Depleted Uranium (DU)

[Bordoy 0]

Is DU related in any way to the Gulf War Syndrome or is the to do the injections?

[Mister 5 0]

Ace, while it's certainly nice that you're backing up your arguments with independent sources, information clearing house, sierra times, citizen soldier, etc. are neither reliable nor unbiased...

[Acecombat 0]

What?

You mean they arent reliable enough to make us understand elementary science

[Bordoy 0]

do we really need to revert to the old GCSE science books? lol

[denoir 0]

Is DU related in any way to the Gulf War Syndrome or is the to do the injections?

Both, none, who knows? They shot soldiers full of experimental medication, exposed them to DU ordnance and forced them to eat MREs. Since the military is very interested in not taking the blame in any way all attempts to research it properly have been blocked.

What is know is that something caused cancer and leukemia in rates far above of the ones in the normal population. DU is a good bet since it is radioactive and DU dust can easily be inhaled and it sticks to the lungs etc. Furthermore these medical anomalies have been observed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo - the three places where DU ordnance has been used on a massive scale.

[toadlife 3]

Ace, while it's certainly nice that you're backing up your arguments with independent sources, information clearing house, sierra times, citizen soldier, etc. are neither reliable nor unbiased...

They may be reliably biased though.

I don't think DU rounds are really neccesary. I'm sure the US developed them to counter Soveit SUper tanks in the 1980's, but today that threat just isn't valid any more.

How about a tip with a titanium shell filled with lead and a core of explosives designed to detonate on impact. That would have penetrating power + weight + extreme explosiveness (imagine a shell of titamium being blown to bits from the inside). Of course I don't know if that would even work, or if it would be feasable.

Edit or better yet, how about we all stop killing each other and focus our scientific communities on more productive things - like cold fusion.

[walker 0]

Anybody have any statistics on civilian casualties (sickness, death) that result from DU? ***I haven't heard of any. ***To be fair, this could just be some scientist trying to scare people for whatever reason. ***Sure radiation is bad, but will inhaling minute amounts of DU dust hurt anybody?

ps- DU isn't classified as NBC because it's not a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon. ***It's a bullet.

Hi

I think this link takes care of the stats.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/our-planet-our-selves/594

Interview of Doug Rokke has a PhD in health physics assigned to prepare soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare in Gulf War I.

As you can see he is stating nearly 30% casualties in GW I vetrans.

Maybe he lied the easiest way to disprove it is to show us the ongoing post war medical survey of GW I vetrans. I presume some one out there can find this doocument and disprove him.

Who can give us the link to that info?

Kind Regards Walker

Edited July 27, 2010 by walker

[Eviscerator 0]

America has used nuclear bombs on Iraq? Conspiracy theorists ahoy!

A weapon is a weapon, it's not designed to play with little bunnies and run through the fields, it's designed to find the best way of completing its purpose, normally resulting in the death or incapacitation of someone. There are many weapons that have adverse effects on the enviroment well after the conflict is over. Vehicles of all kinds use petrol, which when burnt spews toxic fumes into the atmosphere and which we will probably very much regret using 30 or 40 years down the line when it starts to cause illnesses or the death of people, there are mines, cluster bombs, mortar shells, bombs, grenades and missiles that can all still be lethal after the conflict is finished, either by someone finding unexploded ordanance or by hitting a live warhead with a hammer...

Also, as yet the cause of cancer is indeterminable, there are probably many factors in Iraq that could contribute to a rise in the rate of cancer, the rising modernisation, incorporating new power stations, telephone masts and other dangerous electrical sites that have been linked with cancer in other countries. Also the unknown amount of chemicals dumped into the water supply of Iraq, the previously mentioned burning of the oil fields and , not to mention the still highly radioactive site of the Iraqi nuclear power station, who knows whether that or the U-235 and other nuclear materials imported into the country are not to blame for the rise in cancer.

Jumping to the conclusion that one specific type of munition to blame does not seem right until a proper scientific study is performed, and without the facts of everything that has ever happened in Iraq a correct judgement would be incredibly hard to reach.

Lets also not forget the fact that cows have a major part in polluting our enviroment with methane, maybe there should be a lobby for the extermination of all cows?

[FSPilot 0]

EiZei

Quote[/b] ]Then dirty bombs cannot be considered as WMDs?

Uh, no. Dirty bombs use chemicals, or a biological or nuclear debris as a weapon. DU uses kinetic energy to pierce tank armor. For example, guns explode gun powder which creates gasses which, if you inhaled enough, could be hazardous to your life. Does that mean guns can be classified as an NBC weapon?

AceCombat

Quote[/b] ]Stats i'll try and find some OFFICIAL ones in the meanwhile doesnt the fact that Cancer rates and birth deformity's in Iraq and its surroounding areas are rising higher then USUAL ... ever since the GULF WAR seem a little too suspicious?

