Radioactive depleted uranium (DU) is 1.7 times heavier than lead. When a DU-tipped shell smashes at Mach II into a tank or armored personnel carrier it ignites and instantly burns its way through the heaviest armor. Then it burns alive the men inside.
The impact and ignition also vaporizes the depleted uranium, creating an aerosol of radioactive heavy-metal particles. These particles soar upwards with the heat column of the flaming tank. From there the radioactive dust can travel as far as 190 miles (300 kilometers) on the wind.
When inhaled or ingested, the depleted uranium particles cause chemical and radioactive damage to the bronchial tree, kidneys, liver and bones.
Cancer often results, and the effects include genetic damage.
The use of depleted uranium in the Desert Storm terror campaign has caused thousands of cancer cases among the civilian people of Iraq. The Gulf War Syndrome suffered by Gulf War veterans is due to their exposure to depleted uranium radiation, as well as other nasty chemical weapons and drugs of the U.S. military.
In addition, since the American/British terror campaign began, thousands of Iraqi babies have been born with birth defects. A U.S. Department of Veterans study of 251 Gulf war veteran’s families found that 67% had children with severe illnesses or birth defects.
Dante’s Inferno
Depleted uranium is a low-level radioactive waste left over from the making of nuclear bombs and reactor fuel. Depleted uranium bullets were invented by the U.S. military in the 1970s — designed specifically to destroy the heavily armored Russian T-72 tanks. When a DU round slams into armor and burns, it actually self-sharpens. Thus it can penetrate through inches of heavy armor in a flash.
It wasn’t until the Desert Storm terror campaign of 1991 that the U.S. military finally got their chance to try it out on people in war. The magic bullet punctured the armor of Iraq’s Soviet-made tanks like they were aluminum beer cans. Fired from an American tank or an A-10 Warthog aircraft, one round of depleted uranium could explode a T-72 into a mass of flames. Gleeful Americans called it “Dante’s Inferno.”
American gunners raved ecstatically over the power of their new weapon as Iraqi men died horribly in their metal coffins.
Poisoned aftermath
American and British forces fired 300-800 tons of radioactive depleted uranium all over the deserts of Kuwait and southern Iraq. The chemically toxic dust blew all over the region and into the lungs of unfortunate men, women and children. By now that carcinogenic dust has insinuated itself deeply into the water, the land, the plants and animals and people.
Depleted uranium, also known as the radioactive isotope U-238, doesn’t just dissolve or go away. It’s radioactivity has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. The genocidal United States military has permanently poisoned Kuwait, southern Iraq, Bosnia, the Kosovo highlands of Yugoslavia and much of the Yugoslavian Danube River basin — wherever DU fire was concentrated. In Iraq, cancer rates have quadrupled in areas of southern Iraq bombed by the American and British state terrorists. Cases of leukemia are starting to show up among people who served as NATO occupation forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. Expect more in the future.
After the Gulf “War” Iraqi doctors witnessed a sharp increase in cancer cases among Iraqi people. But depleted uranium is only one of the causes. The American military used the opportunity of war to experiment with a variety toxic chemical weapons — as they did in the Korean and Vietnam wars. As they did in the 1999 terror campaign against the Yugoslavian people.
As they will in future terror campaigns against overmatched armies and hapless civilian people.
Pentagon officials have been forced to admit that thousands of U.S. soldiers were “unnecessarily exposed” to depleted uranium radiation in the Gulf War. But of course they claim those exposures were “not medically significant.”
Since Nature does not take orders from the Pentagon, however, the Gulf War Syndrome affects one out of seven Gulf War veterans. By some estimates, more than 120,000 Gulf War veterans are chronically ill.
The Pentagon, unfortunately, has no respect for Nature. The power-drunk U.S. military brass enthusiastically insist that every future “battlefield” is going to be strewn with radioactive depleted uranium dust.
In the end, of course, Nature is going to teach the Pentagon who is boss.
Unfortunately the Pentagon brass are slow learners. Before they are finally defeated they are going to force a lot of people to die horrible deaths.
