Pentagon War Crimes: 250.000 Nagasaki Bombs in Iraq

"Arrows cost money,

dead cost nothing."

King Edward I of England (June 17, 1239 – July 7, 1307), popularly known as "Longshanks"
in the movie Braveheart

[edit on 1-7-2005 by yanchek]

DU isn't too well thought out. It doesn't consider that our troops might have to stick around the places it was used. Using it in a place we're occupying is kind of like #ting in your own drinking water.

Originally posted by Jeremiah_John
DU isn't too well thought out. It doesn't consider that our troops might have to stick around the places it was used. Using it in a place we're occupying is kind of like #ting in your own drinking water.

Maybe a better analogy would be "poisoning your own drinking water"?


Responding to another poster...
Who cares if they are "moving away from" using DU? The damage is done. Let's not forget the half life of Uranium.

uranium-234: half life = 244 thousand years
uranium-235: half life = 704 million years
uranium-238: half life = 4.5 billion years

What do you call genocide over 704 million years?

The U.S. is without any doubt, #1 in crimes against humanity.
*queue applause*

It's no surprise though. The U.S. was founded on genocidal tendencies, lest we forget the Native Americans.

Yes, Souljah, I am aware of that information. I read both sides of the track, so as to get both sides of the story.
Understand, I've been created by the 70's liberal fear-mongering machine to be skeptical, and I still tend to be that way today.

Why would a cruise missile need to be reinforced with DU? Or a bomb, even? Gee, they do have explosive power, but the deeper into the target the device is thrown, the more damage that is done to the target. The denser the material, the deeper the object. Yes, there is a very good reason for weapons other than anti-tank munnitions to be made with DU.

If, If, DU is as great a threat as some would lead us to believe (and I really don't think so. Remember how the liberals' screaming about the sky falling back in the 70's and 80's predisposing me to write off this kind of stuff as junk science?), then maybe some of you really smart folk come up with a heavy, dense but safe material to take its place.
Count me out of the figuring, I'm just smart enough to get sidetracked by shiny objects and big boobs. Throw a pizza into the works and I'm useless!

The idea someone else is looking for a better material then DU doesnt deal with the problem or then reason for it use. There are big companies, many owned by big oil, that mine and refine urainum. The very scale of DU use is way its mixed into weapons and armor, it a great product return for investment. The economic reasons for its use drive the ramp up of it. To be far, there is a large misunderstanding of the efffects of DU. The real threat is life long intake of it and thats happening in Iraq now. In my mind the use will only grow as Bush's war machine grows. You can fight about what weapons have it and what not but youll never know. Ive been in the army eight years as an NBC NCO and I have never been give the info needed to monitor DU or the threat to my soilders, why would the DOD ever give out that info? You can asume that the health of each soilder is taken into acount but history sure proves all of us wrong on that.

Souljah, do you realize the amount of radiation you would be talking about?
I assume you mean at the point of detonation of an a-bomb X 125,000? There would be thousands of rems of radiation, nothing would survive. Thats like using several neutron bombs. Souljah you should really think about what and where your posting your information.

Yes, it's very true. I have something you should look at:


Please be warned, graphic images.

Anatomy of an Atrocity

It's "depleted" folks - you can handle it all day long (and maybe wear a jockstrap made out of the stuff with no problems). As for eating/breathing it - any ingestion of heavy metals will cause bad things - google and see....

DU does however provide excellent battlefield protection and firepower and has been used as ballast in race cars and for keels on sailboats.

Originally posted by Loki
Anatomy of an Atrocity

Where did all the DU supporters go?

C'mon, those were just terrorist kids that would have been out there picking up all the DU to make into "fissible plutonium" anyway.

For those poor deluded folks still trying to claim that DU is not 'dangerous' here's a few quotes from my own posts on this board. Please wake the hell up. We are going to be killing Iraqi's for the next 4 1/2 billion years. I'd post some pictures from Iraqi Maternity wards, but it would make you guys sick and get me a warning for showing you what DU does aside from penetrating armor.