A lot of things cause cancer. Maybe it was Saddam using chemicals on his population, or during the Iran Iraq war. And can you back up this "fact" with a source? A reliable source?

Quote[/b] ]And inhaling RADIATION and particles emitting it ARE DANGEROUS ... they can easily mutate your cells , DNA and if not kill you in a few months slowly by a chronic illness , they will cause complexities later in your life often leading to any form of Cancer.

You're assuming that everyone in the general area is going to start huffing DU dust. Let's look at this logically. Maybe a handful of dust at most is going to be scattered into the wind, if any. I've yet to see any reliable study that links the use of DU rounds in combat to an increase in cancer or other sicknesses. I can tell you for a fact that when you do a line of DU dust bad things will happen to you. But how much dust is released when a DU round explodes? Does is stick to the earth or go up into the atmosphere? Is it easilly kicked up again if it doesn't go into the atmosphere?

Quote[/b] ]HUh? did you read my previous post?

URANIUM is a NUCLEAR WASTE ... in other words its a nuclear weapon if you leave it out in the open unchecked.

I read it, and I just responded to it. I can read your type just fine, you don't need to type in caps.

Anyway, I'm starting to agree with the US DOD (not the first time, won't be the last either). I doubt that, even though DU particles can be hazardous it would be difficult to inhale enough that could hurt you. Especially considering the UN report that said 8 of 11 sites tested had a higher than normal radiation reading (which would indicate the presence of DU particles), and even then only around the impact area of DU rounds. You'd have to do some extensive tests to see how well DU dust floats through the air. As long as people aren't using chunks of armor with a hole in it made by a DU round as a dinner plate I think they'll be fine.

[walker 0]

You'r all too slow

Info on what to do if you suspect DU contamination

Medical effects and DoD refusal to investigate

aparently it rots your nads' EeeK!

Confirmation that Doug Rokke is The Pentagon official on DU

The official case for DU rounds by Dr. Bernard Rostker At the American Legion Washington Conference

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Awful lot of judge, jury, and executioner in here. Anyways, it's quite possible that DU-contaminated dust is in fact causing all these problems. Then again, maybe not. Either way, in my estimation, use of DU will have much less serious effects than the widespread use of landmines has over the past 60 years. However, most of this argument is ignoring the fact that DU isn't going anywhere. It is possibly the most effective penetrator ever devised, and its nearest competitor -tungsten- is not nearly as cost-effective (something to the tune of at least 3 times more expensive to obtain).

[Sigma-6 29]

This was my last post on the previous thread:

Quote[/b] ]someone even told me he went to a facility or test fire range where they practise with this stuff in US and they stand a relatively close distance from targets but it doesnt makes them ill or sick ... and that the radiation isnt near harmful levels ...  

Tell that to people who take 50 years to show symptoms. I would call that person *stupid* (or at least unsafe). The US Army has a set of strict handling precautions for DU, and that violates them. In any case, the US' DU is a war reserve munition. They don't fire it in the USA, and when they do, it's for ballistic testing, not practise.

I would call him *stupid* because he obviously doesn't understand the science and is putting himself unduly at risk to prove a losing point.  Uranium (even DU) is a weak alpha, beta and gamma emitter. It's unstable, so it's in a constant state of decay, and as each atom attempts to become stable, it sheds particles (alpha decay is the shedding of a high-energy helium nucleus, beta is an electron or positron, and gamma is electromagnetic rays (photons at different wavelengths). The ones you really have to worry about in the case of DU are the Alphas, because they have the most dramatic effect on cell mutation by bombarding the body, 'cause DU primarily emits this type of particle. (this is what causes cancer in this case).

If an aerosolized DU particle (DU is weakly radioactive, but this is all it takes, because it's unstable, it decays. If it didn't decay, it wouldn't be Uranium, because it would have shed its nuclear instability) were to rest on his skin, it would have no effect because the particles involved (all except gamma rays, which are not en potence enough to have effect here [DU]) haven't enough energy (even in the case of Plutonium) to penetrate a piece of paper, let alone his skin. The problem is in whether or not he chooses to breathe. A particle which gets lodged in his lung tissue or elsewhere in his body is in contact with his cell membranes, and this is where it starts to have effect. There is no question at this point that it will affect him, as there is no way to remove it. As we speak, this individual is probably experiencing the bombardment of his tissue lining with high-energy particles. (provided he breathed while he was there,. . . and it's also pretty icky if it gets in his eyes, as you can imagine. . .) His only hope at this point is to deny the scientific fact at work, and hope he's one of the lucky ones.

It's one thing to know something is 'weakly radioactive'. It's another thing to understand what radioactivity actually is, and how it can kill you. It is *utterly irrelevant* that DU (or Uranium) is *weakly* radioactive. if you get it in your lungs or ingest it it can kill you. (granted, we all do, it's in the soil and water everywhere in trace amounts, but most of us aren't standing beside pyrophoric Uranium aerosolization like a bunch of uneducated monkeys who are ignoring their briefings about the risks. Also, most of us don't live on or around modern battlefields.)

