DOUG ROKKE INTERVIEW
By C.Vaughan

Dr Doug Rokke, PhD is a Major, retired in the US Army. He’s a former Director of the US Army’s Depleted Uranium project and he is a International Citizen of the World. During his many operations he was tasked, by name by General Schwartzkopt to clean up the friendly fire mess caused by uranium munitions during Desert Storm. Consequently he was recalled to active duty as a US Depleted Uranium Project director to help develop congressionally and Pentagon mandated but currently ignored Depleted Uranium munitions operations training, currently ignored US Army Regulation 700-48 specifying environmental remediation procedures, and currently ignored soldier common task training. Doug Rokke himself eventually became exposed, ill, and now fights along side over 400,000 other ill, wounded, and injured veterans to obtain prompt and effective medical care from the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, and Department of Veteran Affairs. Therefore he provides this call to action. His story is told to ensure all military personnel, and their families are informed of the adverse health risks, environmental risks and mandatory but ignored actions associated with the use of uranium weapons. After a friend, now decreased, John Sitton was refused health care from the US Army, Dr Doug Rokke went public. This interview is dedicated to John Sitton, a Vietnam war hero.

Abolitionist: You are a Army Officer. You served your nation in the military since 1967 during Vietnam, during Desert Storm, during the planning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and many other operations. Why did you speak out against the use of uranium munitions in war, Doug?

Doug Rokke: As a retired Army Officer, as a scientist and a teacher one thing I found out and learned from my specific militant assignments is the use of uranium munitions and the destruction of a nations infrastructure plus the use of pesticides and hazardous materials has left a catastrophic adverse health and environment not only on US Military personnel but on all military personnel and very specifically on civilians.

You have got to speak out when you see those problems and you have to make sure that they [ the military and the Government] comply with their own requirements.

Is this coming from the top? You have called it, "staggering denial against medical care being provided through wilful refusal to comply to their own health regulations."

The President of the United States and all the Department of Defense officials within the Army, Navy, Coastguard Marines – and it’s the same in Australia – know already that they are absolutely required to clean up their own environmental mediation of the contamination. Also, it’s always been required to supply medical care to all the exposed individuals and the decision has been made – it was made years ago – to just deny any correlation between the adverse health and environmental effects to avoid all of the liability and avoid cleaning up the mess and providing medical care.

It’s been a conscious decision throughout the military and all leaders of Government.

Is it a war crime?

Absolutely! Within the armies own doctrine are very specific guidelines that I helped write and was responsible for. We know that when we use uranium munitions it only contaminates air, water and soil. The United States Common Task Manuel for the US Army dealing with uranium munitions use simply states that uranium makes your food and water unusable for eternity.

So you can’t take radiologically toxic materials such as uranium munitions then wilfully disperse them to some other nation especially when we’ve gone over to try and give them freedom, then, without any justification whatsoever thoroughly contaminate their air, water and soil then contaminate their food, then refuse to clean up your contamination according to their own requirements, to then refuse to provide medical care to everybody affected. That’s wrong – you can’t do that. A weapon cannot be indiscriminate. It can’t not affect the child, the non-combatant, for all of eternity and it does.

Uranium munitions in Iraq has been taken to a “whole new level” as you said about the first Gulf War. Pre-emption is now an accepted form of military combat for the US. What’s the comparison to the quantity of uranium ordnance and munitions being used in Iraq at the moment?

Within one year the Army was confirming that they had used over some 500 tonnes of uranium munitions for Iraq or somewhere over 2000-3000 tonnes of uranium munitions are used continuously, all you have to do is watch it on TV. There’s extensive use in Afghanistan, there’s extensive use in the Balkans, the whole Middle East is contaminated, there’s use of them in Somalia and there’s no doubt whatsoever that they will use them in Iran because they have already ordered the munitions.

You’ve said recently the US has ordered the uranium munitions to nuke Pakistan as well. Why Pakistan?

Mushsharraf is not compliant with the US requirements and everything else. Afghanistan is turned into a bogged down mess. We have invaded multiple nations without justification based upon total lies.

