Is The Pentagon Giving Our Soldiers Cancer? -- Excellent -- MUST READ!

[Emillereid]

by Hillary Johnson



Rolling Stone; October 2, 2003



U.S. military might relies on depleted uranium, which incinerates tanks on impact. But soldiers and civilians alike say the radioactive ammo is making them sick.





THE WEAPONS OF WAR ARE QUIETLY CHANGING. The U.S. military's deadliest ammunition is now packed with depleted uranium -- radioactive waste left over from nuclear bombs and reactors. These so-called "hot rounds" penetrate armored tanks like a needle pierces burlap, vaporizing steel in hell-fires of 5,000 degrees Celsius. Unlike tungsten, the armor-piercing metal used since World War II that "mushrooms" when it hits a target, depleted uranium actually sharpens itself like a pencil as it bores into tanks. Flaming radioactive particles shear off in every direction on impact, igniting fuel tanks and whatever explosives the target might be carrying. With virtually no public oversight, radioactive weapons have replaced conventional weapons as the cornerstone of American military might. Whenever U.S. troops go to war, depleted uranium supplies the shock and awe.

In the annals of warfare, there has been nothing like DU, as it is often shorthanded. In both Iraq wars, and in Afghanistan, the U.S. military used depleted uranium to inflict enormous harm on the enemy while incurring almost none itself. During the first Gulf War, in 1991, "tank-killing" DU rounds brought Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard to its knees in only four days. Military experts estimate that at least 10,000 Iraqis were killed, compared with 147 Americans. In the corridors of the Pentagon, DU munitions quickly earned the nickname "silver bullet", and the Defense Department turned its attention to creating even faster, more powerful weapons systems fueled by depleted uranium. "We want to be able to strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and we want the target to be destroyed when we shoot at it," Col. James Naughton told reporters at a Pentagon briefing last March. "We don't want to see rounds bouncing off. We don't want to fight even. We want to be ahead. And DU gives us that advantage."

Five days after the briefing, U.S. forces launched the second war on Iraq. This time around, however, DU projectiles were exploded not only in uninhabited deserts but in urban centers such as Baghdad -- a city the size of Detroit. Stabilized in steel casings called "sabots", the shells were fired from airships, gunships, Abrams tanks and Bradley troop carriers, striking targets 1.5 miles away in a fraction of a second. The weapons contained traces of plutonium and americium, which are far more radioactive than depleted uranium.

The Pentagon insists that the weapons pose no threat to U.S. soldiers or to non-combatants. "DU is not any more dangerous than dirt," declares Naughton, who recently retired after years as director of Army munitions. But a broad consortium of scientists, environmentalists, and human-rights activists -- as well as thousands of U.S. soldiers who served in the Gulf in 1991 -- cite mounting evidence that depleted uranium will cause death and suffering among civilians and soldiers alike long after the war's end. DU projectiles spew clouds of microscopic dust particles into the atmosphere when they collide with their targets. These particles, lofted far from the battlefield on the wind, will emit low-level radiation for 4.5 billion years -- the age of the solar system itself. Some doctors fear that long-term exposure to such radiation could eventually prove as deadly as a blast from a nuclear bomb -- causing lung and bone cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma (a cancer of the immune system known in medical circles as the "white death").

"This is a war crime beyond comprehension," says Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician who has campaigned against nuclear weapons for years. "This is creating radioactive battlefields for the end of time."...

http://feedthefish.org/blog/materials/johnson.html

Excellent article -- pass this one on.

[DeathvadeR]

1. DU suks ass!!!!!

<http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html>

[quispquake]

2. Wow...

Extremely powerful! EVERYBODY should check this out...

BTW...DU Suks Ass has different meanings on this board :)

[enough]

3. Great article.

A really good one-stop introduction to the subject.

Thanks for the post.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. UK says it will phase out DU ammunition

The army is planning to end the use of depleted uranium tank rounds, the most controversial weapon in its armoury.

The depleted uranium rounds, which were used with great success by British armoured units in both Iraq wars and in the Kosovo campaign, are expected to be removed from service within six years and replaced with a new type of tank shell, which uses a different warhead.

<snip>

Despite the Government's insistence that depleted uranium is safe, it is now accepted by many defence chiefs that its use is increasingly politically unacceptable because of its perceived threat to health and the environment

<snip>

Towards the end of the war, the United Nations Environment Programme said that there was likely to be a risk of inhaling depleted uranium dust, with large doses of potentially dangerous radiation within 150 metres of buildings and vehicles being hit by American and British munitions.

UK to phase out DU ammunition

[Emillereid]

5. It was interesting that during the height of the invasion of Iraq

I read how the UK forces were required to wear their gas masks, not because of the possibility that Hussein would use WMDs, but in an effort to safeguard the British troops from DU.