I resent being called a 'conspiracy theorist', eviscerator. (though you didn't call me one, or really anyone specifically.)Especially since nobody is blaming the illnesses on one convenient type of munition (except maybe a few undereducated and overconcerned webmasters, etc. . .).

There are plenty of illnesses to go around, and only a few of them fit the DU bill. What concerns me is the status of Southern Iraq, and that the people there are suffering the same situation which would occur if naturally occurring Uranium were having its normal effect on them at an order of magnitude much higher than what's commonly observed.(which is precisely what is happening).

read here (though it takes a certain amount of physics and chemistry knowledge) and then extrapolate what 320 tons of introduced uranium, the bulk of which has been ignited at over 900 degrees and scattered as aerosols (airborne particles under 10 microns, which is precisely the problem associated with natural Uranium.) is likely to do to an area.

If you've heard of radon accumulation from natural Uranium, (many have) you'll understand this as another vector.

radon levels in Cyprus studied

Here's an example of the effect (albeit a more controlled effect, as the vectors are different) on Uranium miners.

Quote[/b] ]2. IMPACTS FOR URANIUM MINERS

During the early "wild" years of uranium mining, protective measures for the miners were very poor. Miners in these early years thus took the highest risk of contracting lung cancer. In the year 1955, radon concentrations in Wismut's mines typically were approximately 100,000 Bq/m3, with peaks of 1.5 million Bq/m3 [Jacobi1992]. Detailed information about the early years of Wismut mining can be found in [beleites1992], [Paul1991], or [Karlsch1993], for example.

From the end of the fifties, the ore was kept wet during drilling to avoid generation of dust, and the mines were intensively ventilated to lower the radon concentrations. The doses received from radon decay products thus decreased from 150 WLM to 4 WLM per year (WLM = Working Level Month is a unit for the dose from radon decay products, which are causative for cancer development).

According to [Jacobi1992], the doses received in Wismut's mines in the early years should not be estimated at 150 WLM, but at 200 WLM per year. The true value can hardly be determined, since Wismut never performed direct individual monitoring of the doses received by the miners. Before 1955, no monitoring was performed at all - only estimates can be made for this early period. Later, radon decay product concentrations were sampled at representative locations within the mines for short periods of time. The doses received by the miners were calculated from these sampling results. While this method allows a certain overview on the doses received, its results cannot be compared with those of continuous individual monitoring.

Between 1946 and 1990, 7163 uranium miners who had been employed with Wismut died from lung cancer. For 5237 of them, the occupational exposure was recognized as the cause of the disease. At present, still approx. 200 lung cancers of former Wismut miners per year are recognized as occupationally caused [AKURA2000]. Until mid-1990, the limit for recognition was 450 WLM; then it was lowered to 200 WLM. One year of work in the uranium mines during the early years is therefore already sufficient to attribute an observed lung cancer to the occupational exposure.

An assessment of international studies on lung cancer incidences with uranium miners showed that with reference to age at exposure and age at cancer incidence, even a total exposure of only 40 WLM can be sufficient to be regarded causative. Such a dose could also be obtained by work exclusively during the mine's later years, while the recognition was so far granted only for work during the mine's early years. At exposures of 150 WLM and higher, an observed lung cancer can be attributed to the work in the uranium mines, practically independent of the exposure history. [Jacobi1992]

Further studies showed that also the risk of contracting cancers other than lung cancer is elevated for uranium miners, in particular for cancer of the mouth region, pharynx, and larynx, bone cancer, leukemia, and liver cancer [Jacobi1995] [Jacobi1997] (view details, see also Uranium Miner Health Risk Calculator). The employers' liability insurance association (Berufsgenossenschaft), however, does not recognize these studies as sufficient to prove that exposure in the mines may have been causative for any such non-lung cancer contracted [AKURA2000].

Now, bear in mind, the conditions are different here. The issue with battlefield DU is the unique ingestion vector. The process of penetration generates a massive amount of airborne, breathable uranium [and remember, it's pyrophoric, so the metal itself is *burning*] (up to 40% of the penetrator rod).

A friend and I (my mother is on VAC in Canada and heard the arguments of Durakovic and his Canadian Opponent Major whatzizname in committee. . . which is the source of part of my interest) calculated (well, approximated) the amount of the 320 tons from 1991 that was likely to become aerosolized into particles that were immediately breathable as sufficient to have the observed effect in Iraq. (it's several pounds. . . I forget how many, but in any case, several pounds of 10 micron or less particles is *very* *very* broad coverage).

The science (which, it seems to me, most DU boosters fail to accept, or understand only peripherally) is pretty clear about the fact that the primary DU risk is not toxicological (as with any heavy metal) but radiological (although the toxicological effects certainly cannot be discounted, as they're pretty insidious in themselves.) Also, the science is clear on the fact that the relative level of radioactivity (which in DU is still quite high, even if it's relatively low) is not a suitable argument in this case, and is basically a buffer argument for people who don't understand radioactivity. statement: "The level of radioactivity is low (I don't know what that means, but it sounds harmless)". Response "Oh. (I don't know what that means, but it sounds harmless) well then what are they complaining about?"

