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Dave Lindorff: Depleted Uranium -- Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 2:59pm.

Dave Lindorff

The horrors of the U.S. Agent Orange campaign in Vietnam, about which I wrote on October 15, could ultimately be dwarfed by the horrors of the depleted uranium weapons that the U.S. began using in the 1991 Gulf War (300 tons), and which it used much more extensively, and in more urban, populated areas, in the Iraq War and the now intensifying Afghanistan War.

Depleted uranium, despite its rather benign sounding name, is not depleted of radioactivity or toxicity. The term depleted refers to its being depleted of the U-235 isotope needed for fission reactions in nuclear reactors. The nuclear waster material from nuclear power plants, DU as it is known, is essentially composed of the uranium isotope U-238 as well as U-236 (a product of nuclear reactor fission, not found in nature), as well as other trace radioactive elements. It turns out to be an ideal metal for a number of weapons uses, and has been capitalized on by the Pentagon. 1.7 times heavier than lead, and much harder than steel, and with the added property of burning at a super-hot temperature, DU has proven to be an ideal penetrator for warheads that need to pierce thick armor or dense concrete bunkers made of reinforced concrete and steel. Accordingly it has found its way into 30 mm machine gun ammunition, especially that used by the A-10 Warthog ground-attack fighter planes used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as Kosovo). It is also the warhead of choice for Abrams tanks and is also reportedly used in GBU-28 and the later GBU-37 bunker buster bombs. DU is also used as ballast in cruise missiles, and thus burns up when they detonate their conventional explosives. Some cruise missiles are also designed to hit hardened targets and reportedly feature DU warheads, as does the AGM-130 air-to-ground missile, which carries a one-ton penetrating warhead.

While the Pentagon has continued to claim, against all scientific evidence, there is no hazard posed by depleted uranium, U.S. troops in Iraq have reportedly been instructed to avoid any sites where these weapons have been used -- destroyed Iraqi tanks, exploded bunkers. Suspiciously, international health officials have been prevented from doing medical studies of DU sites. A series of articles several years ago by the Christian Science Monitor described how reporters from that newspaper had visited such sites with Geiger-counters and had found them to be extremely "hot" with radioactivity. The big danger with DU is not as a metal, but after it has exploded and burned, when the particles of uranium oxide, which are just as radioactive as the pure isotopes, can be inhaled or ingested. Even the smallest particle of uranium is both deadly poisonous as a chemical, and can cause cancer.

There are reports of a dramatic increase in the incidence of deformed babies being born in the city of Fallujah, where DU weapons were in wide use during the November 2004 assault on that city by U.S. Marines.

But the real impact of the first heavy use of depleted uranium weaponry in populous urban environments will come over the years, as the toxic legacy of this latest American war crime begins to show up in rising numbers of cancers, birth defects, and other genetic disorders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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More Lies and Liars about Depleted Uranium

Submitted by Rhotel1 on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 10:26pm.

I see that Lindorff's lies have attracted all the lies and liars. DU was not used in Afghanistan, so the headline is blatantly false. DU probably never caused any dead babies in Iraq. That claim is one that Saddam Hussein made and the US/European peace activists just ate up. They know nothing about uranium (it is everywhere on earth and every reader of this posting has a very tiny minute quantity inside their body) or radiation, but they pretend that they are smart and thus know all about it. None of the claimed experts is an expert either. Doug Rokke is a notorious liar; he claims to have been a physicist who was hand picked out of his University of Illinois research lab to go solve the Army's DU problem in Saudi Arabia. Rokke was a stock room attendant (Physical Science Technician) at the University of Illinois when he was ordered to be a "filler" in the 12th Medical Detachment in Wisconsin when it was ordered to Saudi Arabia. After the war, Rokke, who had been attached to the Army's mainly civilian scientist led team that assessed DU contamination due to friendly fire, was temporarily made a "theater health physicist" so that the real experts could go home. Lieutenant Rokke was in no apparent hurry to go back to being a stock room attendant at $12/hr - Army pay in Saudi Arabia was even tax free, so he stayed until June 1991. That's significant because Rokke was not there anymore when the fires and explosions at a forward base in Kuwait happened on July 11th. No, Rokke never was at Camp Doha, he never went back to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iraq, he was back to being a civilian again on July 1, 1991 at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Rokke's military records will be posted (if not already so) at archive.org. Leuren Moret's employment records at Lawrence Livermore where she was basically a computer lab tech, but claims to have been a nuclear scientist, already are posted to archive.org. http://www.archive.org/details/LeurenKMoret-RealJobAtLawrenceLivermoreNationalLaboratory

Don't spread lies about depleted uranium, go ask genuine experts for the real scoop - www.hps.com - the Health Physics Society is an excellent place to start. These professionals know all about all kinds of radiation and how to protect people against it. Another good place to learn is www.depletedcranium.com or you can just write me, I don't bite, I don't even have any connection with depleted uranium beyond being a veteran who hates lies and liars, especially when they prey on soldiers and their families.

