Depleted Uranium Weapons Turning Iraq Into Nuclear Nightmare

I had a pdf document released under the freedom of info act that detailed all of the suppliers of DU in the US and requirements to become a supplier, unfortunately that c drive is toast, but basically the main purpose of most nuclear power stations in the usa is to provide military grade DU, i didn't like flying to begin with, plus where i live they have been doing their aerosol spray program 24x7, will someone send me some sams please! what right does a bankrupt nation/empire have to poison the entire world? crimes against humanity? weapons of mass destruction? Hang them all, those responsible and all of those people who did not speak out, all of those people who elected those people, who is really the axiss of evil? first 3 guesses do not count! The axis of evil is the country that is calling everyone else evil, they have more nukes than everyone else and have and do use them, witness the destruction of the syrian nuclear facility, a us stealth bomber took the nuke in with isreali cover, the whole thing is an insanity that needs to end or be ended, no one really knows how deep the insanity goes with these people, so deep that they would have done 911 to themselves to justify an excuse to further terrorize the world with their hegomoney, murder and greed.

Just imagine, if the US government can have such blatant disregard for the welfare of the men and women who volunteered their lives to support the country, what wouldn't they do one day to all those people who dare to protest and dissent on the home turf?
Something tells me there's more to worry about than detention camps. What ends would they go to to?
The possibility that they would use chemical and biological agents at home too doesn't seem nearly so remote as it once did.

reply to post by ANNED


In your first post you said that DU was definitely not a factor in GWS and related illnesses. That is not true. It is misinformation.

None of the stuff in your links eliminates its role and potential to cause harm. The known dangers of DU are well laid out in even your own links.

You gotta wonder why in the hell would anyone want to defend something so dangerous? Which branch of government are you receiving your paycheck from? Or is it a munitions manufacturer?

Excuse me, but isn't lead depleted uranium? So, it's not rocket science that we use lead in bullets, etc.

It appears that DU is not necessarily a big concern, and we need it to pierce armor.
www.commondreams.org...


[edit on 6-12-2008 by Jim Scott]

reply to post by AKARonco


Handling depleted Uranium is typically no problem; they emit very little gamma radiation, the rest of alpha and beta particular radiation which is easily stopped by a few centremetres of air and your skin. However, when a DU tank rod exits the barrel, it is a burning rod of Uranium 1.7 times heavier than lead, travelling faster than sound. Obviously when it hits something it smashes into very small peices, like dust.

The problem with dust is, it is easily absorbed into almost everything. If you eat, drink, or breathe in the dust, then it may be trapped in your system permanently. Obviously having slightly radioactive dust inside you forever is a thousand times worse than touching a tank round; that will do nothing. You touched one for a couple of seconds, the other is always there, radiating inside of you. Obviously if someone is loading ammunition as their job, on a battlefield, they are touching it, and breathing in the spent rounds, so obviously problems can arise.

Also, getting radioactive dust inside of you would probably not cause cancer, or any other problem. However, if it happens to a few thousand people, the rates of cancer among those WILL be statistically significant over a baseline who have not been exposed - thus DU could of accounted for many, even thousands of deaths, by now.

That's the problem. It is estimated that in 2006 there were 106,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in Australia. If we had DU dust scattered everywhere, that could rise dramatically, even double, or triple, accounting for the deaths of thousands. The % of the population getting cancer will still stay low, so no-body will notice all these people unnaturaly deing young, thus unfortunately nobody would care, or notice, the increased rates, then the Government can deny it - just like what is happening with Gulf War syndrome.

video.google.com...#

Unfortunately the people worst affected by DU are the natives in the land. Watch the video above, cancer rates in residents have sky rocketed in some areas. Unfortunately the west seldom hears about this.

reply to post by Jim Scott


No, depleted Uranium is Uranium, not lead. It is 1.7 times heavier than lead, and I think it ignites on impact, too. For all the wars the coalition have been in, it's all been against 3rd world nations with thirty plus year old tanks - depleted uranium may not be needed, yet causes a wide array of medical problems.

Do they use uranium munitions for training purposes, too? I hope not!

[edit on 6/12/2008 by C0bzz]

I find it hard to stomach that human beings elected blood-thirsty bastards like this. And then, stand by and let them commit such atrocities. It's technically a war against the human race, and we're losing.

I'm sure it'll all sink in when their own troops are told to carry out such acts against their own populations.

Depleted Uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years, meaning it releases approximately half it's radiation in that time. Therefore it poses only a small risk to health and in fact barely raises the background radiation level during a human life span.

It seems to me this is all fear mongering. Why aren't people more worried about the vast quantities of radioactive iodine and cobalt that is regularly dumped into the sea in barrels? This stuff is horribly dangerous compared to Uranium.

Anyone living on the white cliffs of dover are at a far greater risk of radiation exposure due to the radium trapped in the rocks with a half life of around 1600 years.

