Depleted Uranium: Enduring Risk

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/09/4428/

Depleted Uranium: Enduring Risk
by John W. Warnock

snip//

Depleted uranium (DU) is produced during the uranium enrichment process. The U-235 used to produce fuel for reactors generating electricity is removed, leaving the U-238 isotope. The material is extremely dense and increases the penetration ability of weapons; it is used to coat shells and warheads on missiles and bombs. On impact, the shell, with its uranium and traces of americium and plutonium, vaporizes and becomes very tiny particles of radioactive dust. When it is inhaled it can stay in the body, emitting radiation.

The DU used in U.S. weapons comes from the uranium mines in Saskatchewan.

In the 1991 Gulf war, DU was delivered almost exclusively with shells from tanks and ammunition used by aircraft. It is used in all armour-piercing ordnance. In the wars in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999, NATO allies added DU missiles and bunker busting bombs. Thousands of DU bombs and missiles have been used by U.S. forces in the Afghan and Iraq wars. A typical bunker bomb contains 1.5 tonnes of depleted uranium.

In August 2003 Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor used a Geiger counter to test several sites in Baghdad near where bunker-buster bombs and missiles had fallen. He found radiation readings that were between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal background radiation readings. DU weapons are still being extensively used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After the 1991 Gulf War, birth defects and leukemia rose dramatically in the areas around Basra where these weapons were used. By 2003, the U.S. Defense Department admitted that over 200,000 Gulf War veterans had filed for compensation for death, illness or disabilities.

The veterans refer to this as “Gulf War Syndrome.” In the first Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition suffered 148 deaths.

Since then 8,000 veterans of this war have experienced early death.

In 1996 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring that DU weapons were illegal “weapons of mass destruction.” In 2002, the U.N. Human Rights Convention passed a resolution urging a ban on the use of any DU weapons. We will have to wait to find out the impact of these weapons on the people of Afghanistan and the men and women in the U.S., Canadian and NATO armed forces.


Warnock is a Regina political economist and author. This is an extract from his forthcoming book Afghanistan: The Creation of a Failed State, to be published by Fernwood in 2008.

[peacebird]

1. In 1996 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring that DU weapons were illegal WMD

How is it legal for the US to keep using these weapons? It is obviously immoral, and unethical to put civilians at risk from the higher levels of radiation - not to mention our own soldiers.

But if the UN declared them ILLEGAL WMD then why isn't the UN sanctioning us?

Also - if over 200k of our gulf war troops filed for compensation - doesn't that mean VIRTUALLY ALL OF THEM? or at least a very hefty percentage?

[donsu]

2. maybe the UN is afraid of the neo cons - neo cons kill people

or rather, their hired henchmen kill people

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. This should not be forgotten

Very disturbing (very graphic) flash video here:

http://thereitis.org/linkto/depletedUranium.swf