Revealed: Ireland blocked Prestwick US bomb flights

[struggle4progress]

By Torcuil Crichton and Paul Hutcheon



The two Israeli-bound cargos of US bombs that were expected to refuel at Prestwick Airport last night contained deadly, high-density uranium warheads which represent a serious safety risk to the airport.
The arrival of the bomb cargos at Prestwick has caused a storm of protest, with opposition MPs describing the use of the Scottish airport to re-arm the Israeli offensive in Lebanon as “completely unacceptable”.

Anger over the flights was compounded after it emerged that the Irish government refused to allow the US administration to use Shannon Airport for similar shipments to Israel. Dermot Ahern, the Irish foreign affairs minister, said he would block any attempt by the US to transport arms through his country .

A spokeswoman for Ahern told the Sunday Herald: “Minister Ahern did say during the week that permission would not be granted if there was an application made to transport munitions of war to the Middle East.” <snip: GBU28 bunker-busters>

http://www.sundayherald.com/57005

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. strange that the "high-density uranium" warheads

are perfectly okay most any other time, ain't it?

[countmyvote4real]

2. I didn't get that from the link. What do you mean? n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. I mean I am sure that same munition has

been through that airport many times without comment.

Now they comment?

[countmyvote4real]

7. I like the "gut" feeling. It tells me where you're coming from.

Sort of. But I must ultimately rely on facts that can be verified. All "hunches" aside, please update us when these munitions passed through this same airport without any protest or registration of the contents.

[CountAllVotes]

19. bull

They've been on this since Day #1!!!

Don't believe it?

http://www.irishantiwar.org/index.adp



:kick:

[The Wielding Truth]

23. Great website! Thanks for the post.

[MsMagnificent]

6. How exactly do you know that?

You have proof they let others through, obviously...
share with us your data!

[Ghost Dog]

9. (Circumstantial?) Evidence here:

Good for the Irish, at last.

Well, "high-density uranium warheads" implies Depleted Uranium (DU), one would think. And the following:

A leading independent weapons expert has warned the weapons cargos pose a major risk to Prestwick Airport. 'These are the most horrendously powerful non-nuclear weapons on earth,' said Dai Williams, who has been investigating the new generation of hard target 'bunker buster' bombs.

'In the worst-case hazard assessment, an accident involving one of those flights would leave an unquenchable fire burning on the runway for a week and a large uranium cloud drifting over southern Scotland'

would appear to imply the same.

As regards the GBU-28 bunker-buster, if this is what is referred to, though this article doesn't say, a "special weapon developed for penetrating hardened Iraqi command centers located deep underground," we see that it originally used the BLU-113 Penetrator Warhead, with a case made from HP9420 alloy steel to provide target penetration capabilities. This warhead was updated and replaced by the BLU-122 Penetrator Warhead, details of the penetrating case of which are not generally provided, but which is said to "significantly improve upon the performance of the BLU-113 warhead by incorporating the latest technological advances in warhead designs and explosives, {since} the new warhead incorporates design improvements to improve its insensitive munition performance."

We do, however, have available to us the following Scoop/Coalition For Free Thought In Media piece from May 2003

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0305/S00050.htm
U.S. Colonel Admits 500 Tons of D.U. Were Used in Iraq

By Jay Shaft
Coalition For Free Thought In Media
5 May 2003

In three separate interviews a U.S. Special Operations Command Colonel admitted that the U.S. and Great Britain fired 500 tons of D.U. munitions into Iraq.

He has also informed me that the G.B.U.-28 BLU 113 Penetrator Bunker Buster 5000 pound bomb contains D.U. in the warhead. Until now, as far as I know, the materials used to make the warhead of the G.B.U-28 have remained shrouded in mystery.

<snip>

J.S.: Hold on here, I didn't know that the Bunker Busters were D.U. How do you know that? I have to make sure this is for real.

U.S.C.: Well the specs on the B.B.s are top secret, so good luck on verifying it. To answer your question I will ask you one. How do you think they can penetrate a steel hardened bunker with a bomb unit? There has to be D.U. in the warhead or else you wouldn't get the penetration of the target that is buried underground.

J.S.: Oh I see your point. Well can you tell me which of the B.B.s have D.U. warheads?

U.S.C.: Well.......... (long pause) I think I will tell you about one and leave it at that. The G.B.U.-28(guided bomb unit) BLU 113B 5000 pounder is capable of being fitted with a D.U. warhead and dropped. It is not solely a D.U. warhead; they still use them with conventional non-D.U. warheads.

If you were watching T.V. and you saw any bombs hit there was an easy way to tell if it was D.U.

If you saw all those little secondary white fires burning in the air in the blast: that was D.U. burning off. D.U. burns with a whitish orange flame, almost looks like a firework shell burning.

J.S.: Any other B.B.'s using D.U. warheads?