Now we have used all these different uranium munitions, we have used all these white phosphorus munitions – the thing that’s come out now is the British are using thermo bombs – explosives which are incredibly dangerous and illegal. We have contaminated all of these Nations. You can’t go in to say, “We’re here to give you freedom” if they are only there to contaminate the Nations, then walk away. It’s not just restricted to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Somalia and all the rest – the contamination has spread throughout the United States. Down at Port A Rio it’s a nightmare. There’s total confirmation again in the Hawaiian Islands and it’s also got in the Northern Territories in Australia then there’s all the off coast areas where the US Navy and the Australian and British military are operating.

Why did you come to Australia Doug?

Twice I’ve come now to meet with government officials. What we were doing was talking with individuals to try and get stuff done and what we found out was the Australian officials basically told a lie with the US Department of Defense officials. They simply lie about the adverse health and environmental effects of uranium munitions. They totally contradict their own official requirements and reports and they go on their merry way.

The thing that’s come up recently in the last few months in the Hawaiian Islands, again like Australia, Hawaii is an isolated area, a pristine environment and should be left alone. Any contamination brought in is going to wreak havoc. Now we have totally confirmation and we already know it’s happening in Australia.

There was a film done by David Bradbury a few years ago called, “Blowin In The Wind” and it thoroughly outlined how the military officials have a total disregard for the environmental effects of war in combat and that’s wrong. The simple thing is and this is what we try to get done is I’m not asking the United States military or the Australian, Canadian or British to do anything they are not already required to do. I’m asking them to provide medical care to all the casualties that have occurred as a result of their actions.

I’m asking them to clean up all the contamination that they have left as a result of their actions. Both of those actions are already required. I want to repeat – already required by the United States Department of Military Defense Regulations, Orders and Directives of US Law.

You were asked by the US to go in officially and clean up the uranium munitions contamination. Is it possible to clean up?

No it’s not and that’s the reason why in Desert Storm we found out then what a mess it was and virtually impossible to clean up. I went back and wrote a lot of reports and eventually became the Director of the US Depleted Uranium Project at which time I wrote all the training materials and all the emergency response procedures. I was the primary author of the Army Regulations Department of Defense Regulations, Orders and Directives that are enforced right now.

What we learnt was once you use it it’s virtually impossible to clean it up. We can attempt to mitigate the effects by cleaning up some of what’s there but you can’t clean it up. Once you learn that the use of these weapons thoroughly contaminates their water and causes serious adverse health effects and theses really no medical treatment, then it must stop.

I’m not a whistleblower. I’m not some radical. I’m just a retired scientist and military officer trying to get the military to comply with their own requirements and to look at the consequences of their actions.

You eventually came to the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn’t care. They don’t care about their own military personnel or civilians or babies being killed. Ex Prime Minister Howard in a recent ABC program nonchalantly dismissed the health effects of uranium saying that the data now on the health effects is over a decade old. What kind of logic is behind that?

The health effects of uranium contamination and deaths is an incredible number. We are talking magnitudes. There are several hundred percent increases so you are seeing all the serious cancers, all the serious leukemia’s and all the serious birth effects which have wrought havoc not only in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans but we are seeing the same thing happening to the US Military personnel.

We’ve got US Military personnel coming back right now. One thing the US Department of Defense, the Canadians and the Australians don’t want anybody to know is the actual casualty count during Operation Iraqi Freedom is over half a million. Men are coming back with horrible, horrible medical problems not by getting shot by bullets or getting blown up by bombs – it’s all the contaminants at fault – all the uranium munitions and misuse of pesticides and the release of hazardous materials when they blow up a Nation. This is the consequences of technology we use today and the consequences of the technology we destroy today. It’s absolutely ludicrous. It’s nonsense. If you release hazardous materials and use uranium materials it’s crazy to think you are not going to leave an environmental and medical disaster – and they know this. It’s well known.