What I'm trying to illustrate is the vast number of vectors there are for 320 tons of introduced Uranium to enter the bodies of Iraqis and Saudis, and the undeniably *unique* vector of aerosolized DU, which throws any previously observed vectors (those experienced in Uranium miners, and by people who live in basements, by weapons techs who handle DU, as well as people involved in Nuclear Fission)

to the four winds and make them effectively obsolete as examples of the effects (the magnitude, in any case).

For those who are curious, the conservative estimate for Iraqi deaths related to Leukemia and other types of cancer since GW1 has topped 600,000 (mostly children). The liberal estimate places this closer to 1.2 million. A disproportionate number of these are in Basra and southern Iraq, where the bulk of the DU was fired. This same area has shown a chilling increase in birth defects and hideous deformations. One Basra hospital has a wall covered with photos of thousands of malformed infants.

Or we can say it's normal. We can even say it's caused by burning oil. . . (but I doubt it).

Alternately, we can discontinue its use until we can study it directly and closely by reproducing specific conditions (something the DoD and NATO have *not* done; they have often blocked and discredited such studies, in fact, where such studies have indicated that the risk is substantial.)

Quote[/b] ] A senior officer of the US Defense Nuclear Agency said in 1991 that radiation from fragments and intact DU rounds was "a serious health threat". He said there was "a possible exposure rate of 200 millirems per hour on contact".

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's maximum limit ... is 100 millirems per year."

[drewb99 0]

All this talk of aerosol-ized uranium makes me want to go buy a really, really good gasmask.

[denoir 0]

Also, as yet the cause of cancer is indeterminable, there are probably many factors in Iraq that could contribute to a rise in the rate of cancer

And what about Kosovo? Completely different environment and the same symptoms. When out of a group of 200 Spanish peace keepers in their prime age, 15 end up with fatal leukemia/cancer, then you can tell that something isn't normal.

And that is a good enough reason to investigate it and refrain from further usage. Carcinogenic substances must be carefully observed before you let them out in the nature.

Sometimes I feel that people don't take the cancer problem seriously enough. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to take a smoke (no, really)

[Acecombat 0]

I can already see this argument dividing in to people stereotyping others who are concerned with the issue since it does not effects them directly/indirecty.

THIS just goes to show a perfect example of today's generation. dont give a damn if it isnt happening to you.... i mean who cares if someone in Iraq/SA/Middleeast died of cancer...But if it happened to us we'd go to war for it. Makes me feel sick to the guts.

Quote[/b] ]Uh, no.  Dirty bombs use chemicals, or a biological or nuclear debris as a weapon.  DU uses kinetic energy to pierce tank armor.  For example, guns explode gun powder which creates gasses which, if you inhaled enough, could be hazardous to your life.  Does that mean guns can be classified as an NBC weapon?

No FSpilot an easier way to say this would be that if US makes anything it will not be called a dirty bomb , It will be a tactical defense weapon or just give it some fancy name and people will buy it    ... now that saved us all a lot of time.

FYI DU is MADE OF NUCLEAR WASTE....which according to you is ALSO present in dirty bombs   , also according to your kinetic theory would it be legal to throw dirty bombs at high speeds and call them DU rounds too? I MEAN now thats Logical...!!

Quote[/b] ]You're assuming that everyone in the general area is going to start huffing DU dust.  Let's look at this logically.  Maybe a handful of dust at most is going to be scattered into the wind, if any.

There is a terrain in the middleeast/iraq/saudi arabia known as desert where wind storms blow .... they can carry such 'dust' for miles and deposit them someplace else.These things have a LIFE of Billions of years .. they will not deminish in to thin AIR they will REMAIN to contaminate the future genrations of THIS REGION.

Quote[/b] ] As long as people aren't using chunks of armor with a hole in it made by a DU round as a dinner plate I think they'll be fine.

So whats according to you is causing cancer and leukaemia and birth deformities to Iraqi's? Sure isnt candybar ....

And dont tell me its saddam filling plates with VX and sarin , no one is buying that stuff better let the 'conspiracy theorists' that Evis was talking about deal with them ... for all we know CIA are probably th biggest conspiract theorists after what happened in Iraq  

@Evis:

Quote[/b] ]A weapon is a weapon, it's not designed to play with little bunnies and run through the fields, it's designed to find the best way of completing its purpose, normally resulting in the death or incapacitation of someone.

So according to you no matter the cost of lives a weapon consumes its just a weapon ... then i dont know why Iraq was attacked and i probably wont know what this thing called "WMD' was ?  