Originally posted by twitchy
4.5 billion years is a long time. Bearing in mind a top ranking US General has alread stated that we have no intentions of cleaning up the enormous amount of Depleted Uranium we showered Iraq with during both Gulf Wars, it looks like we are going to be killing the new democratic iraqi's for billions of years. If i were the new legislature there in iraq, my first ptriority would be burning the US military's arses over the radiating of their country. Was our overwhelming military not capable of winning over there without DU? We certainly were aware of the long term implications of its use. Not only do we need to wrry about the people it is killing now, DU can literally contaminate and alter the Human Gene Pool in the generations to come.

www.mindfully.org...
Two years before the invasion of Iraq, a report [Radiological toxicity of DU] commissioned by the World Health Organization warned that the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population would be damaged by the use of depleted uranium (DU) - radioactive waste from the nuclear industry which is used to harden missiles, shells and bullets and which slices through tank armor like a knife through butter. The WHO did not make the report public. Odd, that....
On detonation, DU armaments release a spray of radioactive dust that can be carried in the air over long distances and which, when inhaled, goes into the body and stays there. The dust remains radioactive for 4.5 billion years...
After retiring from the WHO, Baverstock leaked the report to the media earlier this year. It concluded that microscopic particles of DU would be blown around and inhaled by Iraqi civilians for years to come, and could trigger the growth of malignant tumors...Baverstock believes the WHO deliberately suppressed the report - probably under pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a more powerful UN body that promotes nuclear power.
Had the study had been published in November 2001, Baverstock believes there would have been more pressure on the Allies to limit their use of DU during the invasion of Iraq - and to clean up afterward. But it wasn't published. As a result, Iraq is now playing host to some 350 tons of DU fired in 1991, but also to more than 1,000 tons reportedly fired in 2003...
After the first Gulf war, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a colonel in the US Army Medical Corps, was put in charge of Nuclear Medicine Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He discovered unusual radiation levels in veterans and became convinced not only that DU was killing them, but also that it was causing changes in the human gene pool that would damage future generations. He found "considerable resistance" from the government to his work on DU and was asked to stop. He refused. Two months after writing to President Bill Clinton to request an inquiry into DU contamination, he was fired

Dr. Doug Rokke, a Vietnam veteran, forensic scientist and retired army major, was recalled from academia and sent to the Gulf as part of the army's Depleted Uranium Assessment team. "The US Army made me their expert," he says. "I went into the project with the total intent to ensure they could use uranium munitions in war, because I'm a warrior. What I saw as director of the project led me to one conclusion: uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity, and medical care must be provided for everyone" - those on the firing end and those on the receiving end.
Many in Rokke's Gulf team are now dead. He himself suffers from serious health problems including brain lesions and lung and kidney damage. When government doctors finally agreed to test him in November 1994, three-and-a-half years after he fell ill, while he was director of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, he was found to have 5,000 times the permissible level of radiation in his body - enough to light up a small village.
DU, he says, is the stuff of nightmares.

Originally posted by twitchy
The use of these weapons ahs to stop. First we had the Gulf War Syndrome, now soldiers in the Balkans are developing symptoms, and reports are comming out of Iraq that DU is far more deadly than we have been led to believe...
Some more on DU...
www.mindfully.org...
Warning Graphic Photos...
www.jacksonprogressive.com...

www.balkanpeace.org...
www.stopnato.org.uk...

Originally posted by twitchy

Depleted Uranium ammunition is only used by the M1 Abrams tanks' main guns.

Horse crap. Your entire post is poorly researched, undocumented, speculative, and pretty much bologna. The controversy exsists because DU is dangerous, it's radioactive, anyone who thinks it isn't, has a poor understanding of radiology.

The cover up is fiercesome... This page is a must read for anyone interested in DU.

www.heureka.clara.net...
Of the 40,000 British personnel who served in the Gulf, by the end of August 1999, only five had been screened by the MoD for DU contamination. British servicemen have suffered Gulf War Syndrome, but all they have met from the British government is a wall of secrecy. When files were obtained there was an attempted prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. Two Gulf War veterans had their homes raided by MoD police, computers seized. The purpose of the raid was to seize leaked documents that showed the MoD was aware of the effects of DU contamination and its connection to Gulf War Syndrome.

In the US 155,000 veterans of the Gulf War are sick, 36,000 are suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. The number who have died is unknown as the US government refuses to release the figures.

Asaf Durakovic served in the Gulf as a unit commander of a medical detachment. Later he was Professor of Nuclear and Medical Research, Chief of the Nuclear Medicine Service, a colonel in the US Army Medical Corps. Asaf Durakovic examined several veterans who had been contaminated. All the records have been lost, Asaf Durakovic has been fired.

The reason for all the secrecy and cover up as mentioned in the above article is because our use of DU is clearly a violation of international law.

www.icrc.org...
Legality under international humanitarian law of munitions containing depleted uranium
According to international humanitarian law — an explicit formulation appears in Article 36 of Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions, which is binding on 157 States — States are required to ensure that any new weapon, means or method of warfare does not contravene existing rules of international law. These rules prohibit weapons, means or methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, which have indiscriminate effects or which cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.

Apparently they can haul the crap around without any kind of warning to the general public either.

www.gzcenter.org...

