Destroying Iraq with DU

The Americans are systematically destroying iraq with Depleted Uranium ammunition.

The country is systematically being made unhabitable and current and future generations will get sick, be deformed or will die from this.
These type of ammo are not only used by artillery and tanks but are also used by small armsfire on the resistance, making sure those who are wounded also later get sick and die from the radiation.

This radiation from millions and millions of tons of DU used so far since the second golf war will sink in the soil and contaminate the ground and water thus making it a hazardous living envirement for a very very longtime.
(This Du will only loose half its radioactivaty in 5 Billion years.)

Ironically the troops who are using the DU will get gulfsyndrome symptoms.But the real casuals ones are the iraqis themselves.
The only thing that will be there in 20 years time are a few deformed people,sand and oil.

Yes, the effect of the massive DU use by american troops is very similar to what happens when terrorists use a 'dirty' bomb...

Originally posted by motionknight
... since the second golf war ...

Who won that war?
Was it Arnold Palmer or that new kid?

Next time you make a statement, check your spelling and Post some Links!

Hey excuse me for breathing chuckyboy but i am dutch n so cut me some slack will ya!An about them links if you google on DU u will find enough info.
I think in this case links have too much of a MacDonalds reflection due to lazyness of typing two words on a search-engine that i want to avoid.

Here is some info for the members who are interested.

Uranium is "depleted" when most of the radioactive components have been removed, most commonly for use in reactors or atomic weapons. All that is left is simply a heavy metal, not altogether different from lead. Radioactivity still exists in DU, but in such small amounts that there would be no cause for concern unless it is ingested. DU is generally not harmful if merely handled, but when it explodes and burns it can be ingested by soldiers and civilians and this is where the problems start.

A cross section of a "DU" shell,



How many of the toxic, radioactive uranium munitions known as �depleted uranium� were shot into Iraq during the recent takeover? While the question has not been definitively answered, Nukewatch has compiled some noteworthy estimates:

• Scott Peterson reported in The Christian Science Monitor on May 15, 2003, that a U.S. Central Command spokesman told him the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft � the same planes that shot at the Iraqi Planning Ministry buildings � fired 300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to one, a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq. This estimate does not include DU fired from helicopters, Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.
  
  
• Larry Johnson, in the Aug. 4, 2003 Seattle Post Intelligencer, says that Pentagon and UN estimates show that U.S. and British forces used between 1,100 and 2,200 tons of uranium shells during attacks on Iraq in March and April, far more than the official government estimate of 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.
  
  
• Gulf War vet and DU researcher Dan Fahey says in an Oct. 2, 2003, Rolling Stone article by Hillary Johnson that 167 tons of DU was used in the U.S. takeover of Iraq. Johnson also reported that the DU was exploded, �not only in uninhabited deserts but in urban centers such as Baghdad � a city the size of Detroit. The weapons contained traces of plutonium and americium, which are far more radioactive than depleted uranium.�
  
  
• Jay Shaft of the Coalition For Free Thought In Media reported in May 2003 that 500 tons of DU were shot into Iraq. Shaft published an interview with a U.S. Special Operations Command Colonel who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Colonel said, �I am aware of at least 500 tons of DU munitions that were used by combined coalition forces. I also know that many cities were heavily bombarded with DU munitions.� source
  

More studies need to be done to get a true picture of how dangerous this stuff really is,

"Depleted uranium is more of a problem than we thought when it was developed. But it was developed according to standards and was thought through very carefully. It turned out, perhaps, to be wrong." -- Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President George Bush in 1991 Gulf War .

When a DU penetrator hits the armor of a tank or APC, it does partialy vaporize, and inhaling that would be unhealthy. Of course being inside that tank at the time would be pretty unhealthy too. Most DU rounds just hit the ground, of course, and remain intact.

The radiation in DU is about 40% lower than natural uranium ore. When it decays, it emits alpha particles, which cannot even penetrate a couple inches of air, and are stopped cold by a sheet of paper. Contrast with gamma rays (high energy electromagnetic radiation emitted by some radioactive decayers) which can penetrate through feet or meters of lead and are highly destructive to biological tissue.

When natural uranium ore is mined, no special protection is used by the workers, and the same goes for our troops who handle DU rounds and sit inside tanks protected with DU armor.

As a heavy metal, it's toxic if it's ingested, so it's not recommended to eat the stuff. But no more so than traditional lead bullets, which will also poison you if you eat them. I wonder why there has been no hue and cry for using lead bullets on the battlefield for the last few centuries. Fundamentally, the toxicity is the same for the two metals.