Quote[/b] ]Also, as yet the cause of cancer is indeterminable, there are probably many factors in Iraq that could contribute to a rise in the rate of cancer, the rising modernisation, incorporating new power stations, telephone masts and other dangerous electrical sites that have been linked with cancer in other countries. Also the unknown amount of chemicals dumped into the water supply of Iraq, the previously mentioned burning of the oil fields and , not to mention the still highly radioactive site of the Iraqi nuclear power station, who knows whether that or the U-235 and other nuclear materials imported into the country are not to blame for the rise in cancer.

Rising modern.... then i guess half of the western world should be in bed counting its last hours if modernisation does that ... and WHAT freakin modernisation.. th country was in stone age due to sanctions...

Highly radioactive ... nuclear site ... hmmm last i checked Israel bombed it before it even went HOT ... and the last US satellite that took a photo from there showed a cute little plant growing in the middle ...

I would also have to guess that people ESPECIALLY in Saudi Arabias {eastern province} , Kuwait and Iraq simply got Cancer , maybe it fell from the sky on them ... and DU was only nourishing the envoirnment.

[Acecombat 0]

For those concerned with this issue :

The Scourging of Iraq Part 2

Geoff Simons on the enviromental rape of the Gulf

The Gulf War, reinforced by comprehensive economic sanctions (many of which violated international law), transformed much of Iraq into a polluted radioactive environment. At the end of the war, the Iraqi and Kuwaiti deserts, and many urban sites, were littered with wrecked armaments, unexploded mines and other munitions, chemical pollutants and radioactive debris. There was evidence that the United States had contingency plans drawn up for the use of nuclear and chemical weapons against Iraq. Thus Major Johan Persson, a liaison officer at a Swedish army field hospital, testified in Stockholm that he had seen official guidelines concerning the allied use of nuclear and chemical weapons. Said Perrson: "There was such an order. I saw it. I had it in my hand." U.S. Secretary of State James Baker declared to Tariq Aziz on 9 January, days before the start of the U.S. led bombing campaign that if Iraq were to use chemical weapons the U.S. 'reply will be unrestrained'. From this Aziz understood - according to the authorative commentator Mohammed Heikal - 'that Baker was hinting at the use of nuclear weapons.' Paul Rogers, a defence, analyst at Bradford University’s school of peace studies, commented that both the US Marines and Navy were equipped with tactical nuclear weapons.

The use of nuclear weapons is widely condemned, not only because of the massive destructive power of such devices but also because the hazards of radioactive contamination are visited on succeeding generations thus UN General Assembly Resolution 32/84 (12 December 1977) condemns weapons of mass destruction, defined as 'atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons developed in the future which might have the characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned above'. Thus the American use of the BLU-82 fuel air explosive (FAE), a 15,000-pound device capable of producing 'nuclear scale' explosions to incinerate everything within hundreds of yards, stands condemned in international law. Similarly, DU ordinance, as a 'radioactive material weapon', is condemned by GA Resolution 32/84.In fact, such ordinance was widely used by the US and British forces in the War.

The allied forces left at least 40 tons of depleted uranium on the Gulf War battlefields according to a secret report produced by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (AEA). The report suggests that there was enough DU in Kuwait and southern Iraq to cause '500,000 potential deaths'.* Commenting that this indicates 'a significant problem', the report states: 'The DU will be around...in varying sizes and quantities from dust particles to full size penetrators and shot. It would be unwise for people to stay close to large quantities of DU for long periods and this would obviously be of concern to the local population if they collect this heavy metal and keep it. There will be specific areas in which many rounds will have been fired where localised contamination of vehicles and soil may exceed permissible limits and these could be hazardous to both clean up teams and the local population. 'Though worry was expressed that 'a political problem’ might be created by the environmental lobby (‘It is in both the Kuwait and the UK interest that this is not left to rear its head in the years to come'), nothing was being done. It was acknowledged that 'if DU gets in the food chain or water this will create potential health problems' but, according to a senior AEA official, talks about possible remedies 'have not gone so quickly as we would have hoped'. Soldiers, mine clearing experts and reconstruction workers in Kuwait were told nothing of the hazards caused by the extent of radioactive contamination.

* Thats for the 1st GF alone then we have decade following continued bombs and 2nd GF