Here's a great resource site for DU information...
www.thefourreasons.org...

[edit on 13-3-2005 by twitchy]

Originally posted by twitchy
Here's a guy who Uncle Sam hired to deal with exposure of our troops and equipment to depleted Uranium munitions... They treated him real nice.

www.commondreams.org...
Former Maj. Douglas Rokke, who was director of the Army's depleted uranium project...
Called to active duty in 1990, Rokke said, he was assigned to develop procedures for cleaning up uranium contamination after "they decided to use depleted uranium munitions" in the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

"They didn't tell anybody what they were doing. Why would they? Depleted uranium munitions are the ultimate weapon. Each round fired by an Abrams tank (represents) 10 pounds of solid uranium-238....
they found that uranium dust is so fine that it acts like a gas, seeping through the tiny pores of protective masks.

The United States blew up Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in Kuwait and on the Saudi Arabian border in the first gulf war, Rokke said. As a precaution, American personnel were inoculated before entering the field, but "we were told not to record it, and it's not in the soldiers' medical records."...
"It's like playing darts," he said, "except you're playing with 10 pounds of solid uranium and it catches fire immediately. You lose nearly 40 percent of the round in uranium dust. It contaminates air, water and soil for all eternity."

Rokke said an "infamous memo" from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on March 1, 1991, warned of the "impact on the environment" of depleted uranium rounds and suggested that they "may become politically unacceptable." Today he interprets the memo as "a direct order to lie."...
The memo from Los Alamos - where the first atomic bombs were developed and tested during World War II - prevented the military from acknowledging the danger of these munitions, Rokke said.

"The United States used 375 tons in Gulf War I," Rokke said. "My orders were to take care of U.S. casualties and vehicles" that had been hit by "friendly fire.'

"Myself and my team members started to get sick almost immediately. It started with respiratory problems, then rashes."

But the procedures developed by his team were never implemented, Rokke said, despite a military order of June 1991 to treat these personnel. Recalling a wounded friend who suffered tumors where uranium shrapnel had been left in his body, he said the authorities found "no compelling evidence" of a connection and refused to authorize removal of the shrapnel or special treatment.

In his own case, Rokke added, his body has six times the amount of uranium that usually requires medical care but has received no help or advice from the government....

300 tons is not little amount, and yet that is only figures from the first Gulf War, the latest figures are far more. Source? Your congress.
www.theorator.com...

Just like Flouride, they have found a way to dispose of toxic waste. The US is literally giving munitions manufacturers depelted uranium. Apparently with pretty damned poor oversight...

Cape Cod Times
June 5, 2004)
Army contractors found what they believe to be a 20-millimeter depleted uranium round last week.
The round, found at a groundwater cleanup area called Demolition Area 1, was due to be shipped yesterday to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland for further analysis.
While Army officials have long insisted depleted uranium was never fired on Camp Edwards, some Upper Cape base activists insist the military didn't always monitor the activities of defense contractors who improved and developed weapons.
Military and environmental officials yesterday were perplexed by the discovery.

And no, Depleted Uranium isn't just used in Tank shells, it is used in armor plating, artillery rounds, aircraft munitions, and even used as counter weights in some civilian aircraft.

www.globalresearch.ca...
The Army A-10 Thunderbolt II, nicknamed “the Warthog,” fired most of the depleted uranium munitions in the Gulf War, between 300 to 800 tons. The Abrams Tank, the Marines M-60, the U.S. F-16 and U.S. Apache helicopters have been fitted to fire DU munitions. Many cruise missiles contain DU balance weights.

Even bombs ahev been fitted with DU, for a good list of the munitions we have included DU in...
www.cursor.org...
While the US isn't the only one to use DU, most of the other countries of the world have had the common freaking decency to set a moratorium on it's usage. Until those moratoriums were in place though, DU usage was widespread.
Live in Australia?

Sydney Morning Herald
28 May 2001
Health tests for all exposed at Maralinga
The Australian Government will conduct a health study of Australian volunteers in the 1950s British nuclear tests after confirming up to eight tonnes of depleted uranium was blasted into the air during the trials.

Scotland?

Sunday Herald
11 April 2004
MoD survey on residual DU contamination at Dundrennan firing range disclosed
According to a leaked MoD survey, over 6500 DU rounds have been fired at the Dundrennan range, near Kirkcudbright over the last 22 years. The shells are meant to pass through shoreline target screens and drop more than two miles out to sea. However, of the DU rounds fired, 79 have broken up in flight, 10 have hit the ground and four hit the target gantry. Sometimes, fragments of malfunctioning DU rounds could be located on the ground and were removed, but others could not be recovered.