We demonise radiation far to much. Yes it's bad, but only in large doses. The depleted stuff has such a long half life that it won't even release a twentieth of it's radiation during your lifetime. Each year you absorb about 350 mrem of radiation from natural sources. For comparison a dental x-ray gives around 3 mrem.

This DU fear is not justified.

[edit on 6-12-2008 by ImaginaryReality1984]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Amazing, there is so much I want to say about your post - but I am actually at a loss for words.

DU no big deal? hmmmm...okay, why don't you get lots of it from the dust in Iraq and put it around your house and kids, then see if it becomes a "bigger' issue with you?

Originally posted by questioningall
reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

 

Amazing, there is so much I want to say about your post - but I am actually at a loss for words.

DU no big deal? hmmmm...okay, why don't you get lots of it from the dust in Iraq and put it around your house and kids, then see if it becomes a "bigger' issue with you?

Typical knee jerk, emotion filled response. Why don't you counter my arguement with peer reviewed science? Oh and i don't have kids, i would have no issue with having it placed around my house (and i don't say that flippantly).

Oh and the watch on my wrist has tritium inserts. These are radioactive. I notice you missed my points about radium and radon gas in the white cliffs of dover and medical x-rays.

I will state the obvious again. Dental x-rays to use an example give roughly 3 mrem of exposure, DU uranium has a half life of roughly 4.5 billion years. This means that hardly any of it's radiation gets released in the lifetime of a human being. I mean we're talking less than 1% of it's radiation released in a human beings lifetime.

Actually if you work it out and assume an average human lifetime is 80 years then DU uranium will release less than 0.05% of it's radiation during the average human lifespan.

First of all, there is absolutely nothing illegal about using spent uranium munitions. Siorry, but it is not against the rules of war, or any international treaty that either the US or Great Britain has ratified. Until and unless they should ratify such a treaty, there can be nothing illegal about using them.

Number 2, they pose no nuclear radiation threat at all, unless you ingest it, or somehow get it inside you body. Now if you decide to eat one of those bullets, well you deserve whatever happens to you.

Third, the "expert" you cite has absolutely no experience, training or specialization with depleted uranium. None at all, nada, nothing. he quite literally does not know what he is talking about, because he is so far outside of his field of specialization. Kind of like a psychologist trying to talk definitively about nuclear medicine.

The name says it all, it is "depleted", meaning it has lost most of its radioactivity. It is used because it is one of the most dense metals around, and will pierce most armor.

This is exactly the kind of alarmist crap that the environmental radicals love to spread. As usual, it has virtually no basis in actual fact.

reply to post by OldMedic


Okay, then explain please why our armed forces are sick so much and hundreds and thousands of them have died since the gulf war? Explain why our veterans have a large amount of deformed children. Please also explain the pictures that were proved in a previous post of children NOW in Iraq (not during Saddam's reign) are so deformed and have the most sickening problems from which they die immediately.

Please start explaining and giving me proof of "what" it is causing those things, before you disregard DU, in which many scientist and experts "say" are the cause.

Give me proof - otherwise - the PROOF is in for DU!

Can someone post some links to peer reviewed journals or recognised international bodies demonstrating the extreme negative effects of DU espoused in this thread?

The last report I read from the WHO, while certainly noting potential risks, wasn’t quite so damning and pointed more towards a need for further study.

www.who.int...
www.who.int...

Edit to add the following link from The Royal Society;

royalsociety.org...

While I haven't read the whole reports yet it does seem that, as with the WHO, the conclusion seems to be that further study is needed. However it also seems to suggest that there is little evidence for the extreme effects that have been mentioned in this thread.

[edit on 6-12-2008 by Mike_A]

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Look up the radiation exposure from a slab of natural or depleted uranium... roughly a few mrem/h... that's small, but poses a radiation hazard with time... the biggest worry would probably be the inhalation hazard from DU.

I guess im trying to tell you that the radiation hazard is not negligible.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


I guess you should look into the actual research being conducted. Some of it has already been documented on my thread, like from Cambridge. Its not the metal thats the risk, but the fine nano particles. The damage is profound, and already done. The real research is already very frightening.

consensus so far would be that because U2 has a very long 1/2 life, it might not be so dangerous as a block, b u t once it has been used in a bomb or artillery shell it explodes into very fine (nano) particles and that is when it becomes much more dangerous.
Whether as a result of being near the explosion at the time, or handling exposed material afterwards, the nano particles get inhaled in large quantities into the lungs and into the skin where they remain basically forever.
Their radioactivity and chemical toxicity are forever thereafter acting on the body.
That danger/harm is cumulative over time.
There is a suggestion that the small particles are carried in the winds worldwide. That is a real possibility that may require further study to prove conclusively. There is no doubt however that this is very risky stuff.
Why take a chance when we don't have to? By the time that irrefutable proof is available it may be too late to do anything about it.
Lots of people could already be dead, dying or sick. Trying to remove it from the environment once its out there is an extremely difficult task.