In the period after the Gulf War, Iraqi and international medical personnel noted a rapid increase in the number of childhood cancers, particularly leukaemia. At the same time UN and humanitarian aid workers were reporting that Iraqi children were playing with empty ammunition shells, tanks that had been destroyed by DU ordinance, and radioactive bullets that still litter wide areas of Iraq. It seemed reasonable to conclude that links existed (and continue to exist) between the radioactive debris - 'radioactive bullets...now being used by many children in Iraq as toys' - and the growing incidence of cancer. (It significant that the testing of DU penetrators in New Mexico has been linked to ground water poisoning; and that for similar reasons there has been fierce local opposition to the locating of test ranges in Minnesota and South Dakota.) In fact the hazards of DU ordinance are widely recognised. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has estimated that tank crews firing DU shells receive the equivalent of one chest X-RAY every 20 to 30 hours. When, in late 1992, the director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute arrived in Berlin carrying a DU penetrator found in Iraq he was immediately arrested and charged with 'releasing ionising radiation'. The radioactive penetrator was quickly consigned to a lead-lined box. An Aid worker in Basra testified that he had witnessed a child playing with hand puppets made out of DU penetrator shells. Another child, known to have played with DU shells, later developed leukaemia.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority had warned the Ministry of Defence that children would be badly affected by radiation if DU ordinance were used in the Gulf. Thus a memorandum sent to the ministry noted that when DU shells strike tanks and other targets they through up 'toxic and carcinogenic' dust: 'Children playing in or even looking in, burnt out vehicles, with such contamination set to last as long as the earth. Documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act stated that the American, British and Saudi armies fired about 4,000 depleted - uranium tipped tank rounds, and that US Air Force A-10 aircraft fired around 940,000 30mm bullets. The A10's used DU ordinance against tanks, other armoured vehicles, trucks and roads. Here it is suggested that as much as 300 metric tons of radioactive uranium litter wide areas of Kuwait and Iraq, and that the ionising radiation (both alpha and gamma) is known to be carcinogenic. The US Army has admitted that some soldiers were unknowingly exposed to DU radiation during the Gulf War - a circumstance thought by many observers to have contributed to the so-called Gulf War Syndrome that continues to afflict tens of thousands of Coalition personnel

A research paper published in June 1994 by the Amsterdam based Stitching LAKA documentation centre noted that DU ordinance 'passed the battlefield tests in Iraq'; and pointed out that supplying depleted uranium to the US forces was the cheapest way to dispose of nuclear waste. Again emphasis is given to the mounting evidence of the growing incidence of radiation linked diseases in the Iraqi population: 'The new types of lingering morbidity introduced by the most toxic war in history will include an estimated 800 tons of DU dust and fragments that will continue blowing across the devastated Arabian peninsula ecosystem for enough decades into the future to make this process well known in the annals of medicine.' In January 1992 the US Census Bureau estimated that life expectancy for the surviving Iraqi population had declined by 20years for men and 11years for women. Radioactive pollution had contributed to this situation. Nuclear bombs had not been used but Iraqi nuclear plant had been bombed, releasing radiation into the atmosphere, and the use of depleted uranium ordinance had ensured that massive volumes of radioactive substances would remain a permanent feature of the Iraqi environment.

Radioactive uranium was not the only pollutant inflicted on the Iraqi people. There are also scientific reports, from Iraqi sources, to suggest that toxic chemicals were used by the Coalition forces. Thus a detailed report produced by the non-governmental Iraqi Society for Environmental Protection and Improvement (ISEPI) claimed that the US led forces had resorted to chemical warfare in the Gulf. It is stated that the examined samples of vegetation, water, soil, blood and urine revealed the presence of highly poisonous myotoxins that were not indigenous to the region. Such trichothecene toxins are known to produce vomiting, diarrhoea, tachycardia, haemorrhaging, edema, skin lesions, nervous disorders, nausea, coma and death in human beings. In areas not exposed to bombing there is no evidence of such toxins. One Iraqi witness described a stinking yellow smoke that appeared after a rocket bombardment. The victims of alleged chemical attacks reportedly suffered from chest and stomach pains, vomiting with blood, nausea, vision impairment, rash blisters and other symptoms. Victims whose blood samples contained T-2 and HT-2 toxins suffered from vomiting, fever, headaches, backaches, swollen eyes and chest pains.

Massive volumes of pollutants were released when industrial plants, electrical power stations and oil facilities were bombed during the war. Some 20 main power plants, more then one hundred secondary power stations and scores of other industrial establishments were bombed between 17 January and 28 February 1991, with many of the sites bombed repeatedly. For example, the Daura refinery (Baghdad) and the North Oil refinery (Baiji) were both bombed twice, the South Oil Company and oil refineries in Basra were bombed several times, and the North Oil Company (Kirkuk) suffered 13 air raids. Tables 1.1 indicate the scale of the environmental damage caused by bombing raids on particular industrial establishments and power plants.

One estimate suggested that 1613 hectares of agricultural land had been destroyed; with high densities of hydrocarbons detected over large areas spreading hundreds of miles from the bombing induced fires. The high levels of air pollution - involving complex mixtures of sulphur products, hydrocarbons, nitrogen products, free radicals, aromatic compounds, etc - have been associated with unfamiliar plant and animal diseases (causing, for example, the destruction of thousands of eucalyptus trees and around 120,000 palm trees), in addition to the catastrophic deterioration in the health of the Iraqi civilian population.

High levels of environmental pollution were caused by the war and the punitive sanctions, now into there ninth year. The economic blockade means that Iraq has been denied the opportunity to begin social and economic reconstruction by importing the necessary goods and equipment. Today the US induced plight of millions of ordinary Iraqi civilians continues to deteriorate. Some observers have likened Iraq to a vast and forgotten concentration camp, denied the means to life and with no end in sight.