Some sobering thoughts . . .

Submitted by kathy2 on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 3:50pm.

Deleted Uranium was also used in the Balkans during the nineties--1995 in Serbia and 1999 in former Yugoslavia. DU weapons are comparable to dirt bombs, ironically. I don't mean to minimize the human suffering elements of what it's wrought overseas-- the deaths, infant deformities, and cancers, but there's a scary side as well for Americans. When you look at the destructiveness of our foreign policy and military aggression over the last eighteen years, the concern of what goes around could come around is quite realistic.

Regardless of some recent improvements, like the Iran negotiations on nuclear capacity and the apparent scrapping of the missile shield in Eastern Europe, there's still a pervasive intoxication with our sole superpower status and military might with very little change in top tier staffing among the state and defense departments from the Bush administration. For instance, there may have been concern expressed over the Afghan elections since it was undeniable that fraud took place, but it's doubtful that any planned troop increases are going to be rescinded in a major way. I'm just concerned that we're on a similar course as before militarily with some surface improvements and that ultimately, it could backfire on our very shores.

Some Even More Sobering Thoughts

Submitted by Rhotel1 on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 10:58pm.

Kathy2,

Your entire opening is false. DU never caused any harm to anyone in the Balkans and the UN Environment Programme Post Conflict Branch did three extensive field and laboratory scientific expeditions looking for just that. They found none. The last of the three reports is here "Depleted Uranium in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Postconflict Assessment" http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf

Some testing has been done in Iraq, but Saddam would not let UNEP in after the Gulf War and after the bomb blew up the UN compound and killed the foremost person in the world on how to put a country like Iraq back together again, it was not safe to send international scientific teams into the Iraqi desert then either. UNEP trained an all Iraqi team and it did similar work near Basra. It found no evidence of harm to humans or environment there either.

http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_DU.pdf

If you really care about the environment of Iraq, this UNEP report tells about the top threats -

http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_ESA.pdf

Mushroom Cloud in Disguise

Submitted by ernieson on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 8:35am.

Depleted Uranium is a form of the mushroom cloud used ever so cleverly with sinister ends. Its wide-ranging effects are just beginning to be realized. The deformed babies and cancer stricken people are shocking, but yet to be realized are the effects on the environment on which all life depends.

Sources on lethality of DU

Submitted by MrBadExample on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 8:47pm.

David--

more information to Google re links between atmospheric radiation and longterm genetic damage: Rosalie Bertell wrote NO IMMEDIATE DANGER several years ago, and has worked with Doug Rokke and others regarding the risks of radiation. Her estimate is that the planet has had the equivalent of 10,000 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons worth of waste put into the atmosphere since Trinity.

Also the British group Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (cnd.co.uk) maintains information on depleted uranium.

None of these are reliable sources

Submitted by Rhotel1 on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 11:16pm.

If you want to be a mythologist or propagandist, read these, if you want facts, these are not the place. Anybody who works with the con artist Douglas Lind Rokke, PhD, Vocational Education (not Physics, not Medicine), Major US Army Reserve (retired) (he's 60 this year and starts drawing an Army pay check - you would think he would be ashamed to lie and take that pay, but I can assure you he won't) is not on the level. Rokke claims that as an Army Reserve Captain on a 15 month tour of voluntary active duty he was the Army's DU Expert, the Director of the Army's DU Program. No one who knows anything about the Army would believe that; Captains are Company grade officers, Majors through Colonels are field grade officers and then there are Generals. Generals usually are Directors of Army-wide programs, not Captains, especially not Reserve Captains on a short tour of active duty. Rokke also claims to be a "warrior" when you go hear him in person or catch one of his many YouTube performances. They are "performances", he is an accomplished amateur actor and he has a very carefully crafted persona; he has been putting on the same show since 1999 and perhaps earlier. The first instance I found was where he was a guest in Cambridge, England, a nice place to be flown to with all expenses paid by others, of the anti-Iraq Sanctions student committee. The show has not changed much since. One person who I called asked if he were "dead" when I asked her about her having sponsored a visit, I told her no, but he has been claiming to be dying from the effects of the non-existent DU contamination since 1999. Back to the "warrior" claim, Rokke never saw combat; he did serve in some capacity in Vietnam as an Air Force avionics technician but he never saw combat; he also served during the Gulf War, but he was safe and sound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, not on the front lines with the "warriors". He lies, but his records tell the story and anyone can FOIA them and read them or they can read what I found. Write me, I will either send you the links or the files, your choice. DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com

More facts about DU

Submitted by Paul L. Allen on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 4:41pm.

