found unusually high levels of enriched uranium, presumably from DU, along with other dangerous substances. [36] Samira Alaani, Muhammed Tafash, Christopher Busby, Malak Hamdan, and Eleonore Blaurock-Busch, “Uranium and Other Contaminants in Hair from the Parents of Children with Congenital Anomalies in Fallujah, Iraq,” Conflict and Health 5 (September 2011): 1–15, doi:10.1186/1752-1505-5-15. Another study, reported by Patrick Cockburn in the London Independent and in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , found that “Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.” The study, by Iraqi and British doctors, found “a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.” [37] Patrick Cockburn, “Toxic Legacy of US Assault on Fallujah ‘Worse than Hiroshima,’” Independent (London), July 24, 2010; Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan, and Entesar Ariabi, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 7 (July 2010): 2828–37, doi:10.3390/ijerph7072828.

That the marine attack on Fallujah in November 2004 (the second major assault) was a major war crime was evident at once even from the (generally supportive) US reporting. These new investigations surely merit widespread attention (they have received almost none) and serious inquiry, in fact war crimes trials, if that were imaginable. It is not: only the weak and defeated are subjected to such indignities.

There can hardly be any serious doubt that political factors interfere with scientific research in all such cases, massively in fact; and there are quite a few. The vicious US-supported Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008–January 2009 is another case that should be investigated. The heroic Norwegian physicians Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, who worked under horrible conditions at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza right through the worst days, reported effects of unknown lethal munitions that surely would receive extensive inquiry, bitter condemnation, and calls for punishment if the agents were enemy states. [38] See Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, Eyes in Gaza (London: Quartet Books, 2010).

DU munitions in the US are produced by contractor-owned, contractor-operated facilities. Is this a way to deflect potential liability? [39] The DU penetrator was developed by metallurgist and engineer Paul Loewenstein (ca. 1958). He worked as technical director and vice president of Nuclear Metals, Inc. (NMI) from 1946 to 1999. Prior to becoming a privately owned business, NMI operated on the MIT campus in the Hood Building. In 1943 MIT had been designated a Manhattan Engineering District, producing alloys from 235U and beryllium. In 1958 the operation, including machinery, staff, and licenses for uranium and beryllium, changed to private hands and relocated to Concord, MA. Renee Garrelick, M.I.T. Beginnings: The Legacy of Nuclear Metals, Inc. (Concord, MA: Nuclear Metals, 1995). MIT demolished the Hood Building due to contamination, and in the late 1990s, at the urging of citizens’ groups, the NMI site in Concord was investigated for groundwater contamination. It was eventually placed on the EPA’s National Priorities List; remediation continues into the present with an estimated cost of $63.9 million.

In the case of Agent Orange, the US government claimed not to be aware that it contained dioxin, one of the most lethal known carcinogens. Wilcox provides evidence that the corporations providing the materials to the government were well aware of this, and chose not to remove the lethal components to save costs. [40] Wilcox, Scorched Earth , 124–31. That Washington was unaware seems hardly credible, most likely an instance of what has sometimes been called “intentional ignorance.” It should be remembered that when he escalated the attack on South Vietnam fifty years ago from support for a murderous client state to outright US aggression, President Kennedy authorized the use of chemical weapons to destroy ground cover and also food crops, a crime in itself, even apart from the dreadful scale and character of the consequences, with deformed fetuses to this day, several generations down the line in Saigon hospitals as a result of persistent genetic mutations. [41] Official records claim Pres. Kennedy approved a program “to participate in a selective and carefully controlled joint program of defoliant operations in Viet Nam … proceeding thereafter to food denial only if the most careful basis of resettlement and alternative food supply has been created,” on November 30, 1961. William A. Buckingham Jr., Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia 1961–1971 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1982), 21. Other records indicate the decision to destroy crops had been made earlier in the month. On November 11, the NSC authorized the transport of “Aircraft, personnel and chemical defoliants” to Vietnam to “kill Viet Cong food crops.” By November 27, “spraying equipment had been installed on Vietnamese H-34 helicopters” and was “ready for use against food crops.” George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1986), 478. On opposition to crop destruction, see Appendix 3. Somehow none of this exercises those who passionately proclaim their devotion to “right to life” even for the fertilized egg.