Extracted from the Scourging of Iraq by Geoff Simons, published by MacMillan, London.

[Sigma-6 29]

Quote[/b] ]As long as people aren't using chunks of armor with a hole in it made by a DU round as a dinner plate I think they'll be fine.

If your remark is specific to a tank, then let's examine it as a microcosm. (and for the sake of argument, ignore the vectors beyond about 35 feet from a destroyed tank, like dust in the breeze, windstorms in the desert environment, rain (carrying it into the water table, and streaming from/through the site, and myriad others)

When the tank is struck, 30-40% of the round burns, as we have established. The remainder often exits the other side and comes to rest, where it is a static chunk of radioactive material, surrounded with particulate, and covered with Uranium dust particles of various sizes, all of which are now accessible to the external environment (they're not 'part' of the rod, per se).

First, we'll examine the effect to the tank's interior:

The interior, sprayed and essentially covered with a large amount of Uranium, is now producing prodigious amounts of Radon gas (particles of which are consummate alpha,beta and gamma emitters and cause cancer about as well as anything radioactive does.) This is probably the most effective vector for contamination, and it gradually blows out into the surrounding atmosphere and makes it patently unsafe to be within a certain distace of the wreck, while being inside the wreck is basically suicide. Now, bear in mind, it doesn't stop being this way. The Uranium inside the tank keeps producing radon at the same rate, as it keeps decaying for its entire half-life, which, incidentally, is 4.5 billion years (the Earth is 4.7 billion years old). It's not going away.

Now, the particles (large and small) spread by the impact (this includes those scattered as the tank burned, and it may have burned for hours, and the windier, the further they will travel) are generally concentrated within 30 and 35 meters of the tank. Those too large to travel (and remember, all of this is 30-40% of an eleven pound chunk of DU which also contains traces of Plutonium, Neptunium and Polonium) are almost all within this radius. All of these particles are radioactive, and travel through various vectors (mentioned before) but for the sake of this argument, we'll just concern ourselves with what they do when you're onsite unprotected after the tank has burned and the dust has settled.

First, don't walk. If you walk, you'll kick up dust, and if it gets breathed in or in your eyes/mucous membranes, you're likely in trouble. second, try not to breathe. Though the radon gas being produced by the settled particles is mainly being carried away by the wind, if it's still and it's been so for a while, there may be enough of it to screw you. third, don't touch *anything*. If you do, and then you put your hand in your mouth or in your eye, (or in your ass) you're in trouble. fourth, don't go near the tank. The current geiger counter readings from DU sabot holes are well over 1000 times the normal level, and the tank is venting radon. fifth, whtever you do, *don't* go inside of it. This is nearly the worst thing you can do. You're breathing radioactive gas, you're very close to metals which have been burned with Uranium, and everything you touch is contaminated with high concentrations of settled dust, almost all of which is ingestible or breathable if kicked up in any way.

Now. You're a child and you think tanks are cool. Try not to do any of these things.

The (usually taken) option here is to pretend that none of this is true. Fortunately, the DoD promtly fires any scientist they hire who says it *is*, so there's no risk of 60-70 year old scientific facts making it into a DoD report on this (which would explain why the DoD's reports are so short on hard science). What amazes me is that Physicists and Chemists have known this at cost to lives for so long, and that instead of saying "We know that now, now we can avoid it", we say, "we know that now, so why would the DoD, knowing it, allow something like that to happen?" and promptly ignore what we've learned while they fire and discredit the same scientists we'd like to think we're trusting without noticing the disconnect.

I don't think this is being done on purpose. I think it's a result of a large organization characteristically trying knee-jerk to save itself a lot of cost and aggravation (and in the process generating a lot more for a lot more people).

[Acecombat 0]

As i said the question is not is DU harmful or not ..it is and its a NBC weapon.BOTTOMLINE!

The question is why isnt it being banned?

[Sigma-6 29]

Well, for one, the US has blocked the UN's proposal for a resolution. Everyone else wants to study it. They won't let us because the DoD reports refuse to examine the risks. They look good to nonscientists, but the scientific community is blocked from the debate at that level by US government pressure. In fact, the only UN report that has made it past committee so far, while stripped to the spokes, calls for further study, which has been effectively blocked.

Regardless of the human cost and the piles of clear, repeatable scientific data, the debate on a ban is stuck in committee. I don't want to have this sound like the usual US-bashing that people seem to love to indulge in, but what's happening here is a clear, high-profile blockage of scientific study which millions are paying the price for, and Its source in the UN is the US and UK. There is a little pressure from a certain Major in Canada who's taken it on himself to champion DU in a country that doesn't field it, but that's really it. Other than that, everyone else wants a study, and potentially a ban (Including Israel).

