Room
for a View
Poisoning
the World by
Todd Paul
A
depleted uranium bullet
In May 1999, Chronogram reported that weapons tipped with deadly depleted
uranium were being used by the United States in Kosovo. At the time,
despite their previous use by the US in the Persian Gulf War, depleted
uranium (DU) weapons barely registered on the radar screen of the US
mass media.
Suddenly, in January 2001, the potential long-term danger of DU weapons
was forced on the public consciousness in this country by a series of
disputes in Europe. Some European soldiers who had served in Serbia
were reporting ill health effects, and while NATO denied having used
DU weapons, and refused to cooperate with a UN task force to uncover
possible environmental issues, the alarm continued to spread abroad,
finally overflowing into US media channels.
Depleted uranium is the highly toxic, radioactive byproduct of the uranium
enrichment process. It is 60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring
uranium, and has a half life of 4.5 billion years. The United States
has been creating depleted uranium for 50 years as a byproduct of its
nuclear weapons and fuel programs, and now has over a billion pounds
of DU waste material. Since the early 1970s, the US government has given
this radioactive waste for free to arms manufacturers and has even sent
it overseas to be used in the production of missiles and tank armor.
An extremely dense metal, DU armor can withstand a direct hit from a
conventional shell, while DU-tipped missiles and shells can easily pierce
conventional armor.
Desert Storm provided the first combat test conditions for DU weapons.
The US fired over a million rounds of DU ammunition during Desert Storm.
At the war’s end, some 300 tons of depleted uranium lay scattered
across Iraq and Kuwait. Depleted uranium exposure is suspected to be
a leading cause of the constellation of illnesses known as Gulf War
Syndrome.
When a DU projectile strikes a hard target, the heat of impact causes
the uranium to oxidize, or burn momentarily. This produces a radioactive
smoke that can be inhaled. That which does not oxidize shatters into
small particles that contaminate air, earth and water. Even in non-impact
situations, sustained proximity to DU-reinforced armor and munitions
results in a high dose of radioactivity. A DU-armored tank driver receives
a radiation dose in excess of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s
annual standard for public whole-body exposure for every month spent
in the tank. Tank drivers were not monitored for radioactive exposure
in the Persian Gulf War.
NATO fired about 40,000 rounds of armor-piercing depleted uranium ammunition
in the Balkans and Kosovo during military interventions in 1994-95 and
1999.
The American military has consistently denied any health or environmental
danger associated with depleted uranium. But according to a 1995 study
by the Army Environmental Policy Institute, “If DU enters the body,
it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The
risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological.”
A US Navy instruction manual states that teams involved in the recovery
of Tomahawk missiles which crash during testing must have radiological
protective clothing, gloves, respirators, and dosimeters.
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has called for an international
ban on DU weapons, the use of which he believes to represent a violation
of international laws.
For a comprehensive examination of depleted uranium weapons, read
Depleted Uranium:
How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with DU Weapons.
The book is available online at http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/mettoc.htm
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