A radiation expert and high-ranking Army Major, who once headed the military’s depleted uranium project, both contend the Pentagon was hit by missile, not a commercial jetliner, adding high radiation readings after the strike indicate depleted uranium also may have been used.

“I’m not an explosives or crash site expert, but I am highly knowledgeable in causes and effects related to nuclear radiation contamination. What happened at the Pentagon is highly suspicious, leading me to believe a missile with a depleted uranium warhead may have been used,” said radiation expert Leuren Moret in a telephone conversation this week from her Berkeley, CA home.

Moret, who has spent a life time working in the nuclear field, first as a staff scientist at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory in California, is now a member of The Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a privately funded group studying the devastating effects of depleted uranium especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regarding the missile theory, it is also backed up by retired Army Maj. Doug Rokke, a PhD educational physics and former top military expert banished from the Pentagon after the military failed to follow regulations regarding the use, clean up and medical treatment regarding the use of depleted uranium.

“When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile’s impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile,” said Maj. Rokke from his Rantoul, IL home this week. “And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile. Also, if you look at the WTC and the disturbing flash hitting the tower right before the impact of the airplane, it also looks like a missile was used.”

And to prove the government’s jetliner theory is wrong, Moret said the quick actions of a friend near the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11, provide even more suspicion.

Moret recalls on the tragic morning that once she saw the jetliner strike the twin towers and then heard about the Pentagon crash, she immediately called a close friend in Alexandria VA, Dr. Janette Sherman.

Thinking radiation might be involved, she quickly asked Dr. Sherman, 77, a radiation expert and medical doctor who lived about 12 miles from the crash site, to get a Geiger counter reading.

What the pair of experts found is astonishing. What they found is not only astonishing but four years after 9/11, what’s even more incredible is that their findings have been completely ignored by most everyone, including the Bush administration, the 9/11 Commission and the mainstream media, all who appear more interested in rubber stamping the official 9/11 story then getting at the real truth.

“Dr. Sherman was downwind from the Pentagon on 9/11 and her Geiger counter readings show an extremely high reading, a reading of more than eight to ten times higher than normal,” said Moret, also an expert in the cause and effects of depleted uranium.

“Dr. Sherman, who is well-respected radiation expert herself, then went about contacting the proper authorities in order to try and alert emergency responders of the radiation risk at the Pentagon crash site. And we have also kept photos of the Geiger counter readings in order to verify what Dr. Sherman found 12 miles away.”

After notifying the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NIRS), experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the FBI were alerted and according to Moret, radiation experts later confirmed high radiation levels at the Pentagon crash site possibly from the presence from depleted uranium or other unknown causes.

But what disturbed Moret most has been the Bush administration’s lack of concern and its failure to mount a thorough investigation into what really caused the high radiation levels, saying perhaps the findings might reveal something contrary to the official story that a jetliner rammed through 12 Pentagon walls of solid concrete.

“Even if there was depleted uranium used, do you think the likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would really care? These are bottom feeders that 20 or 30 years ago wouldn’t have been even allowed to set foot in such high positions of power,” said Moret.

Although Dr. Sherman’s Geiger counter can’t be a conclusive finding, another nuclear radiation expert, Marion Fulk, agrees the positive reading, if anything, is suspicious.

“It definitely looks suspicious but of course many factors have to be considered before a conclusion is reached,” said Fulk in a telephone conversation this week. “The type of Geiger counter used by Dr. Sherman needs to be looked at as well as the possibility of the true source of the radiation, whether it is depleted uranium in a missile, ballast in the airplane or within the structure of the building hit.”

Even though no one can be sure, one thing positive is the Bush administration never really seriously cared about addressing the possibility of depleted uranium at the Pentagon just like it cares little about the same problem at the World Trade Center and in the war fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, more recently, Moret, Fulk and Maj. Rokke, along with Dennis Kyne, Bob Jones and Mark Zeller, have provided documentation for an explosive video written and produced by Joyce Riley and William Lewis called “Beyond Treason,” providing an in depth look at depleted uranium used in the Gulf Wars and its likelihood of causing numerous civilian and military illnesses.

“It has been determined that the equivalent of more than 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released in the middle east since 1991,” said Moret, citing a report and subsequent speech at a 2000 depleted uranium conference given by Professor Yagasaki, a physicist and well-respected nuclear radiation expert.

And in the 89 minute video, exploring a massive government cover up, Riley and Lewis point out the unexplained illnesses in civilians and military personal may be the cause of depleted uranium or perhaps a combination of overlapping causes, including chemical and biological exposure and the use of experimental vaccines.

The writers of Beyond Treason, added:

“The ailing Gulf War heroes from all 27 coalition countries slowly die from of “unknown causes,” they wait for answers from their respective governments, but no satisfying or even credible answers have come forth from the military establishment. Records that span over a decade point to negligence and even culpability on the part of the U.S. Department of Defense and their ‘disposable army” mentality.

“The VA has determined that 250,000 troops are now permanently disabled, 15,000 troops are dead and over 425,000 are ill and slowly dying from what the Department of Defense still calls a mystery disease. How many more will have to die before action is taken?”

And in February, 2004, a conference called “Dialogues with Decision Makers” was held in New Delhi, India, where a group of experts gathered for the prevention of nuclear war and looked closely at the depleted uranium problem in the Middle East.

Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, former chief of the Naval Staff in India, reported the following shocking details about the effects of depleted uranium:

“In the 2003 war, the Iraqi’s were subjected to the Pentagon’s radioactive arsenal, mainly in the urban centers, unlike in the deserts in 1991. The aggregate effects of illnesses and long term disabilities and genetic birth defects will be apparent only 2008 onwards.

“By now, half of all the 697,000 US soldiers involved in the 1991 war have reported serious illnesses. According the American Gulf War Veterans Association, more than 30% of these soldiers are chronically ill, and receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Administration.

“Near the Republican Palace where US troops stood guard and over 1000 employees walked in and out, the radiation readings were the hottest in Iraq, at nearly 1900 times background radiation levels.

“At a roadside stand, selling fresh bunches of parsley, mint, and onions, children played on a burnt out Iraqi tank just outside Baghdad, the Geiger counter registered 1000 times normal background radiation.

“The Pentagon and the United Nations estimate that the US and Britain used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor piercing shells made of DU during attacks in March-April 2003, far more than the 1991 Gulf War (this does not include air dispensed DU munitions and missiles),” wrote the Post Intelligencer.

“The long term effects, as Dr Asaf Durakovic elaborates, after the early neurological symptoms are cancer, and related radiation illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome, joint and muscle pain, neurological and/or nerve damage, mood disturbances, auto-immune deficiencies, lung and kidney damage, vision problems, skin rupture, increase in miscarriages, maternal mortality and genetic birth defects/deformation.

“For years the US government described the Gulf War Syndrome as a post traumatic stress disorder. It was labeled as a psychological problem or simply as mysterious unrelated ailments much in the same way as health problems of Vietnam veterans suffering from Agent Orange poisoning.”