From
Rogue State
by William Blum:
In 1995, Iraqi health officials reported alarmingly high increases in rare and unknown diseases, primarily in children, and presented a study of this state of affairs to the United Nations. The increases occurred in leukemia, carcinoma, cancers of the lung and digestive system, late-term miscarriages, congenital diseases, and deformities in fetuses, such as anencephaly (absence of a brain), and fused fingers and toes, not unlike those found in the babies of Gulf War veterans.
The Austrian president of the International Yellow Cross, Dr. Siegwart Gunther, stated that there was one significant common denominator: the allies’ use of depleted uranium in the bombing of Iraq.
In Scotland as well, DU has been linked to a leukemia cluster around the Ministry of Defense firing range at Dundrennan, near the Solway Firth. Communities close to the range, where 7,000 shells have been tested since 1983, reportedly show the highest rate of childhood leukemia in the UK.
Depleted Uranium ammo fired in Yugoslavia and Bosnia
During the 1999 American/NATO terror campaign NATO pilots fired from 31,000 to 100,000 rounds of DU ammunition in Kosovo and all over the rest of Yugoslavia, including Montenegro. In 1995 at least 10,000 rounds of DU ammo were fired at the Serbian people of Bosnia as well.
Now some of the soldiers who served as occupation forces in Bosnia and Kosovo have died of leukemia. More will follow. But the ever-lying, venal mass-media in America ignore the fact that millions of civilian people live in those DU-polluted places. What about their fate? The corporate-capitalist mass-media could not care less.
The Gulf War Denial Syndrome
Depleted uranium is cheap to produce and its homicidal effectiveness makes it one of the most prized weapons in the U.S. military arsenal.
If the Pentagon were to admit to DU’s carcinogenic, gene-damaging effect on the human body, they would be overwhelmed with compensation and reparations claims. In addition, the cost of cleaning up the mess they created would be many billions of dollars. The estimated cost of cleaning up the now-off-limits 500-acre Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana is between $4 billion and $5 billion.
Over four times that amount of depleted uranium was spread all over Kuwait and Iraq — and over a much larger area.
You can bet the Pentagon brass are going to lie through their teeth about it.
“(The Pentagon’s) assertion that no Gulf War veterans could be ill from exposure to DU ... contradicts numerous pre- and postwar reports, some from the US Army itself.”
— Sen. Russell Feingold
(D) Wisconsin
September, 1998
Tons of poisonous Agent Orange from the Vietnam genocide still pollute Southeast Asia. Millions of deadly cluster bombs still lie all over Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. These American-made weapons still murder and maim hundreds of young men, women and children there every year.
The U.S. Government refuses to lift a finger to undo the appalling damage it has done to millions of people in these lands. It refuses even to acknowledge the problem.
Following this proud American tradition, the genocidal United States Corporate Mafia Government and their military henchmen are also denying the environmental and human destruction they have wrought in the Gulf and in the Balkans.
“I guess they are waiting until half of us are dead before they give in. My volunteering days are over.”
— Mark Panzera
Gulf War veteran
suffering from Gulf War Syndrome
See also:
American/British Terrorism of the Iraqi People
American/NATO Terrorism of the Yugoslavian People
Related sites
Depleted Uranium Watch — Stop NATO!
http://www.stopnato.org.uk/du-watch/
A comprehensive collection of articles and links covering every aspect of Depleted Uranium weapons — scientific, political, medical, environmental and social.
DEPLETED URANIUM EDUCATION PROJECT
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm
Index page for an extensive collection of reports and news releases.
Mounting evidence points to poisonous legacy of NATO’s depleted uranium munitions
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jan2001/uran-j26.shtml
“Growing evidence of the adverse health impact of DU munitions has consequences far beyond NATO’s armies. There are now numerous cases of Iraqi children being born with horrific deformities, and cases of childhood leukaemia have risen four-fold since the war in the Persian Gulf. Hospital wards in Baghdad and Basra are filled with Iraqi civilians, particularly children, facing certain death as a consequence of these diseases.
“As evidence begins to emerge in the Balkans for a similar rise in cancer illnesses, it is becoming plain that not only did NATO bombing destroy much of the essential means of life in those countries, but it has also deliberately poisoned their inhabitants.”