The US has studied the effects of DU, found it to be a terribly hazardous material, ignored, then supressed the information and used it anyway, but despite their efforts to concel it, the international communtiy has done a great deal of research into DU and it's effects.

www.politicalaffairs.net...
A study done in Germany in 2002 indicated that DU molecules can travel to different parts of the body, including to sperm and eggs damaging genes and increasing the risk of cancer. In the study, birth defects were also been blamed on the exposure of US soldiers to DU munitions during the first Gulf War.

As I said before, a top ranking US General has already stated thatw e have no intentions of cleaning up the DU we scattered through Iraq, which is bad enough, but what about the DU here at home?

www.globalresearch.ca...
The use of DU is not being covered up, but the health hazards have been. Gulf War Syndrome not only killed, maimed, and made soldiers sick, they brought it home. In a study of 251 Gulf War veterans’ families in Mississippi, 67 percent of their children were born without eyes, ears or a brain, had fused fingers, blood infections, respiratory problems or thyroid and other organ malformations.

The U.S. has manufactured and tested depleted uranium in 39 states. The cleanup bill — just for the depleted uranium — at the Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana would be $7.8 billion. The DU has not been cleaned up, but DOD has closed the area. Communities living near these test ranges will continue to be exposed and suffer health problems.

For 40 years, the Sierra Army Depot in Northern California has burned millions of tons of old munitions — including 20 times more DU than was used in the entire Gulf War. The radioactive smoke and ash, full of heavy metals, phosgene gas and dioxins, contaminated local communities as well as that of many Native Americans living downwind — especially the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation.

The health problems in those communities have been horrendous. The Sierra Army depot burned old munitions in open pits — and was the single largest contributor to air pollution in California — 17-23 percent. Norman Harry, former Pyramid Lake Tribal Chairman, and Nevada Senator Harry Reid, worked with others to shut it down. A month ago, Lassen County refused to renew the burn permit for the Sierra Army Depot — finally

Here's a quote for you from one of our own...

www.wagingpeace.org...
AFP asked Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore lab, if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb. “That's exactly what they are,” Falk said. “They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way.”

And we have known about DU since the 40's...

www.wagingpeace.org...
While the Pentagon officially denies the dangers of DU weapons, since at least 1943 the military has been aware of the extreme toxicity of uranium dispersed as a gas. A declassified memo written by James B. Conant and two other physicists working on the U.S. nuclear project during the Second World War, and sent to Brig. Gen. L.R. Groves on October 30, 1943, provides the evidence:

“As a gas warfare instrument the [radioactive] material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs,” the 1943 memo reads. “In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulation in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty.”

The use of radioactive materials “as a terrain contaminant” to “deny terrain to either side except at the expense of exposing personnel to harmful radiations” is also discussed in the Groves memo of 1943.

Originally posted by twitchy
Terrain Contaminants as weapons? Yup... Well, ten years from now when we have our next big wave of 'mysterious illnesses' from war zones, and if they ever get around to admitting that DU is serious problem, don't let them tell you they didn't know the risks or dangers, they actually made plans to weaponize it as early as 1943. The weaponization of terrain and air contaminants were specificly studied by the Manhattan Project.
Like I said before, we are going to be killing the new democratic Iraqi's for billions of years now.

www.mindfully.org...
Inclosed [sic] is a summary of the report written by Drs. James B. Conant, Chairman, A. H. Compton, and H. C. Urey, comprising a Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee on the "Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon." It is recommended that a decision be obtained from competent authority authorizing additional work pertaining to the use of radioactive materials in order that this country may be ready to use such materials or be ready to defend itself against the use of such materials. The following program is recommended:

a. Immediate formation of a research and study group at the University of Chicago under supervision of the present Area Engineer. Assignment to this group of competent individuals now working on dust and liquid disseminating munitions and field testing of chemical warfare agents from the National Defense Research Council....
As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty

All that worrying about dirty bombs, while we fire round after round of dirty bullets... Hypocrisy is an understatement here, but it fits.

www.lightparty.com...
Described as the Trojan Horse of nuclear war, depleted uranium is the weapon that keeps killing. The half-life of Uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years, the age of the earth. And, as Uranium-238 decays into daughter radioactive products, in four steps before turning into lead, it continues to release more radiation at each step. There is no way to turn it off, and there is no way to clean it up. It meets the US Government's own definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

After forming microscopic and submicroscopic insoluble Uranium oxide particles on the battlefield, they remain suspended in air and travel around the earth as a radioactive component of atmospheric dust, contaminating the environment, indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing disease in all living things where rain, snow and moisture remove it from the atmosphere. Global radioactive contamination from atmospheric testing was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs, and still contaminates the atmosphere and lower orbital space today. The amount of low level radioactive pollution from depleted uranium released since 1991, is many times more (deposited internally in the body), than was released from atmospheric testing fallout.