The U.N., E.U., Britain's Royal Society, and others have repeatedly investigated the effects of depleted uranium in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia as a result of its use in the wars that NATO and the U.S. have fought there. The results of all these studies are practically the same: essentially no adverse medical effects, even less than what might have been expected due to uranium's heavy metal character.

All of these studies are available online. The science is out there for those who are interested in "Denying Ignorance". But rather than googling 'DU', and having to sift through the masses of propaganda and pseudo science, I suggest you google 'DU myths' instead. It will save you a lot of time if you're searching for the truth about DU.

You have voted engineer for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have one more vote left for this month

A great and informative post on the DU subject engineer

In the 1991 Gulf War, at least 300 tons of DU were used on the battlefield Highway of Death in the south of Iraq (to the south of the city of Bashra at the Kuwaiti border). DU was also used elsewhere in Iraq, one example being Mosul in the Kurdish north. Until 1994, the Iraqi government had no idea about the use of radioactive weapons. The radiation emitted by DU is more than 99% alpha radiation and the rest gamma radiation. Geiger counters take measurements of gamma- and beta-radiation.

edit Do not simply copy and paste entire web pages. You should post a paragraph and then link to the source material. You should also add your views on the matter. Disregarding moderators asking you to adhere to these rules will subsequently result in warnings being applied for each infraction.

WOS

Source: www.motherearth.org...




[edit on 11-29-2004 by William One Sac]

Psychoses,that info of yours comes surely from a source related to the military and therefore is not objective.
Have you ever heard of the gulf-syndrome so many american soldiers had after the 1st gulfwar!It was ignored by the military as they always do when they dont want to face up to their responsibilty and another cover-up has been born.How many cover-ups in all kinds of areas does it take till you americans even get suspicious!!??

Ignorance is a bliss isnt it!?

Oh for the love of....


There have been several debates here on the subject of DU use. You can easily find them if you use the search function.

To help you along here are a few links which show that there is no conclusive proof that the use of DU rounds can cause the problems that you speak of:

LINK 1
LINK 2
LINK 3

A simple web search can turn up plenty more, but the bottom line is DU does not cause health problems. That is, unless you are on the receiving side of a DU round.

It's really elementary, my Dear Watson.

You see, DEPLETED Uranium is an alloyed mixture of Uranium, Isotope 238 and other metals such as titanium, for example.

Natural Uranium ore (pitchblende) from the ground/earth is a composition of primarily U238 (97%) and U235 (3%). This mixture is refined through various methods including gaseous diffusion and centripedal separation. In the end, what people want for BOMBS and REACTOR CORES is very high concentrations of the nasty fissile U235.

Thus, the excess U238 (almost entirely non-fissile, because it's more stable, and emits LESS radioactivity) is discarded as sludge and then combined into things like aircraft counterweights, tank armor and SHELL COMPONENTS for the famous DU Penetrators (mentioned in this thread).

But, heck, any terrorist with a little furnace, a neutron source and some time on their hands can:

-> Seperate / smelt the DU away from the alloyed mixture (not that hard, any decent metallurigcal engineer can construct a low cost project to do this),

and

-> Combine the U238 into forms and then bombard them with neutrons. This is the same thing that happens in a reactor such as a breeder reactor. However, when the U238 is bombarded with neutrons, it becomes (after a short mutation), our wonderful and deadly friend PLUTONIUM 239!

Yes, kids, just pick up about 100 spent penetrators (there are hundreds of thousands lying in the sand in Iraq), melt them, extract the U238 and submit it to a neutron source.

Voila! A very potent core for your next suitcase/backpack nuke. Then, you only need several pounds to produce a subcritical sphere, and then some plastic explosives, some beryllium to relfect neutrons (tamp), and then a nice electronic gadget to fire it simultaneously to ensure prompt criticality so that the fission doesn't blow the nuke apart before it smartly detonates and irradiates New York city!

Enjoy!

Originally posted by NextLevel
Natural Uranium ore (pitchblende) from the ground/earth is a composition of primarily U238 (97%) and U235 (3%). This mixture is refined through various methods including gaseous diffusion and centripedal separation. In the end, what people want for BOMBS and REACTOR CORES is very high concentrations of the nasty fissile U235.

This is incorrect. Natural ore has 0.7% U-235. 3% is LEU (fuel grade)

I admire all of your commits/ research/understanding in all of this, Wow, NextLevel, I won't sleep any better knowing now what you shared... Thanks for the truth however. I continue to be impressed by allot of members here on all forums. The more I read, I realize how little I know.