In the process of saving Iraq from Saddam by thoroughly bombing large cities, the United States may be upping the depleted uranium (DU) used in munitions for this war.
As the Federation of American Scientists say:In military applications, when alloyed, Depleted Uranium [DU] is ideal for use in armor penetrators. These solid metal projectiles have the speed, mass and physical properties to perform exceptionally well against armored targets. DU provides a substantial performance advantage, well above other competing materials. This allows DU penetrators to defeat an armored target at a significantly greater distance. Also, DU's density and physical properties make it ideal for use as armor plate. DU has been used in weapon systems for many years in both applications. Depleted uranium results from the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. Natural uranium is a slightly radioactive metal that is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and sea water. Natural uranium consists primarily of a mixture of two isotopes (forms) of uranium, Uranium-235 (U235) and Uranium-238 (U238), in the proportion of about 0.7 and 99.3 percent, respectively. Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy, therefore, the natural uranium has to be enriched to obtain the isotope U235 by removing a large part of the U238. Uranium-238 becomes DU, which is 0.7 times as radioactive as natural uranium. [Other sources list it as 60-65 percent -- Ed.] Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of those DU materials.
In addition to the radioactivity, DU is chemically toxic, pyrophoric -- meaning it burns fiercely on penetration -- and usually spreads aerolisized particles over a large area on impact. The particulates can be carried on the wind up to 26 miles and enter the human body through ingestion, inhalation or through openings in the skin.
There has been no link proved between DU munitions and Gulf War Syndrome, which has affected about 100,000 veterans of that conflict, or the increased rate of childhood cancers in southern Iraq. The Pentagon has denied any danger from DU (well, apart from being used in bombs, of course.) Former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen once compared it to lead paint.
"Where it's unsafe, it's like leaded paint," Cohen said. "Leaded paint does not pose a problem to you unless it starts to peel and then children or others ingest it."
I'm a little slack-jawed at this comment. Lead paint was banned in U.S. homes in 1978 due to its extreme toxicity.
Overall, I'm personally dubious. While the Pentagon has played down the dangers of DU, this is also the agency that furiously denied for years that Gulf War Syndrome existed at all, regardless of the causes. And while DU in an unexploded munition might be relatively harmless, burned and aerosolized DU will be spread over a much larger area and could enter the soil and water table of the environment. How many studies have been done? Why are NATO allies nervous about exposing their troops to American munitions?
Perhaps DU really is as harmless as the DoD contends. But in a world in which the U.S. has lost a PR battle with Saddam Hussein, is it really a wise move to use munitions that many believe increases the risk of childhood cancers? (Irony alert: The U.S. will open itself up to charges that it used a weapon against an enemy who may have used aflatoxins, which can cause liver cancer in children, against the Kurds of Halabja.) My point is not that there's a moral equivalence between Saddam's regime and the United States government -- there's not one, and I strongly disagree with people who make that argument -- but that the United States shouldn't be looking for more reasons to have the world suspicious of its actions and/or motives.
I know that in any war soldiers should use the best weapons available to them; these weapons could end the war more quickly. But heavy use of DU weapons in a "shock and awe" campaign strikes me as yet one more reason to oppose Mr. Bush's Splendid Little War.
Correction: Earlier, I referred to José MarÃa Aznar as the Spanish prime minister but a Spanish reader has informed me he's Spain's president. The CIA World Factbook 2002 also refers to him as the president. Oops! (In my defense, however, almost every English-languag media I've seen refers to him as prime minister.)
I like explosives! KABOOOOM!!
José María Aznar is not Spain’s president but president of the government of Spain (which is just like prime minister!)
I realize that a lot of people may oppose the war but it’s not accurate to call this “Bush’s Splendid Little War.” That term diminishes the fact that many people do indeed support this action.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol04/43/tucker43.pdf
Gulf War Syndrome was caused by Iraq’s chemical weapons…Circumstantial evidence from a variety of sources suggests that Iraq deployed chemical weapons into the Kuwait Theater of Operations (KTO)—-the area including Kuwait and Iraq south of the 31st Parallel, where the ground war was fought—-and engaged in sporadic chemical warfare against Coalition forces. The London “Sunday Times” reported during the war that intercepts of Iraqi military communications indicated that Iraqi President Saddam Husein had authorized frontline commanders to use chemical weapons at their discretion as soon as Coaltion forces began their ground offensive…
EVIDENCE IRAQ USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS DURING THE 1991 PERSIAN GULF WAR - By Jonathan B. Tucker
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol04/43/tucker43.pdf
DU bombs are our version of the “dirty bombs” that we rail against.
Mike, just because a some people wrongly support this war of agression against a smaller, weaker nation doesn’t mean it’s not, still, “Bush’s Splendid Little War.” This war is George Bush’s war. He wants it, and nothing will stop it. Not even the fact that it is an illegal war will stop Bush from killing thousands.
Klaatu
I checked several sites and this is a quote from Reuters ;He said he went to the Azores with Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
Aznar is the prime minister from Spain and not the president,Spain doesn’t have a president but a king :Don Juan Carlos.
keep up the good work.
greetings from Belgium
Mic
Everybody knows that Spain has a king, thanks Mic.
But I repeat that Aznar is president, not Spain’s president of course, but president of the government of Spain (that means the same as prime minister)
Hm. Can someone clear this up? Like I said, the CIA World Factbook listed him as the president of a parliamentary monarchy. Media reports list him as prime minister.
While the fact that Spain is a parliamentary system made me lean toward the PM title, it’s possible Aznar could be president, since King Juan Carlos is the head of state. I mean, France has a president and a prime minister.
So. Not settled, and I’m swamped. Since this issue is not one that I find really vital at this time, perhaps someone can run this one down?
Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Washington), who has visited Iraq and is also a physician, argues persuasively that the longterm effects of the radioactivity and toxicity of DU are afflicting the citizenry of the country. A rise in birth defects would be a sentinel event. It’s unlikely that a measureable increase in cancer would be observed even if there were significant risks, due to the lengthy incubation period of most neoplasms.
You should be slack-jawed at Secretary Cohen’s statement, especially when placed in juxtaposition with your own paragraph just above it — if it’s dangerous when (like lead paint) it peels, then it’s all the more of an environmental risk when it’s aerosolized … which is what happens when the munitions are used.
DU probably doesn’t have much to do with Gulf War Syndrome in US soldiers … they weren’t in-country very long, and most of their exposure to DU was in the form of whole shells prior to firing. The men, women, and children of Iraq walk through and breathe the dust of exploded DU rounds every day, as they have been doing for the last dozen years.
I don’t really know the answer to this one, either, but I remeber that George W. Bush managed to confuse the terms on his recent visit to Spain, too…
Didn’t all the fighting in Gulf War I, take place in the desert? Where nobody lives! So how can these shells be in populated areas? Why didn’t Iraq remove and dipose of these DU? Maybe the chemical weapons are causing birth defects and health problems, you can’t rule that out.
Opie says:
Didn’t all the fighting in Gulf War I, take place in the desert? Where nobody lives! So how can these shells be in populated areas? Why didn’t Iraq remove and dipose of these DU? Maybe the chemical weapons are causing birth defects and health problems, you can’t rule that out.
Shells explode, creating aerosol. Dust flies, DU aerosol disperses. Exploded munitions, not warehoused shells.
As for chemical weapons, even the most rabid hawks cite no evidence of their use by Saddam since (I believe it’s) 1988. And the only time he’s used it beyond his borders (not that domestic gassing is acceptable human behavior either) was in the Iran-Iraq war two decades ago … when he was the US’s little buddy, doing the US’s dirty work.
Documents on DU:
IAEA:
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Focus/DU/du_main.shtml
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Focus/DU/finalreport.pdf
Royal Society:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/templates/press/showpresspage.cfm?file=352.txt
Spain has both a regent and a President (no PM). Their regent has maintained more legal power than the royalty in the UK.
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0861230.html
http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/spain/spain_government.html
http://www.worldrover.com/vital/spain.html
War is the most stupid thing Bush and Blair will do.The price will be so high that both will not found peace in there heart as long they are alive.
Well,my english is poor, but not so poor like Bush and Blair.
José María Aznar, as some people have already said, is President of the Spanish government, which is the same as Prime Minister in other countries.
It was not G.W.Bush, but his brother Jeb who recently referred to him as “President of the Republic of Spain”; our king, in return, asked him to send his regards to his brother the “king of the USA”.
OK. But what’s his official title? That was really all I was trying to find out. Is it “prime minister,” since those are his duties? Or is it president?
Hi. I from Spain, and I’am sure that Jose Maria Aznar is the President of the Spanish government (a very stupid president that likes to be photografied with “great leaders” like Bush…). In Spain doesnt exists “prime minister”.
There’s a reason this shit is called “depleted” uranium. Think about it.
DU weapons pose no radiological danger whatsoever. None. Nada. Zip.
asdasd, you place too much faith in the word “depleted”. It doesn’t mean the uranium is not radioactive. It just means that the U-235 has been extracted, and what is left is nearly all U-238.
Here is a good reference. A quote:
Hello there !
It seems USA has forgotten about Hiroshima…
I wonder whether Bush (cannot attach prefix Mister title) would be ready to endanger the citizens of his own country as easily as he is doing right now with Iraqi and countries in the Middle East.
Ofcourse the Israelis all have gasmasks…
Sincerely
S. Sgourou
Aznar isn’t Spain president, Ansar is a rare kind of donkey from Spain. I hope having help all you.
This comment comes months later, but it is totally erroneous to believe DU is harmless.
The poisonous nature of heavy elements such as Uranium is quite widely misunderstood.
It shares similar properties to many elements which used to be common and now are generally banned, - Lead in household piping, Mercury in thermometers and asbestos for isolation, never mind tobacco, passive smoking, and particulate emanations from motor diesel exhausts.
Years ago all these were considered completely harmless for the purposes of cynical and stupid industrial lobbies
Time and again these have proved to be deadly in the wrong circumstances, resulting in gigantic compensation awards because of high mortalities rates which have become statistically provable.
The crazy part of the current situation is that a cynical politico-military propaganda machine maintains it is correct and harmless to use an element, contaminated with traces of Plutonium, americium, and goodness knows what other isotopes as a weapon in an environment where the vapourised poisonous and radioactive gaseous element WILL CERTAINLY enter into the food chain.
These elements would never of course be distributed in New York city,- to prove how perfectly harmless they are, but always as far away as possible from the authors of the policies that use them.
Bikini atoll
Puerto Rico
Yugoslavia
Iraq.
DU use represents quite simply long term poisoning, a slow statistically unprovable but sure genocide on unborn children. Is this suprising?
The authors are the same as poisoned Vietnam’s unborn children with Agent Orange, and used the first WMD. America and the Atomic bomb.
The “victim psychology” of such military strategists always preaches first use and uses paranoia and the mass media in a way similar to the those it seeks to destroy.
186 Million Grams of DU wre used in the First Gulf Conflict that is enough to Kill every single American man woman and child one hundred times over. Every single person in Iraq 1000 times over, every single person on this planet 5 times over. The frogs have Nine legs the fish have three eyes. Isotope 238 is 66 percent radioactive and apon ignitiion disperses into a 10-5 micron sized dust that once it is inhaled it stays in the lungs. U 238 has no aceptable dosage levels it mutates cells at the moleculer level. Iraq is now the largest radioactive nuclear waste dump on the planet. It represents a artificial elcromagnetic grid that has the ability to alter the course of COMETS ASTROIDS and METEORS that used to pass us by. Iraq represents the largest most contaminated battlefield on the Planet Earth. As americans we are now in Violation of the Geneva Convention. I am a inactive Marine, Navy Seal SO-COMM we are Soldiers of God not King Georges Merc’s. Worst day of my life was watching that coward sit on his tush for 24 minutes while the World trade centers were being attacked. The current Admin is full of Cowards and Traitors and Marines we swore an oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies Foriegn or Domestic. Iraq was not a war it was some wanna be fighter pilots personal agenda to be the War President he sent our boys hunting a guy we set up as a dictator in the first place. Semper Fi Oohh Rah