We aren't as careful with this stuff as you might think we are either...
www.viequeslibre.addr.com...

Originally posted by twitchy
I know alot of you right wingers don't like my usual sources, so how's Reuters? Depleted Uranium is an abomination folks, most civilized countries have banned it's use because of what it inflicts on civilian populations. Here's a damned good example of what I'm talking about...

www.alertnet.org...
BAGHDAD, 27 April (IRIN) - Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have reported a significant increase in deformities among newborn babies.

Health officials and scientists said this could be due to radiation passed through mothers following years of conflict in the country.

The most affected regions are in the south of the country, particularly Basra and Najaf, according to experts. Weaponry used during the Gulf war in 1991 contained depleted uranium, which could be a primary source for the increase, scientists in Baghdad said.

Graphic Image on Infowars
We are not only doing this to them now, we will be doing this for the next 4 1/2 billioin years, because we had some faulty intelligence... Boy, there's an understatement.

Originally posted by twitchy
Here's another piece of the issue you won't see on prime time news casts. Also I wish to emphasize that the US has studied radiation and it's use for making terrain uninhabitable.

www.truthout.org...
Horror Of USA's Depleted Uranium in Iraq Threatens World
By James Denver
Vive le Canada

Friday 29 April 2005

American Use Of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die."
"I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."

The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.

Originally posted by twitchy

Originally posted by evanfitz
"DU munitions (in the form of tank and naval artillery rounds) are also deployed by the armed forces of the UK, Israel, France, Japan, China, Russia, Pakistan, and many more. DU rounds are manufactured in 18 countries."

Apparently many countries are involved in this silent killer.

en.wikipedia.org...


DU is very new to me, i've heard bits of it before, but never really seen its full potential.

I am not aware of any country except the United States that hasn't joined the international moratorium on depleted uranium weapons. Google the term "European Parliament demands moratorium for depleted uranium weapons". To the best of my knowlege we are the only nation which continues to use these weapons, and the really sad thing is that we are completely aware of the effects.

Here's some more terms to google while your at it...
"Chromosome aberrations found in Gulf and Balkans Wars' veterans"
"NRC denies petition against use of depleted uranium munitions"
"UN Subcommission condemns DU weapons"
"Depleted Uranium in Urine of Soldiers"

And the stupendous "U.S. DOD Briefing on Depleted Uranium Weapons: No Health Risk" right before "Bill requiring suspension of depleted uranium munitions introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives"

www.antenna.nl...
www.antenna.nl...
www.antenna.nl...
www.antenna.nl...
www.antenna.nl...

Dig Around, the information is out there, but it isn't likely to make the six o'clock news, you have to find it...
www.google.com...

Edit:
Maybe I was wrong about the US being the only country using them...

www.converge.org.nz...
France, the United Kingdom and the United States all firmly rejected removing the munitions from alliance arsenals, despite pleas from Italy, Germany, Greece and Norway. US officials said a moratorium would be perceived as an admission of guilt that could later be exploited to pin allegations of war crimes on allied leaders (William Drozdiak, Washington Post, 11 Jan).

Originally posted by twitchy
Finally, somebody is introducing a bill that will help to deal with this crisis, just a guess but watch this bill shrivel up and die pretty quick the cost of cleaning up DU is something that has already been studied, and according to a top ranking US General, we have no plans to clean up DU in Iraq. Also as I have alread mentioned in this post, to acknowlege the dangers of DU is to open a whole new can of American Hypocrisy to the rest of the world. One can only hope pride will step aside long enough to at least make some kind of effort to clean this crap up over there. Deformed babies is not a nice legacy to leave behind to a people you "freed" from tyranny.

www.iconoclast-texas.com...
Depleted Uranium Bill Introduced into Congress
The Lone Star Iconoclast

01 June Issue

Washington, DC - Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), a medical doctor, on May 17 introduced legislation with 21 original co-sponsors in the House of Representatives that calls for medical and scientific studies on the health and environmental impacts from the U.S. Military's use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in combat zones, including Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls for cleanup and mitigation of sites in the U.S. contaminated by DU.

"The need is urgent and imperative for full, fair and impartial studies," McDermott said. "We may be endangering the health and lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. All we've gotten so far from the Pentagon are assurances. We need facts backed by science. We don't have that today."

Because of its density, the military uses DU as a protective shield around tanks, and in munitions like armor piercing bullets and tank shells. DU tends to spontaneously ignite upon impact, disintegrating into a micro-fine residue that hangs suspended in the air where it can be inhaled and falls to the ground to leach into the soil.

DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process; it is chemically toxic. and DU has low-level radioactivity. About 300 metric tons of DU munitions were fired during the first Gulf War, and about half that amount has been used to date in the Iraq War.

"I've been concerned about DU since veterans of the first Gulf War began to experience unexplained illnesses, commonly called 'Gulf War Syndrome' that remain mysterious," McDermott said.

Originally posted by twitchy
Realmedia file video regarding DU featuring Rokke himself. Great stuff if your interested. This guy isn't some kook, he's the man Uncle Sam hired to study DU. Well worth watching. Nevermind the soundtrack lol.

images.indymedia.org...

Some quotes for you dial up ATS'ers...

"anybody that wrote about it, the pentagon would come down on them like a ton of bricks."
"To clean it up would cost about 200 billion dollars"
"Depleted Uranium Casualties..."
"Find Doug Rokke and tell him to clean up the DU mess..."
"One Geiger Counter to Clean up the mess..."
"The oxides that are formed are so small, so fine that they are going to create a nightmare..."
"We were going to shoot up Somalia with DU..."
"The health and environmenatl effects have been known since 1943."
"In violation of the International Environmental Protection Act"
"In 1943, a letter was sent to General Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project, telling him to fine grind, to prepare uranium and radioactive materials to contaminate air water and soil to stop the war in europe and in the far east. Deliberate use of radioactive materials to contaminate air water and soil... It's all here, all in the document..."

Best quote of all...
"They told me to lie."

Suprise, Brown and Root shows up in yet another War Profiteering Scandal.

Jesus...

Originally posted by twitchy
Alrighty then let's take this one at a time here..

Originally posted by PeanutButterJellyTime
If DU was so harmful there would be all kinds of PPE (personal protective equipment) required to handle it

I take it you were allowed to read this document then?

64.233.187.104...:XnWpikPGJbgJ:134.11.61.26... pleted+uranium+reads+cpm+geiger+counter&hl=en

Just the DU from a Plane Crash is pretty serious contamination. In Canada and from the Pentagon 'Object'....

us.altnews.com.au...
"A 747 may contain as much as 1,500 kilograms 3,300 lbs. of the material," the Canadian Press reported. It took 60 firefighters and 20 trucks about three hours to control the fire.

Fowler said: "there is no threat or concern" about DU exposure to those working on the wreckage.

"Thatâ??s baloney," Marion Fulk, a retired staff scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, told American Free Press. Fulk, 83, is currently researching how low-level ionizing radiation causes cancer, birth defects and a host of other health problems. Burning depleted uranium creates a "whole mess of oxides," Fulk said, "which is what makes it so wicked biologically."

In 1988, American physicist Robert L. Parker wrote that in the worst-case scenario, the crash of a Boeing 747 could affect the health of 250,000 people through exposure to uranium oxide particles. "Extended tests by the Navy and NASA showed that the temperature of the fireball in a plane crash can reach 1,200 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures are high enough to cause very rapid oxidation of depleted uranium," he wrote.

"Large pieces of uranium will oxidize rapidly and will sustain slow combustion when heated in air to temperatures of about 500 degrees Celsius," Paul Lowenstein, technical director and vice-president of Nuclear Metals Inc., the company that has supplied DU to Boeing, wrote in a 1993 article.

Originally posted by PeanutButterJellyTime
Your hand is more radioactive than DU. That is simple scientific fact.

I find this particularly disturbing given that you are one of the guys acutally handling this stuff. No Offense but that is some serious not knowing. I sincerely hope this is your own speculation and not something they told you because here's the reality.

www.stopthenato.org...
Rokke and his crew were measuring significant levels
of radiation up to 50 meters away from affected tanks:
up to 300 millirems an hour in beta and gamma
radiation, and alpha radiation from the thousands to
the millions in counts per minute (CPM) on a Geiger
counter....
Within 72 hours of their inspections, Rokke and his
crew started getting sick.

But they continued with their work. They went back to
the U.S. to perform tests on Army bases. They
deliberately blew up tanks with DU rounds, then ran
over and jumped on the tanks while they were still
burning. They videotaped the uranium-oxide clouds
pouring out, and they measured the radiation being
thrown off.

In the past decade, Rokke said 30 men out of 100 who
were closely involved in these operations dropped
dead.

Rokke's lungs and kidneys are damaged. He believes
that uranium oxide dust is permanently trapped inside
his lungs. He has lesions on his brain, pustules on
his skin. He suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. He
has reactive airway disease, which means he can't stop
wheezing and coughing, and experiences a loss of
breath when he exercises. He also has fibromyalgia, a
condition that causes chronic pain in his muscles,
ligaments and tendons.

