Depleted uranium is a very dense metal used in many civilian and military applications. DU is the metal left over once they have extracted the highly radioactive isotopes for use as radioactive fuel. While DU is less radioactive(aprox. 40% less than natural uranium), it still emits radiation that is dangerous to humans if it is ingested or enhaled. Primarily an alpha wave, and to a lesser extent beta wave emmiter, though it does emmit a very small amount of gamma waves. Alpha waves are blocked by the skin, betas are blocked by thick clothing or boots, gammas are only blocked by lead and other such shielding materials. Five hundred pounds of DU will emmit aprox 0.1 millirems. Note that all of these wave emmisions can be hazardous if inside the body.
Civilian use of DU is primarily twofold. The first is as shielding to protect us from other higher energy radioactive materials. The second is as stabalizing weights and ballasts in ships, docks, planes etc. Military uses are the same with the added use of armor penatration. Due to it's high density DU is ideal for armor piercing, which is why they tip the tank buster and bunker buster bombs with DU. To give you an idea, a chunk of DU the size of your ordinary red building brick weighs aprox. fifty pounds. This kind of high density combined with the high velocity of the missle means that even the thickest metal armor can be pierced.
But therein lies the problem also. When DU is shot at the end of a missle it becomes very hot, with added heat coming upon impact. Combine this with the force of the armor piercing and explosion and you have a lot of DU "cooking off" the round(this is best visualized as watching copper, aluminum and other pyrocolored metals cooking off of a sparkler when you light it).
The residue left behind by this process is still radioactive, and since it is a heavy metal it is also toxic like lead and tungsten. Through the forces brought to bear by first firing and then explosion, a great deal of the DU is converted to a radioactive toxic dust. In this dust form it is easily inhaled or ingested. If that happens to you, you're screwed. While it is possible to remove such dust, it is very difficult and very rarely 100% successful. What normally happens is that it is usually excreted, though it could remain in the body for years. Radioation sources in the body, even mild ones, are very hazardous if not deadly to all living things. Alpha wave which are blocked by the skin now have free reign to play havoc on either your intestines or lungs. Radiation sickness and cancer are your future.
Compounding this problem is the toxicity of DU. Once again, it is not a quick death, but a long lingering illness followed by possible cancers and death. Not pretty.
And yet DU is the military industrial complexes baby. All branches of the service(excluding the Coast Guard) tip a lot of missles with this stuff. It is believed that DU is responsible for(at least in part) Gulf War syndrome(which the goverenment officially poo-poos). We are possibly seeing the start of this scourge now in Gulf War II. There are many mysterious deaths and illnesses coming down the line, and once again the goverenment is stonewalling. And the horrors of DU are visiting Iraq. There are areas of Iraq that were rendered unihabitable during the first Gulf War, I'm sure there are more now.
While I don't know if DU is officially banned by any international agreements(I don't think it is), we should all work to removing this slow death monstrosity from our arsenal. Write you reps in Washington and let them know. You can also contact the following organizations for more information and activism.
<
http://www.cadu.org.uk/>
<
http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/>
<
http://www.ccnr.org/du_hague.html>
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(80 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