[Major Fubar 0]

Also, as yet the cause of cancer is indeterminable, there are probably many factors in Iraq that could contribute to a rise in the rate of cancer, the rising modernisation, incorporating new power stations, telephone masts and other dangerous electrical sites that have been linked with cancer in other countries.

Are you sure you don't work for the Tobacco Lobby, sounds like on of their arguments.

I would liken using DU rounds to using asbestos, DDT or smoking cigarettes - the companies and governments that are benefetting from using DU tounds are certainly going to do their best to dismiss any health repercussions until they are so blatantly obvious that no one can deny them.

[Major Fubar 0]

[i don't want to have this sound like the usual US-bashing that people seem to love to indulge in]

I agree that this isn't the place for that debate, but for the sake of the argument presented here, here is a small sample of what the USA has vetoed in recent history (and this is just vetoes, not including what they have blocked without havong to resort to veto):

Scoop

[toadlife 3]

The question is why isnt it being banned?

Because the the U.S. uses them and it would be against their interest to support a ban on them.

If you drove a Chevy Suburban (a big vehicle for those of you not familiar with american cars), would you support a huge tax on Chevy suburban owners?

[Tex -USMC- 0]

As i said the question is not is DU harmful or not ..it is and its a NBC weapon.BOTTOMLINE!

That's what the Soviet Union said when they saw what the A-10's and M1's on the far side of the Fulda Gap were packing. Of course it's bullshit, because the entire concept of a nuclear weapon is that it takes advantage of a chain reaction inherent in the splitting of certain atoms. DU is only considered nuclear in that it is slightly radioactive (well within safe limits). What that means is that the radioactive capacity of DU would be equally utilized to the same extennt whether I shoot it out of a gun or throw a handful of DU dust at you. Not exactly a weapon of mass destruction.

Quote[/b] ]The question is why isnt it being banned?

Because not only is it the best penetrator in the US arsenal, it's also the most cost-effective. That means that it doesn't matter how many little kids get leukemia (if in fact the DU is causing the sickness), so long as those kids don't grow up to be voting members of American society.

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]If you drove a Chevy Suburban (a big vehicle for those of you not familiar with american cars), would you support a huge tax on Chevy suburban owners?

Oh plz spare me Toadlife ... you want to say that anything that favours you is right and others can go to hell .... ??

Remembr Hitler liked something too does that mean we let him get away with something thats OUTRIGHT wrong?

NO.

If i do something wrong i am responsible for it.PERIOD. No way in hell can i support something which is wrong , and if i do then theres not a more Hypocritical (sp) person alive on this planet then me.

Quote[/b] ]DU is only considered nuclear in that it is slightly radioactive (well within safe limits). What that means is that the radioactive capacity of DU would be equally utilized to the same extennt whether I shoot it out of a gun or throw a handful of DU dust at you. Not exactly a weapon of mass destruction.

Slightly radioactive? well within safe limits???

Oh please after all those reports of US army's paranoai over the issue back in this thread and youre saying this? DU has a Halflife of about 4.5 Billion years bro couple it with nearly 300 tons (thats the most smallest estimate) lying out in the open what do you expect?

Not a WMD? 600,000 dead and counting ... thats genocide ... a hidden one at that ... nothing better then Saddam wiping his population with VX deliberatley , while the US army simply uses it as legit weapon by throwing the dirt of ill-conceived scientific facts around. This weapon is a slow killer and IF WE continue to USE it ... it will bring nothing more then DEATHS .. and if it isnt stopped now , it will cause only more deaths worldwide whereever it is USED.

Quote[/b] ]Because not only is it the best penetrator in the US arsenal, it's also the most cost-effective. That means that it doesn't matter how many little kids get leukemia (if in fact the DU is causing the sickness), so long as those kids don't grow up to be voting members of American society.

As i said 'you' wouldnt care ... most americans wouldnt , because they arent the ones suffering from it , if only they were we'd have a 'world disaster' at our hands wouldnt we? A US voter mustnt die of it thats all that matters ... rest can go burn in nuclear hell for all we care.

As i said before its a hypocritical and selfish world outthere and beaurucrats from the US are probably the cream of it.

[ozanzac 0]

@ Oct. 14 2003,15:38)]

Quote[/b] ]The question is why isnt it being banned?

Because not only is it the best penetrator in the US arsenal, it's also the most cost-effective. That means that it doesn't matter how many little kids get leukemia (if in fact the DU is causing the sickness), so long as those kids don't grow up to be voting members of American society.

OK, let's assume a war breaks out on ones home soil. What would one prefer, the use of depleated uranium to quickly and efficiently destroy the enemy, or the use of materials that are weaker, but ensure that the long term effects of the weapon are kept to a minimum. It's a difficult question to comprehensively answer, as your either thinking of the present, or thinking towards the future. How patriotic would you be if your sacrificing the future for the sake of the present.

At the moment, I am split between the two aspects........I just don't know for this one. Thus this subject will plaugue my mind for days.