When you look at the Department of Military Defense of the United States Government or any of the British, Australian or Canadian documents as real stuff, it thoroughly identifies all the serious adverse health and environment effects makes a direct statement that you have to clean it up and do the medical care.

We have to understand all of the testing, all of the verification we did absolutely makes the requirement, and that’s where the US Army Regulations and Directives are there, thou shall isolate, secure, totally remove and probably dispose of it but there is no place to dispose of it. How do you pick up an entire Nation? How do you pick up a building and throw it in a hole? That hole will be contaminated forever and when the cap that’s on top breaks then this stuff goes on all over the place. Once I completed the research and once I found out the problems I saw very serious adverse medical effects on myself and my staff and everybody else who read all the reports. Then I said, “No more. You cannot use uranium munitions. You can’t misuse pesticides”.

They have just thoroughly disregarded that and now we have a medical and environmental catastrophe but here in the United States we are testing, researching or training is done, we are seeing the same thing occurring. In Hawaii and also in Australia and it just continues to expand wherever there’s a US base in the vicinity.

What about Israel? Israeli tank gunners have also used depleted uranium and you have demanded of the Israeli Government that they provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and to clean up their own contamination. Will they do it?

The United States provided the bunker busters and they also provide Israel with cluster bombs and tank munitions for use in the recent last war in Lebanon a year ago. We know that happened. The outside measurements have confirmed the contamination and they refused to clean it up.

We have to remember Israel when the US provided to Israel in 1973-1974 in the Arab-Sinai war that was the first extensive use of uranium munitions and that contamination is still affecting populations over the Sinai today. The US Military, Israeli, Egyptian and UN personnel there were all involved and that’s been verified before the United States up in Washington DC, before the National Academy of Sciences and they have just thoroughly disregarded it all.

What we have is nation after nation with weapons provided by the United States of America, England, Australia, Canada using uranium munitions and totally ignoring the reality of those things because they are so extraordinary effective against known targets.

What is the hidden agenda behind this? Let me ask you are we the people heading rush long into a nuclear incineration, or is it on the cards that some poor country is going to experience something like Hiroshima again?

I don’t think there is a hidden agenda. The people in the military machine just kill and destroy and they use the most effective tool that comes about. They don’t even think about it. There’s no hidden agenda.

When you go to war you use the most effective killing and destroying tool you have. The cheapest one is uranium munitions and it is thoroughly effective towards all targets but you have to understand even though they were originally designed to be used against tanks they have been used against houses, apartment buildings, hospitals, churches, water treatment facilities and sewage sanitation plants. They are uranium cluster bombs not unlike a shell of uranium filled with high explosives to use against people and they are thoroughly effective.

When we were getting done with Desert Storm one of the Commanding Generals came up with a statement – “Uranium weapons are the new Agent Orange and they are worse than anything we have ever seen.” It has proven that fact. Look at the United States Veteran Affairs Casualty data reports.

The US Casualties alone from Desert Storm exceed 280,000 with over 70,000 dead and then when we look at the combined casualties we are over half a million and approaching over 175-200 thousand dead and those are the ones who have already been discharged from the Military, it doesn’t include those who are still in the military and are sick and are having problems.

Are they getting help?

They got out. They have been discharged and they have gone to the US of Veteran affairs and have asked for help. They are absolutely not getting helped. You get very limited help and what’s had to happen is the United States military have had to put together a hotline here because it’s such a catastrophic problem. They have a 1800 number for anybody who has been effected and they can call that number to get medical care and they are suppose to help do that but here in the last few days is the secretary for the US Department of Veteran Affairs made a statement denying medical care to everybody and saying that there will be no presumption that because you got hit, you got exposed, you got zapped therefore you’re going to get sick and therefore we don’t have to give you care.

It is disgusting! You’ve got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of young kids between the ages of 20 and 29, now their lives are now destroyed because they were put into war based on lies, they did their job and now they are wounded or injured and they can’t get the proper medical care they have earned. It has been denied and delayed because there is no money even just to take care of the US alone much less any of the other Coalition forces. They have to think, “Hey wait a minute. I do this to our military and civilians then medical care must be provided also.” You are responsible. You can’t say I’m not going to give help and care to civilians and yet that’s what’s happening day in and day out. Whether they are in Australia, Hawaii or over here in Indiana or Concorde, Massachusetts where out country was born back in 1775, it doesn’t matter.