Originally posted by mystiq
I guess you should look into the actual research being conducted. Some of it has already been documented on my thread, like from Cambridge. Its not the metal thats the risk, but the fine nano particles. The damage is profound, and already done. The real research is already very frightening.

I have looked into the same research as you and yet i didn't come away deeply alarmed. Maybe that's because i don't look at the word 'radiation' and instantly panic. Right now this moment the background radiation is going through you. Nuclear power plants release small amounts of radioactive materials, x-rays dose people with small amounts, even some fire alarms have radioactive sources inside of them. Hell did you know that toilet paper manufacturers often use a small radioactive source to determine the paper thickness as they spool it?

The 4.5 billion year half life of uranium means that the radiological danger is minimal unless you are exposed to vast quantities. Even the research you have quoted says that. Various uranium salts are themselves dangerous if ingested or inhaled. Rather than the radiological danger though a lot can be said for simple heavy metal poisoning. This poisoning can happen from colloidal silver and gold and yep these are not banned.

On top of all this are other environmental factors. In places like India heavy metals have been found in wells. These aren't uranium salts they are things like lead, mercury and chromium. Proper, long term, evaluated studies need to be done ruling out all of these other things before we can start saying it's the DU.

Originally posted by porky1981
reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984

 

Look up the radiation exposure from a slab of natural or depleted uranium... roughly a few mrem/h... that's small, but poses a radiation hazard with time... the biggest worry would probably be the inhalation hazard from DU.

I guess im trying to tell you that the radiation hazard is not negligible.

Exactly, you could possibly sit in a tank made of DU for a lifetime without much ill effect, provided no particles came off it.

But if your DU tank is pierced by a DU shell, you're in deep doo.
Both the shell and the edges of the hole it makes will combust, and the inside of the tank will be full of vapourised DU which will be inhaled, and stay in the soldiers' bodies forever.

Once the DU is embedded in the body it's not only the radiation you have to contend with. Just as lead and mercury are chemically toxic to the body, so is DU. People pointing to its low radioactivity are (perhaps unintentionally) pulling a sleight of hand trick, encouraging you to look in a misleading direction. The combination of constant low radioactivity and chemical toxicity damaging the surrounding cells is dangerous.

reply to post by ImaginaryReality1984


Exactly what I was going to say. People see radiation and half-life and get all confused. Some seem to think that if something has a long half-life, like DU, then it is constantly emitting radiation for that period.

It's the things with really short half-lifes that are lethal, as for a given mass they will release far more radiation over a given time than something with a long half-life. The longer the half-life, the lower the radiation in any given period.

Things only release radiation WHEN they decay, so if an atom of DU takes 4.5 billion years on average to decay, then the radiation emitted is going to be negligable, inside or outside the body. If inhaled as dust, then you'll most likely get metal poisoning and not have any effects from the "radiation".

I'm more concerned with radon gas emitted by my Aunties house, which is made from granite, than I am DU.

reply to post by OldMedic


The UK primarily uses HESH rounds as they suit our guns better, although we do use some APFSDS rounds which do have a DU core.

But like I said, DU is hardly any more dangerous than lead or gold. If you ingest those in enough quantities though, you will die, but we don't have them banned do we? If you breath in lead or gold dust, then that would be dangerous, but not because of radioactivity but rather metal poisoning.

Originally posted by ImaginaryReality1984

Originally posted by mystiq
I guess you should look into the actual research being conducted. Some of it has already been documented on my thread, like from Cambridge. Its not the metal thats the risk, but the fine nano particles. The damage is profound, and already done. The real research is already very frightening.

I have looked into the same research as you and yet i didn't come away deeply alarmed. Maybe that's because i don't look at the word 'radiation' and instantly panic. Right now this moment the background radiation is going through you. Nuclear power plants release small amounts of radioactive materials, x-rays dose people with small amounts, even some fire alarms have radioactive sources inside of them. Hell did you know that toilet paper manufacturers often use a small radioactive source to determine the paper thickness as they spool it?

The 4.5 billion year half life of uranium means that the radiological danger is minimal unless you are exposed to vast quantities. Even the research you have quoted says that. Various uranium salts are themselves dangerous if ingested or inhaled. Rather than the radiological danger though a lot can be said for simple heavy metal poisoning. This poisoning can happen from colloidal silver and gold and yep these are not banned.

On top of all this are other environmental factors. In places like India heavy metals have been found in wells. These aren't uranium salts they are things like lead, mercury and chromium. Proper, long term, evaluated studies need to be done ruling out all of these other things before we can start saying it's the DU.

ImaginaryReality1984 stop saying the radiological danger is nil because of the long half life... that is not true. I just told you the dose rate from a slab of DU is 2-5 mrem/h... background is on the order of microrem/h.

reply to post by porky1981


That's a bit arbitrary. How big is this slab? Are you sitting on it, or are you some distance? You figures mean not much at all without any detail. As it stands, DU gives off only 60% of the radiation of naturally occuring Uranium, so quite how it is suddenly more dangerous is a mystery.