Depleted uranium responsible for cancer among Europe’s Balkan troops
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jan2001/uran-j09.shtml
Depleted uranium weapons used in Balkan War expected to cause thousands of fatal cancers
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/du-a05.shtml
Depleted Uranium: A Post-War Disaster For Environment And Health
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/dhap99f.html
An extensive report from the Dutch Laka Foundation, May 1999.
Discounted casualties — the human cost of depleted uranium
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html
Part of the Chugoku Shimbun (Hiroshima) newspaper site, this page has links to a wealth of English-language articles and photographs.
Metal of Dishonor:
Depleted Uranium – How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with DU Weapons
Authors include:
former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Dr. Michio Kaku, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Jay M. Gould, Dan Fahey, Sara Flounders, Manuel Pino and many others.
International Action Center,
1997, Second edition 1999; ISBN 0-9656916-0-8
From Leftbooks.com:
A devastating exposé of the Pentagon’s new weapons comprised of Depleted Uranium. This is the book you’ve heard about, but won’t see in most bookstores.
Now in it’s second printing you can read scientists, Gulf War veterans, leaders of environmental, anti-nuclear, anti-military and community movements discuss the connection of Depleted Uranium to Gulf War Syndrome and a new generation of radioactive conventional weapons.
Understand how the bizarre Pentagon recycling plans for nuclear waste creates a new global threat.
Metal of Dishonor:
Depleted Uranium – the Pentagon’s Secret Weapon
Video, 50 Minutes, VHS
Producer Ellen Andors
for Peoples Video Network
From Leftbooks.com:
The video takes you inside the burned out Iraqi tanks destroyed during the Gulf War, and into the hospitals where children are suffering from unknown diseases. It contains interviews with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Michio Kaku and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.
It covers the history of much of the nuclear cycle, from the thousands of exposures among the Marshall Islanders and the Atomic Veterans to the effects of mining on Native reservations in the United States. This video is a must see for an understanding of the true role of the Pentagon in the nuclear age.
This video is a must have for anyone who want to get the word out on the effects of the Pentagon’s new weapon Depleted Uranium.
Metal of Dishonor recently received notice at the Cinemabiente Film Festival in October ’99 in Turin, Italy. They called it “An in-depth analysis of the use of Depleted Uranium in the 1991 Gulf War.”
To Kill A Nation:
The Attack on Yugoslavia
by Michael Parenti
The Fire This Time:
U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf
by Ramsey Clark
Desert Slaughter:
The Imperialist War Against Iraq
by the Workers League
Rogue State:
A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
by William Blum
Derailing Democracy:
The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
by David McGowan
The Beast Reawakens
by Martin A. Lee
Hidden Agenda:
U.S./NATO Takeover of Yugoslavia
by Ramsey Clark, Nadja Tesich, Michel Chossudovsky, Slobodan Milosevic, numerous authors
NATO in the Balkans:
Voices of Opposition
by Ramsey Clark, Sean Gervasi, Nadja Tesich, Sara Flounders, Thomas Deichmann, Gary Wilson and Richard Becker
NATO TARGETS
(video)
produced by Gloria La Riva
Killing Hope:
U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
by William Blum
Body of Secrets:
Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency
by James Bamford
In 1962, U.S. military leaders had a top-secret plan for committing terrorist attacks on Americans in Miami and Washington D.C., while blaming Cuba. Codenamed “Operation Northwoods”, the plan was intended to provide the propaganda necessary to create popular support for an invasion of Cuba.
Western State Terrorism
Alexander George, editor; essays by Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Gerry O’Sullivan and others
Terrorizing the Neighborhood:
American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
by Noam Chomsky
Pressure Drop Press, 1991
Pirates and Emperors, Old and New:
International Terrorism in the Real World
by Noam Chomsky
Apocalypse 1945:
The Destruction of Dresden
by David Irving
The Sword and the Dollar:
Imperialism, Revolution and the Arms Race
by Michael Parenti
Against Empire
by Michael Parenti
What Uncle Sam Really Wants
by Noam Chomsky
The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media:
Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
by Norman Solomon
Inventing Reality:
The Politics of News Media
by Michael Parenti
War, Lies & Videotape:
How media monopoly stifles truth
edited by Lenora Foerstel; multiple authors
The Weapons of American State Terrorism
Depleted Uranium