The whole thing is we have to get every citizen of the world, every citizen of every Nation to stop this nonsense. They must ensure that all governments of all nations and the US government cleans up it’s own mess, provide medical care to everybody.

We have the better way to settle our grievances. We can’t go to war and use these horrible weapons and totally destroy the environment then walk away.

Your mission now is to travel the world talking on these issues. Your advise to people who want to do something is to take responsibility, take action and assume what is going to happen, will happen otherwise the hope and dreams of our future is lost. We ourselves must decide to act.

Yeah, I’m still doing the same thing. Over here we have what’s called the Discovery Channel, it’s a television network. They have just broadcasted a special on the adverse health and environmental effects of uranium weapons this last week. They actually verified all the RNA and DNA, all the chromosomal damages in the military personnel who have been exposed so the evidence is there. The question is when will our leaders listen to the evidence and take action to clean up the mess and provide medical care.

My job is real simple. I’m just asking them to complete their assigned mission. We are all God’s children. This is God’s earth. We can’t mess it up and refuse to clean it up.

“FORGOTTEN WARRIORS”
By Doug Rokke, Ph.D.
MAJOR, Medical Service Corps,
U.S. Army Reserve

This poem is dedicated to SFC John Sitton, a hero of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf Wars, and all the others who defend our nation.

ONE MOMENT AN INDIVIDUAL fWAS WALKING THROUGH A MEADOW OF FLOWERS.
IN THE NEXT MOMENT SONS, DAUGHTERS, HUSBANDS, AND WIVES
BECAME SOLDIERS.
THEY DEFENDED OUR NATION AND PAID WITH THEIR LIFE OR HEALTH.
THE CITIZEN SOLDIER ----- THE MINUTE MAN.
OUR NATION IS BUILT ON THEIR WILLINGNESS TO RESPOND TO OUR NATIONS CALL.
SOME FOUGHT IN THE JUNGLES OF VIETNAM, YET MANY RESPONDED TO FIGHT IN A DISTANT DESERT WAR.
THEY FOUGHT WITH SKILL AND DETERMINATION AND FREED A LAND.
THEN OUR NATION’S WARRIORS RETURNED HOME TO PARADES AND PARTIES AND JOY SPREAD FROM SHORE TO SHORE.
BUT WHEN THE GLOW SUBSIDED THE WARRIORS REMAINED ALONE AND FORGOTTEN.
WE ASKED THEM TO FIGHT AND THEN FORGOT TO PROVIDE THEM MEDICAL CARE.
WE RESEARCH AND STUDY AND SEARCH FOR A CAUSE DELAYING RESPONSE THROUGH IGNORANCE AND FEAR.
YET THE FORGOTTEN WARRIORS SUFFER IN SILENCE WITH HONOR AND HOPE.
FOR ALL THE FORGOTTEN WARRIORS WANT IS MEDICAL CARE.

British Army deploys new weapon based on mass-killing technology
By John Byrne Published: Thursday August 23, 2007 (link)

Parliament not told, minister says

A new 'super-weapon' being supplied to British soldiers in Afghanistan employs technology based on the "thermo baric” principle which uses heat and pressure to kill people targeted across a wide air by sucking the air out of lungs and rupturing internal organs.

The so-called "enhanced blast" weapon uses similar technology used in the US "bunker busting” bombs and the devastating bombs dropped by the Russians to destroy the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Such weapons are brutally effective because they first disperse a gas or chemical agent which is lit at a second stage, allowing the blast to fill the spaces of a building or the crevices of a cave. When the US military deployed a version of these weapons in 2005, DefenseTech wrote an article titled, "Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon."

According to the US Defense Intelligence Agency, which released a study on thermobaric weapons in 1993, "The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is unique--and unpleasant.... What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs.… If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most chemical agents."