U.S.C.: I don't think I'll answer that, I've already said too much. Next question!

/more...

[mom cat]

11. Now depleted uranium too! That stuff is nasty and lasts forever!

It should be considered a war crime to use that anywhere.
Good for the Irish!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

15. well, I am a 25-year veteran now retired

I am very much aware of how the US moves things.

[mitchtv]

22. Hooray for Eire !

He's a uniter, not a divider.
the whole world is uniting.

[Pavulon]

3. I am sure many an H bomb has

made its way through that airport. I was not aware the gbu 28 had DU.

[Patchuli]

4. Good for them!!! Just say NO

to warmongers! It figures the Irish would make a stink over * trying to run over their rights! Yayyy!!!

Maybe with help like this, we'll all get through this madness...

[Peace Patriot]

8. What a great idea! Shut the airports to them, shut down the shipping

lanes, dry up their gasoline supplies, and make them fight it out with clubs and bows and arrows! Disarm the Middle East! Then the world!

The planet is dying, my friends. We don't have any more time for this kind of behavior. We must act now, or lose Mother Earth--and our lives, and our children's lives, and our grandchildren's lives, and all our glorious accomplishments and traditions, and all of our glorious and tragic history, and all of life, and all of life's future.

This is it. Do we make it, or do we not?

These men fighting to please their Father God--all the same religion, really, the Great Prick in the Sky--must be stopped. The Bush junta and its small band of crazed 'christian' supporters, the Israelis, the Arabs, the Persians, all mistaken, all obsessed, and all gravely unbalanced by Patriarchal religion, so that they don't know what life is for any more. They've lost their minds.

Here, we are stymied. We can't do anything about it, until we throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor,' and restore our right to vote. (Boycott the machines! Vote Absentee!)

But Europeans are in a better situation, with more responsive governments. I hope they can shut the arms shipments out. Blockade the Straits of Gibraltar, maybe, as well as the airports. As for treaties with the U.S., how much do these Bush criminals respect treaties and international law, and the U.N. and the Geneva Conventions and the World Court? Show arms treaties with the U.S. the same respect that the U.S. shows for these laws. Break the treaties. Throw them back in their faces.

Because it's not going to end with Lebanon. Lebanon is just the avant garde of the "Project for a New American Century" with Israel currently carrying out Plan B--how to get the U.S. into it with EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT opposition among the American people, and the opposition of the whole world? ("Gulf of Tonkin" here we come.)

These people have gone insane with their misinterpretation of religion as greed and killing. They are panicked. They've worshiped their Father God so much, they can't FEEL what they are doing to the Mother God, Earth. Their ancestors rejected Her, and we are all paying the price. The Arabs, the Christians and the Jews all tore Her statues down and anathematized Her worshipers, and cut Her out of their bibles, and tyrannized over their wives, and claimed the children as their property.

We are all now living this nightmare--the nightmare of the vengeful, jealous, greedy, punishing Father God. Maybe He had value to human development at one time. It is over. It is time to end this obsession. And armaments are its manifestation in this world. The destructive power of the Father God made real, and gone mad.

What do you do with a drunk wielding a weapon? First you disarm him!

[Ghost Dog]

10. Well, to Blockade the Straits of Gibraltar

would be seen as an extremely provocative, and doubtless highly untenable, act.

But the anti-treaty options you describe could probably be taken somewhere, eventually, but slowly and almost certainly too late at this juncture. European Governments are generally not that responsive, especially where it would concern overtly pissing off Big Brother.

Action such as Ireland's (Shannon Airport) at the local level may begin to get us somewhere. You may not be aware, for example, that the whole 'CIA-renditions flights' resistance saga began from local observation, local press reporting and local judicial action on Spain's island of Mallorca (Majorca).

Air and sea shipments to the ME probably continue through Spain and particularly in the case of heavy materials on ships using the Canary Islands as a refuelling stop.

As for air shipments, I don't understand why the various US air bases are not being used in this (above, Israeli) case - such as Farnham in UK or Rota in Andalusia, Spain.

[mom cat]

12. Well said. Stop the maddness ... Save the planet, if it isn't already

too late.

[UTUSN]

13. K&R #3 n/t

[HannibalBarca]

14. Ah poor old Demot

where's the consistency Mr Ahern? 500,000 US troops have passed through Shannon with God knows how much hardware to blow the s*it out of Iraq, typical politician.

[EFerrari]

16. Kick and #4

[donsu]

17. thank you Ireland

nt

[achtung_circus]

18. .

"I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with -- stone clubs."
-- Albert Einstein

[ourbluenation]

20. Power to my people!!!! Good for them!

slainte!!!

:toast:

[Southsideirish]

21. Indeed. I love Eire!!

[lovuian]

24. Using Ireland is despicable this way and using

uranium missiles is even worse...