You missed three properties that make DU a "desirable" munition:

It is self-sharpening. Alternatives such as tungsten mushroom on impact and therefore lose their penetrating power. This stuff is so "good," the US military boasted they could fire a shell through a sand dune at a tank and still penetrate it.
It is cheap. It's the waste product of getting the fissionable material. It's being stored in various countries until they can figure out a way of disposing of it where it will be safe billions of years. The half-life is 4.5 billion years, which means after 4.5 billion years only half of it has decayed; however the Sun will swell up and engulf the Earth in a few billion years, so the effective timescale it has to remain contained is a couple of billion years. Our best plans so far don't seem to keep it safe for more than a few thousand years. Our worst plans scatter it around the planet, contaminating everything.
The pyrophoric nature (it burns in air, igniting either as it leaves the barrel or upon impact) makes it an ideal weapon against tanks. When the shell enters a tank it burns intensely, incinerating the occupants (the military refers to the result as "crispy critters.") That's a big improvement on shaped-charge munitions that sliced a circle out of the tank wall and sent it hurtling around the tank like a buzz-saw - these days "reactive armour" and (cheaper) stand-off kevlar fibres detonate such charges a little early and they lose their effect. You can't stop DU penetrating and incinerating the occupants.

And you missed a few reasons why it it so incredibly bad:

Bush the slightly smarter used 300 tonnes in the Gulf War he lied the US into (like evil father, like evil son), and that gave rise to increases in birth defect and cancer rates of 7 to 12 times (rates vary depending upon the particular defect or cancer). The Pentagon doesn't release figures on the Gulf War that Bush the idiot lied the US into, except for the first two months of the war when they said 2,000 tonnes were used. Do the math.
Radioactive fallout decreases IQ. When the US, Russia and China set off many nuclear tests ahead of the test ban treaty, IQ in children born around that time dropped several points.
Much of the uranium oxide formed as the shell burns is in the form of nanoparticles. The dust storms in the Iraqi desert areas mean these get blown around the world, so we're all suffering the consequences. The UK's nuclear weapons designers (who also monitor radiation levels) tried to pass off an alert of increased radiation levels after such a dust storm as an accident at one of the UK's nuclear power plants (it would have to have been a very serious one) and the UK is well known for never admitting to even minor accidents until 20 or 30 years later, if ever.
Leuren Moret describes the eventual consequences of DU munitions continuing to be used as "omnicide" - the death of all life on the planet. Again, in the run-up to the test-ban treaty atlantic fish stocks declined by 50% because of fallout.

Google for "Leuren Moret" and "Doug Rokke" to learn more. If you have a very strong stomach, google for "iraq du birth defects images". You may even come across the image of the kid born with what appear to be "superhero" type gigantic protruding eyeballs, but it's not a good mutation conferring superpowers, or even a bad mutation conferring blindness: the kid was born with advanced cancers of his eyes.

Fiction Not Fact

Submitted by Rhotel1 on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 11:34pm.

Paul L Allen,

You sign your full name to make us think that you are so sure of yourself. I wonder if you are even a real person because I see that you have bought all of the Leuren Moret claims. So tell me, do you believe her false claim about the late Nobel Laureate, a much beloved UC Berkeley professor, Glenn T Seaborg, that he Dr Seaborg was so obsessed with the metal Plutonium that he had discovered that he carried a chunk of it in his pocket and constantly fondled it with his fingers. Moret then boldly triumphantly claims that Dr Seaborg's hands had turned to claws! Moret has made a lot of other false claims to. The foremost is that she is a "scientist" of some note; why you would think that she is a modern day Madame Curie, not someone with a basically unused BS in geology. Moret is the Environmental Commissioner of Berkeley, well not really, she was one of nine members of the Community Environmental Advisory Commission that met about two hours per month. She was even kicked off the commission for failure to attend enough meetings. Guess she was off globe trotting, spreading her lies about DU for pay and could not come back to Berkeley for the meetings. Learn more about Leuren, the "scientist" here http://www.archive.org/details/LeurenKMoret-RealJobAtLawrenceLivermoreNationalLaboratory

You're a bit late, Mr. Lindorff

Submitted by mike1001 on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 4:40pm.

DU has been in use since the 70's--Israel has it, too. Buzzflash needs to link to the pictures at www.dubroom.org. Lookat the pics---if you've got the stomach, and realize that this is the ULTIMATE arrogance of Empire----Nixon, KIssinger Cheney, Kaplan, McChrystal, Bush, AND Obama----and it's done IN OUR NAME!!!!!

DU Penetrators First Used in Gulf War

Submitted by Rhotel1 on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 11:22pm.

Con artist Doug Rokke claims DU was used by Israel in the 73 war. In reality, DU penetrators had not even been fielded to US forces in 73. They were developed in 70s but the first time that they ever were fired was in Desert Storm. The photos are fakes - they are photos of various birth defects, but they have nothing to do with DU. You can learn more about where some of the photos come from at www.depletedcranium.com . None of these claimed birth defects were found by any of the genuine international scientific investigators in the Balkans or Kuwait. Saddam would not allow them to come to Iraq and his propaganda machine pumped out the photos through shortly before his regime fell in 2003. They never gave up in their campaign to get the sanctions lifted and DU was at the heart of that campaign.

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