A second DIA study said, "shock and pressure waves cause minimal damage to brain tissue... it is possible that victims of FAEs are not rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or minutes while they suffocate."

"The effect of an FAE explosion within confined spaces is immense," said a CIA study of the weapons. "Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness." British defense officials told the UK Guardian that British bombs were "different."

"They are optimized to create blast [rather than heat]", one said, speaking on the standard condition of anonymity in Britain. The official added that it would be misleading to call them "thermobaric."

Officials told the Guardian the new weapon was classified as a soldier launched "light anti-structure munitions" and that the bombs would be more effective because "even when they hit the damage is limited to a confined area."

"The continuing issue of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has enormous importance in the battle for hearts and minds," said Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell in the article. "If these weapons contribute to the deaths of civilians then a primary purpose of the British deployment is going to be made yet more difficult."

According to Campbell, the deployment of the weapons was not announced to Parliament.

Air Force chief: Test weapons on testy U.S. mobs
POSTED: 7:56 p.m. EDT, September 12, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday. The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

The Air Force has paid for research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service is unlikely to spend more money on development until injury problems are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.

Nonlethal weapons generally can weaken people if they are hit with the beam. Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also can be effective in disabling some electronic devices.

On another subject, Wynne said he expects to choose a new contractor for the next generation aerial refueling tankers by next summer. He said a draft request for bids will be put out next month, and there are two qualified bidders: the Boeing Co. and a team of Northrop Grumman Corp. and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., the majority owner of European jet maker Airbus SAS. The contract is expected to be worth at least $20 billion (€15.75 billion).

Chicago, Illinois-based Boeing lost the tanker deal in 2004 amid revelations that it had hired a top Air Force acquisitions official who had given the company preferential treatment.

Wynne also said the Air Force, which is already chopping 40,000 active duty, civilian and reserves jobs, is now struggling to find new ways to slash about $1.8 billion (€1.4 billion) from its budget to cover costs from the latest round of base closings.

He said he can't cut more people, and it would not be wise to take funding from military programs that are needed to protect the country. But he said he also incurs resistance when he tries to save money on operations and maintenance by retiring aging aircraft.

"We're finding out that those are, unfortunately, prized possessions of some congressional districts," said Wynne, adding that the Air Force will have to "take some appetite suppressant pills." He said he has asked employees to look for efficiencies in their offices.

The base closings initially were expected to create savings by reducing Air Force infrastructure by 24 percent.

"Airman injured in heat-beam test"
By Kris Osborn - AIR FORCE TIMES, Staff writer
Posted: Friday Apr 6, 2007 8:42:35 EDT (link)

An airman received second-degree burns April 4 during a test of the Defense Department’s nonlethal millimeter-wave heat beam at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., according to Marine Corps Maj. Sarah Fullwood, spokeswoman for the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator program, Quantico, Va.

The airman was burned as the Air Force's 820th Security Forces Group was testing a demonstrator version of the Active Denial System, a Humvee-mounted system that produces an intense heat beam. He was being treated at Doctors Hospital in Augusta, Ga., and is expected to make a full recovery, Fullwood said.

Fullwood said more than 600 people have been exposed a total of more than 10,000 times to the beam, and there has only been one other injury that required medical attention: a case of second-degree burns that occurred during lab testing in 1999.

"We are going to investigate this and conduct a thorough evaluation. The extended user evaluation has been put on hold until the investigation in complete," Fullwood said.

She said the ADS program would continue after the investigation. Formal acquisition of the system is planned for 2010. The ADS grew out of 12 years of Defense Department research and development of a weapon to deter people -- rather than kill. The Defense Department has spent about $80 million on the ADS effort, which began in 1998 as an Advanced Technology Research Demonstrator at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

The heat beam fires after a generator on the Humvee creates 50,000 volts of electricity, which powers a gyrotron, a tube that bunches electrons in a magnetic field to emit a 130-degree-Fahrenhe it directed-energy beam, said Diana Loree, who runs ADS efforts at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland.