Depleted Uranium

[thanateros]

The US Army uses depleted Uranium rounds in almost all of its weapons. When a round impacts a target dust is emmitted. This dust is highly radioactive and gets all over tanks, which village children play on. Also, it being the dessert, the dust can travel great distances; it is in the air that both Iraqi citizens and US troop breath. It also seeps into the ground and gets into the aquafer which later infects water sources.

 

The US didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq yet they are using the very component in their ammunition. Who is more evil now? The Iraqis or the US for not only killing 'terrorists' but also infecting an entire population with radioactive material which gets into respiratory tracks, the air they breath, their water sources and the ground they plant their crops which feed their population?

 

I got this information when someone told me about an article in a recent Christian Science Monitor that discussed this topic. I, for one, was shocked, ashamed, and disgusted that the US is using depleted uranium for ammunition. Lead bullets kill just the same, and without radioactive dust as a result.

[Peregrine]

First, a minor correction: lead bullets do not kill as well. You don't use depleted uranium in rifle bullets. It's used for armor penetration in tank/aircraft weapons. Sure, you could use it against unarmored targets, but the main purpose for it is to get through heavy tank armor, armor that could ignore other types of bullets. A job it does very well.

 

Second, the US military hardly uses it in all its bullets. Depleted uranium is used in only a few specific weapons like a tank's main cannon or an A-10's anti-tank gun. Most stuff like the M-16 uses standard lead bullets. If the article said it was used in nearly all weapons, it is simply lying.

 

Third, the danger of depleted uranium is often overexaggerated for political reasons. By definition, depleted uranium has already had its most radioactive content removed. It's still a poisonous chemical and not a good idea to eat it or let it stay on your skin, but it's not going to kill you just by being around it. According to the first source listed below, you could hold an uncovered depleted uranium core for 250 hours before reaching a dangerous level of radiation exposure.

 

To put the risk in perspective, the average yard contains as much natural uranium as contained in one of these shells. Sure, might be more concentrated, but you're hardly talking about disaster level radiation.

 

Is it perfect and with zero risk? No. Is any weapon perfect with zero risk to innocents? No. A lot of the depleted uranium "controversy" comes from simple political scare tactics.

 

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/du.htm

[Darnoc]

So, then please tell me, why are people dying in the South of Iraq because of radioactivity? Since 1991 (the year of Senior-Bush's war) people are dying there because of weird illnesses which occur when a region is affected by radioactivity. In fact, they have the same symptomes as the surviving people from Hiroshima. And because Iraq was blockaded until the next war 2003 no medicine could reach those people and innocent children, men and women died because the US-army used radioactive weapons during their war.

 

And one last question: Where do you think the so called "Golf Syndrom" originates?

[Shakkara]

Exactly. To my knowledge, there has been a significant increase in I believe it was leukemia and deformed-born children and other illnesses ever since the gulf war.

 

Maybe it is not the radioactivity itself that causes this, but rather the dust containing the toxic metal.

[Peregrine]

And one last question: Where do you think the so called "Golf Syndrom" originates?

 

Well, you can retire and get bored, or you can get promoted to corporate owner. Then you get consumed by balls and holes, and that's the end of you...

 

But a bit more seriously...

 

I never said depleted uranium was absolutely harmless. But the article refered to in the initial post is lying. Depleted uranium is far less commonly used, and does have a significant military advantage. It's not like they're using it just to hurt innocent victims as the article makes it seem.

 

Perhaps another way to look at it: is the damage from depleted uranium significantly more than the damage caused by other weapons? Bombs can kill innocent victims and non-radioactive chemicals can poison water. All weapons can have their unfortunate side effects.

 

Maybe it is not the radioactivity itself that causes this, but rather the dust containing the toxic metal.

 

Which is far more likely. Even if it isn't radioactive, uranium is still a toxic metal and can still be harmful.

[Hayabusa]

whewre copuld I get the sources about the problems with health in the southern Iraq? I mean I`d like to check it out, as here I receive other information that might be interesting.

 

First of all: Depleted uranium is being used to penetrate armor. It is much more dense material that lead and therefore it`s used in this way. First shells of that kind were used by Germany during WWII, they used the W element ( dunno, HOW it is in English, really, in latin it`s wolframium ) but Uranium is simply much more effective.

 

It is depleted, which means it`s not that active as U -235, which is being used in power stations and A-bombs. It`s the U - 238, and with is 'lifetime' of about 9x10 9 Years it`s hard to say it causes problems due to radioactivity.

Yes, uranium IS harmful. but NOT because of its activity, is`t just another heavy metal and that`s the problem. But the lead and many more heavy metal elements aren`t healthy either.

 

I remeber panic that rose within Europe after the NATO operation agains Serbia in 1999. Some soldiers died because of leukemia, but in fact it was right with the statistics that about 10-20 young men out of 100,000 get it.

I serached in Scientific American and some other sources and found no scientific proof that depleted uranium is so dangerous as it`s been described. It is described so due to political purposes, without proving the harm.

 

 

BTW another fact, that might be interesting.

Keep in mind, I`d like just to say it without causing another off topic debate!

 

shortly after the WWII, the Allies dropped hundreds of tons of shells, bombs and micellaneous containers in the Baltic Sea. All the stuff was filled with ex-Reich`s battle gases and toxines. These chemicals are still dangerous and there is a risk one day half of the sea would perish. Now that is a true, not just political problem.

End of Off-topic!

[Marxist ßastard]

*Marxist ßastard pops out of his protective trench for a second to say a blurb about that "W element*"

 

W... That's Tungsten... IIRC, it's the material used in light bulbs and samples of it have very high density, but only when they have a sufficient amount of impurities.

 

...And congrats on your hundreth post...

[Hayabusa]

oh.. thank You :) hardly noticed that

 

adn thanks for the Tungsten, in my language it`s wolfram so it could be quite hard to guess :D

[drowst]

Replying to Darnocs inference that DU rounds have led to higher cancer rates among the predominantly Shia population in Southern Iraq. First, as many folks have said, there is no direct link between DU and cancer. Is it likely that some cancer cases are caused by contact with DU residue, etc, sure. But blaming a high level of cancer in one area on DU is misguided. What about Kuwait? A much higher number of this type of munition was exepended in Kuwait than in Southern Iraq. In this region, when you talk about sickness that could be related to the first Gulf War, you need to take a much broader perspective. Lets not forget about all the oil wells that were destroyed by the Iraqis. There was a significant amount of smoke in this area which could be associated with disease. Also, when your talking modern military hardware, and technology stuff in general, when it burns, it gives off fumes from the various burning bits which can be toxic, and when you mix it all together, who knows what kind of cocktail your ending up with. There were also chemical releases when various chemical arms were destroyed after the war. Finally, when you talk the Shia population in Iraq, let us not forget that Saddam was intent on minimizing them through various means. We know he gassed the Kurds in Nothern Iraq on at least one occasion, who knows what he may have done besides that. Oh, one last thing about medicine being blockaded. It wasn't. UN resolutions specifically allowed food, medicine and other survival items to be imported into Iraq, you remember the oil for food program perhaps? The Iraqi government tightly controlled who got what, and the Kurds and Shias were not very high on the list.....

[Darnoc]

OK, I'll give you right there, drowst. But you can agree with me that if the boycott never happened, those people wouldn't have died, because then they would have get enough medicine? I know this is not about the boycott in Iraq, but it is known that boycotting a nation never helps, only the poor are victims then while the rich still live like they did before.