The VA tested Rokke for uranium levels in his body in
1994. He got the results back two and a half years
later. His urine had 5000 times the amount of
permissible uranium....
The problem with DU, he said, is the stuff that's
given off when a round is fired. The projectile begins
burning immediately, and up to 70 percent of it
oxidizes. This aerosolized power—uranium oxide—is the
really dangerous stuff, Rokke said, particularly when
it is inhaled.

Rokke insists that he and his men were wearing
protective equipment—or equipment they thought would
protect them. But their face masks were capable of
straining out particles of 10 microns or larger.
That's as big as the DU particles get, according to
the Army and the Pentagon.

Rokke, however, insists that he has measured particles
as small as .3 microns, and that scientists at the
Livermore laboratories have measured them as small as
.1 micron.

www.disasternews.net...
Dated March 1, 1991, the memo was written by Lt. Col. M.V. Ziehmn at the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico.

"There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of dU [sic] on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of du on the battlefield, du rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal," the memo reads. "If du penetrators proved their worth during our recent combat activities, then we should assure their future existence (until something better is developed) through Service/DoD proponency. If proponency is not garnered, it is possible that we stand to lose a valuable combat capability. I believe we should keep this sensitive issue at mind when after action reports [sic] are written."

The meaning of this memo is quite clear, Rokke said. Since DU munitions are so effective, they must continue to be used in combat, regardless of the environmental or health consequences.

Here's what the UN says...

indypgh.org...
According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts.

Here's what the UK Atomic Energy Authority had to say...

indypgh.org...
In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert.

If you plan to have kids and have been handling that crap, you might want to have yourself tested by a civilian doctor... Seriously.

www.sundayherald.com... or
indypgh.org...
The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.

A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers.

Well if the Army won't educate you on how to safely handle DU, you can always turn tot he provate sector for information. For your sake...
extranet.urmc.rochester.edu...

And yes it oxidzes and pulverizes into a fine dust, as fine a 1 micron... BREATHABLE...

www.nuclearpress.com...
Breathing Uranium Oxides: Global Medical Crisis of Depleted Uranium

Also since you handle this yourself, you may want to look into this site...
DEPLETED URANIUM: SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL REFERENCES
INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR INFORMATION SYSTEM (INIS)
Database of the International Atomic Energy Agency
www.iaea.org...

Sorry about the edit earlier, I clicked the wrong button and lost about twenty minutes of typing...

Originally posted by PeanutButterJellyTime
DU doesn't turn into dust on impact either.

Yes it does. It is burning, "oxidizing" the moment it leaves the barrel and up to 70% of the round is dispersed as fine particulate through the air and on impact.

For the particles formed when a DU penetrator impacts on armour plate, a larger fraction, about 25%, dissolves quickly. Other tests have shown that in both situations, the particles consist mostly of two uranium oxides (U3O8, with some UO2) both of which are relatively insoluble. Experiments carried out on industrial forms of these oxides indicate a long-term dissolution rate in the lungs of the order of 0.1% per day.

It really is frustrating to go through all this posting and research and then somebody comes along and tries to say DU is as radioactive as your hand.
There are Congressional Reports available, tons of research published by a variety of sources raning from international entities to our own Government and Military Commissioned Studies. There are memos, letters, retractions, you name it. Read, for god's sake and apparetnly your own sake, read the truth about DU before you accept what Sgt. So and So tells you.

WHOOO HOOO
YEAH HA...
We just got rid of 2000 TONS of nuke waste AND killed a bunch of those middle easterners all in one stroke... HOW COOL!

YIKES... sorry... I was momentarily possessed by a neocon... I don't know where that came from...
however... I am sure it was the driving factor for the people who decided to violate national law and authorize the use of this armament...

great post twitchy... If you were a woman... I would KISS YA....
great thread Souljah... I really am liking your new avatar... much improved image...

I used to rock hunt in New Mexico, Utah and Nevada... I have since been informed by MANY scientific and government people that is a bad idea due to nuclear contamination... (even park rangers know this)

New Mexico, Utah and Nevada have many missile and bombing grounds. The dust spreads for hundreds of miles...

dugway proving ground In Utah has been so contaminated that they had to force buy much of the surrounding property due to the leakover of dangerous substances. They are having to buy gold mines that will never be used or mined, just bombed... talk about a waste of money...

I have a great idea... when the international courts decide to force restitution to the "enemys" that we have toxified, lets pay them with radioactive contaminated gold...
oops sorry... that damn neocon demon again...

mining for radioactive gold...

