Albuquerque Journal 

Feb 23, 2003 - Story about Mary Burton Riseley 

Mary Burton Riseley says "I am going to Iraq because during Operation Desert Storm the U.S. and Britain used weaponry made of depleted uranium, an extremely hard and penetrating metal whose radioactivity has a half-life of 4.5 billion years and now contaminates Iraqi air, land and water. Exposure to depleted uranium causes chromosomal damage and elevated cancer rates, especially in children. Future historians may well see the deployment of these weapons as a second nuclear attack by the US against civilians" Read her dispatches (full list):

• Mary Burton Riseley WHY I AM GOING TO IRAQ
• Iraq Dispatch #1 First Message - Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #2 Feb 8, 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #? Feb 12 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #6 Feb 14 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #7 Feb 16 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #3 February 8, 2003 - Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #8 Feb 19, 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #9  Feb 22, 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #9 Feb 20 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #10 Hospital -Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch #11 03 Feb 25 03 Mary Burton Riseley
• Iraq Dispatch-- Feb 27 03 Mary Burton Riseley's Friend Lisa Ndejuru

If you do not want to receive news from Iraq, email mbrgila@juno.com 

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From the Voices in the Wilderness office in Chicago, spokesman Ceylon Mooney echoed a statement that Riseley emphasizes in her e- mails -that "half a million children under 5 have died as a result of the (U.N. economic) sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War." Mooney attributed the information to a UNICEFreport from August 1999 based on interviews with 20,000 Iraqi families.

In New Mexico, Riseley lives at Gila Oak Farm, a community land trust with eight people growing organic vegetables and doing land and stream restoration. "It's a communal situation," says Barbara Anne Rich, a friend and resident there. "It's a small farm with Mary's place on it and a few other people in small buildings and camps."

Rich says that since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Riseley and other peace activists have staged a "peace action" every Tuesday at Gough Park in Silver City at 4:30 p.m.

"Mary went on a meditative retreat in Tucson in October and when she came back, she had a clear idea ...to go to Iraq, " says Rich, who

explained that then Riseley began looking for like-minded people and connected with Voices in the Wilderness.

Riseley has lived in Gila since the summer of 1998. Before that, she was a preschool teacher in Santa Fe, a wife and mother, and co- founder of the Los Alamos Study Group, whose mission was to discover and disseminate any Department of Energy plans to develop and test new generations of

Photo 2 - YOUNGEST VICTIMS: Diarrhea and malnutrition are fetal ailments in Baghdad. Doctors say roughly 80 percent of these casualties would not be occurring if potable water were available, according to Voices in the Wilderness

"[The children's hospitial is] unable to do blood transfustions, not because there are no blood donors, but because there are no plastic blood bags to put the blood in. Their dialysis machine broke, and they cannot fix it because the parts are vetoed under the United Nations sanctions."

[Mary]  studies Zen and Christian contemplative prayer. She became interested in dispute resolution and received a master's degree in the field in 1998.

www.PeaceAware.com