News Release

Results of NATO Bombing

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WILLIAM HARTUNG
Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and author of Military-Industrial Complex Revisited, Hartung said: “The bombings may or may not ‘degrade’ Milosevic’s forces, as the Pentagon intends; but they have certainly degraded the standing of the United States as a world leader. The air war in Kosovo underscores the weakness of the ‘Clinton Doctrine,’ which involves calling in the cruise missiles to deal with any and every problem. During this decade, the United States has degenerated from the world’s sole superpower to its designated bomber. The use of NATO forces to intervene in an internal conflict without UN approval has raised anxieties not only in Russia, but in other major powers such as India and China which face their own internal ethnic and territorial disputes.”
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PATRICIA AXELROD
A John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award recipient and executive director of the Desert Storm Think Tank, Axelrod said: “We are seeing only those hits that the military would like us to see. We are not seeing the misguided missiles. There are cases when it took 34 hits to bring down a bridge in Iraq. But hitting infrastructure is itself a form of civilian terrorism. When you want to win a war like this, you terrorize and disturb the civilian population so they press for an end to the war… A potentially disastrous aspect of such military action is electro-magnetic interference. This results in technical malfunctions, it can even cause missiles to accidentally be fired. A Department of Defense study found that at least 260 weapons systems were susceptible to electro-magnetic interference. That may account for the downed stealth… Another under-examined factor is the potential use of chemical weapons known to be in Yugoslavia. There has not been sufficient preparation for low-level chemical use.”

CATHY LEMAR
Executive director of the Military Toxics Project, Lemar said: “The military has not been forthcoming with information, but they have acknowledged that the Apache and A-10s currently being used are capable of firing depleted uranium rounds — as are the Bradley and Abrams tanks, which are also reportedly to be deployed. Our concern is that NATO — and possibly the Yugoslavian military — will be using depleted uranium weaponry fairly extensively. When a DU round is fired, it begins to burn on impact and emits radioactive particles. Those particles can be airborne and travel some distance. The area and the equipment remain contaminated for generations. We’ve gotten reports of high numbers of leukemia and birth defects in children in Iraq, where the U.S. used DU extensively. We believe that Gulf War Syndrome is related to the use of DU. That’s not yet proven, but our studies thus far have shown high amounts of DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans — years after their exposure.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167