Originally posted by twitchy
For those poor deluded folks still trying to claim that DU is not 'dangerous' here's a few quotes from my own posts on this board.

"You have voted twitchy for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month."

God damn!

Now that's what I call droping the nuke.

Atomski sa leve!

Cheers.

This is fantastic news people!

We have a lot of nuclear waste scattered around the planet that will take thousands, millions or even billions of years to cease radioactivity.

But not to fret. All we have to do is put the word depleted in front of it and it magically loses all radioactivity!

Since when is using DU against the law? Just about every modern country uses DU for their military in one way or another, its not illegal.
DU is only dangerous when its burnt at high temperatures and when its particles and spores are released, if you happen to be in that area when that happens well tough luck.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Since when is using DU against the law? Just about every modern country uses DU for their military in one way or another, its not illegal.
DU is only dangerous when its burnt at high temperatures and when its particles and spores are released, if you happen to be in that area when that happens well tough luck.

Er, you're talking about our own troops. They are the ones fighting and occupying battlefields where DU is used. "Hey, call in the close air support but ask them not to use DU rounds, ok?" Don't think so.

A few questions and points here.
With the numbers which Souljah and his source article is stating, Every gieger counter in the world would be sounding the alarm when anywhere near Iraq. It would be visable even from orbit so even the various satellites owned by all the various goverments, The International SpaceStation, would all be able to confirm such a radioactive source such as the article is purporting Iraq to be.
Also, Since coalition forces are in close contact with this ammunition, where is the medical evidence. Note, radiation leave a very detectable damage to the body and to it's genes so any doctor (including the non-military) would have been able to have ID'd the markers. Where is this evidence?
If the rad count was as high as is being reported? Where is the geiger counter readings? Anybody can make one much less than buy one? If there were truth to the article then all these anti war parties would have been plastering this info in every media all over the world.
I am not saying that UD is not dangerous, but simple understanding of some basic principals need to be taken here. this bullet that was examined was found to have been between 5-11 microsivert per hour. What the article fails to inform the reader is what the time length of exposure would be before it would be dangerous. Instantly, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1000's of years? This is a question that is not answered.
The photo show that was linked to this thread was gory but it does not show medical proof that this damage was from UD only shows gory sensational pixs. For all the evidence that it shows, it coould have come from a compilation of deformities from around the world caused by numerous medical issues.
Sorry, even the evidence that DJ provided, does not go to prove Souldjah's contention.

Lets take a closer look folks. Depleted Uranium. The words alone sound scarey. But the key word is depleted.

Depleted Uranium is basically lead. Heavy lead. It is about as toxic as dirt.
But, I think we can all agree, that Lead in the dirt is neither healthy or wanted.

So, if we shot thousands of lead rounds with Lead dust in the air, how much health hazard do we have?

DU is used in the following: Medical shields to prevent radiation. Counterweights in aircraft. Armor, and of course rounds.

Read what the World Health Organization has to say:

www.who.int...

search1.who.int... G.y=0

We cant just ride the wave of ignorance in terms of actual applications.
Read and learn. It appears there is nothing conclusive, and that the danger is minimal at best.

Peace

Lets take a closer look folks. Depleted Uranium. The words alone sound scarey. But the key word is depleted.

Depleted Uranium is basically lead. Heavy lead. It is about as toxic as dirt.
But, I think we can all agree, that Lead in the dirt is neither healthy or wanted.

So, if we shot thousands of lead rounds with Lead dust in the air, how much health hazard do we have?

DU is used in the following: Medical shields to prevent radiation. Counterweights in aircraft. Armor, and of course rounds.

Read what the World Health Organization has to say:

www.who.int...



We cant just ride the wave of ignorance in terms of actual applications.
Read and learn. It appears there is nothing conclusive, and that the danger is minimal at best.

Peace

It really breaks my heart to see my countrymen so ready to ignore the threat that DU poses to humans worldwide.

There is NO safe level of radiation. ALL radiation is dangerous to humans. Cancer in Iraq is up 1000% since the first gulf war.

GULF WAR SYNDROME!

It has all the earmarks of Radiation Poisoning, but it's easier to play off if it's called 'Gulf War Syndrome'.

Our country is knowingly and willingly destroying not only other humans, but poisoning the very earth we walk on. How can you all stand idly by, and deny the facts?

Having served in Iraq during the Gulf War, and being exposed to DU rounds on a near daily basis for 2 months, I have no Gulf War Syndrome.
Must be a genetic thing?

Btw, I and my wife had two sets of X-rays done last week.
Not glowing in the dark yet.

Still eating that food cooked in the microwave?





seekerof

[edit on 3-7-2005 by Seekerof]