In a campaign organized by MoveOn.org, volunteers across the country submitted over 400,000 petitions promoting a time based withdrawal from Iraq to 286 congressional home offices.

The petition asks for plans to begin immediately, with troop strategic redeployment taking place in 2006.

Representative Young (R-10) received almost 1,300 alone. Representative Davis (D-11) also received a bundle, but the total is not known by this reporter.

For more, see http://www.moveon.org/

Another problem with the US military occupation of Iraq is the remnants of depleted uranium remaining in the deserts around Baghdad, Fallujah and other regions of heavy fighting. Not only are/were US soldiers in Iraq exposed to radiation from Depleted Uranium (DU) material found in tank armor and various artillery, the Iraqi countryside is now littered with various sized fragments of depleted uranium that will continue to plague the Iraqi civilians with radiation caused cancers and birth defects. The responsibility of DU cleanup rests on war profiteers like Halliburton and Bechtel to provide safe equipment and begin removing sizable depleted uranium fragments from the Iraqi ecosystem and providing for safe disposal..

Doug Rokke PhD and many other medical professionals are aware of the great risks to human health caused by exposure to radioactive DU. He and others feel that US soldiers in both Iraq wars, Iraqi civilians and others may continue to exhibit severe health problems from exposure to depleted uranium. Medical treatment needs to be provided to veterans of both Iraq conflicts (and anywhere else DU was used by military)

and the DU remaining in Iraq needs to be safely cleaned up and disposed of in secure sites..

"The international community and all citizens of the world must raise a unified voice in opposition to future use of depleted uranium munitions and force those nations that have used depleted uranium munitions to recognize the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation. Specifically:

1. Depleted uranium munitions and the use of depleted uranium must be banned.

2. All individuals who were exposed or who may have been exposed to any form of depleted uranium and its various integral contaminants or other contaminants created during combat, research, or training activities must receive a through physical examination and medical care to alleviate or cure the physiological consequences caused by inhalation, ingestion, or uranium wound contamination.

3. All depleted uranium penetrator fragments, depleted uranium contaminated equipment, and depleted uranium oxide contamination must be cleaned up and disposed of at secure sites."



http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/DUuse+hazard.html

What if all this destruction was preventable?

It is unfortunate that the current war crimes trial of Saddam Hussein neglects the facts that many of his initial weapons were given to him by Donald Rumsfeld who acted as an envoy of the Reagan administration. This arming of known tyrant Saddam occurred simultaneously with the arming of Iran's arch-nemesis Ayatollah Khomeini. If the US wouldn't have supplied Saddam with so many weapons, maybe his tyranny would have been stopped earlier by a mass uprising and the two US invasions and occupations of Iraq would have been unneccesary..

However, the author also realizes that good intentions were never on the minds of the petrochemically obsessed Bush regime imperialists and their CA actor Ronnie Reagan. The US invasions of Iraq wouldn't have been possible without an evil tyrant like Saddam who had accumulated power (with the behind the scenes support of US military weapons contracters) to give reason for US invasion. Of course the self inflicted wound (FBI known attack not prevented) of 9-11 also added fuel to the war propaganda fire, giving the corporate media the chance to claim legitimate victim status and justify the invasion of Iraq as the "hunt for Osama Bin Laden", despite the fact that the Saudi Royalty Bin Laden family is building the world's largest parking garage in Saudi Arabia using virtual slave labor with the protection of US military in Saudi Arabia..

A recent book called "American Hiroshima" details the levels of corruption in US foreign policy and supporting tyrants who temporarily serve US strategic interests..

Here is interview of American Hiroshima author David Dionisi by AlJazeera;

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D99265B2-4402-46FE-A905-1F086F513A3D.htm