[Spanky]

<b>Radioactive Wounds of War</b><br /> <br /> Gerard Matthew thought he was lucky. He returned from his Iraq tour a year and a half ago alive and in one piece. But after the New York State National Guardsman got home, he learned that a bunkmate, Sgt. Ray Ramos, and a group of N.Y. Guard members from another unit had accepted an offer by the New York Daily News and reporter Juan Gonzalez to be tested for depleted uranium (DU) contamination, and had tested positive.<br /> <br /> Matthew, 31, decided that since he’d spent much of his time in Iraq lugging around DU-damaged equipment, he’d better get tested too. It turned out he was the most contaminated of them all.<br /> <br /> Matthew immediately urged his wife to get an ultrasound check of their unborn baby. They discovered the fetus had a condition common to those with radioactive exposure: atypical syndactyly. The right hand had only two digits.<br /> <br /> SNIP<br /> <br /> One way or another, the Pentagon will pay a price. “DU is a war crime. It’s that simple,” Rokke says. “Once you’ve scattered all this stuff around, and then refuse to clean it up, you’ve committed a war crime.”<br /> <br /> More at:<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298">Wounds of War</A>

[Spanky]

Interview with Major Doug Rokke (US Army Ret.) on depleted uranium.<br /> <br /> <i><b>Army Major speaks out about illegal weapons genocide.</b><br /> <br /> Major Rokke talks about the criminal use of depleted uranium weapons and the senseless slaughter of both Iraqis and Americans. This is not the crime of the crime, this is the crime of all time.<br></i><br /> <br /> Downloadable MP3s of the interview available at following link (interview starts after the music intro).<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmithInterviewsRokke.html">Rokke Interview</a><br /> <br /> From the transcript of an address by Rokke to the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, Nov 10, 2000:<br /> <br /> <i>......Upon our return to the United States our team continued to recommend immediate medical care for DU exposures. I described DU hazards and exposures and once more recommended immediate medical care during an Occupational Medicine conference held during February 1992 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The Government Accounting Office based on reports issued recommendations for medical care, environmental remediation, and training during January 1993. On June 8, 1993, the Deputy Secretary of Defense ordered then Secretary of the Army Togo West to quote "complete medical testing of personnel exposed to DU contamination during the Persian Gulf War". During August 1993, then Brigadier General Eric Shinseki signed the order on behalf of the Army. This order, in most cases, is still disobeyed without any accountability. A Headquarters, Department of the Army memorandum dated October 14, 1993 specified DU exposures that required medical screening and care. Although these directives and Army regulations require medical screening care for those exposed to uranium contamination, representatives of the Department of Defense and Veterans affairs continue to deny or delay medical screening and care. Today, affected individuals include military personnel from all nations that were involved, civilian non-combatants; and even residents of Vieques, Puerto Rico; Okinawa; Tennessee, Kentucky, Kosovo, Serbia, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The wartime and now peacetime decision that you could just shoot solid rods of uranium 238 (DU) anywhere without providing medical care for all exposed persons and without cleaning it up is a crime against God and the citizens of the world.</i><br /> <br /> <a href="http://sftimes.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$61">Rokke Address</a>

[Spanky]

If you're like me when you mention the issues surrounding the war crimes being committed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the supposed forces of liberation discharging depleted uranium into their environments, you might have heard the excuse, "but depleted uranium has a long half life, and it only emits alpha particles, so it is not really that dangerous. Alpha particles can't penetrate clothing or even the surface layer of dead skin on a human body, so there's no need to get concerned over depleted uranium being a radiological health hazard."<br /> <br /> Of course that overlooks the fact that if after exploding and burning, the DU is sucked into the lungs it can pass from the lungs into the bloodstream and irradiate the internal organs, bone marrow etc. and in that case even alpha radiation can damage the cells. It also overlooks the fact that depleted uranium is a chemical/heavy metal toxin and has harmful effects on the DNA independent of the effects caused by radiation.<br /> <br /> However, I recently found out the depleted uranium particles from exploded weaponry will generally emit beta and gamma radiation as well, and not just the relatively week alpha particles. That's because as the U238 (main component of DU and an alpha particle emitter) decays, two daughter elements are created, Thorium Th-234 which in turn decays into Protactinium Pa-234 and they are both beta and gamma radiation emitters. If you start off with a sample of pure U-238, within 6 months the Th-234 and Pa-234 content of the sample will be in equilibrium (i.e. the same amounts of Th and Pa are being created as are radioactively decaying) and the total amount of radiation emitted will be 3 times what was emitted by pure U-238 and will be comprised of alpha, beta and gamma radiation. So next time anyone try to tell you, "It's not a big deal, it's only alpa particles," you'll know better.<br /> <br /> <i><B>Contamination of Persian Gulf War Veterans and Others by Depleted Uranium</b><br /> <br /> by Leonard A. Dietz<br /> <br /> The U-238 decay chain is broken during the chemical reduction of uranium hexafluoride into DU metal and is broken again during the melting and processing of the metal into a penetrator. To determine the maximum time it takes to regain equilibrium in the partial decay chain, we assume a solid sample of uranium that initially contains only the U-238 isotope, i.e. no decay progeny. Using Bateman's equations, (Ref. 13), we calculate the growth of Th-234 and Pa-234 activities as a function of elapsed time in weeks. The results are given in Table II.<br /> <br /> Table II. Radioactivity (disintegrations/second) in 1 gram of U-238 with no decay progeny initially present.<br /> <br /> Half lives used:<br /> U-238 = 4.47e9 years<br /> Th-234 = 24.10 days<br /> Pa-234 = 1.17 minutes, 6.69 hours (two decay states)<br /> U-234 = 2.46e5 years (Ref. 14).<br /> Scientific notation is used, i.e. 2.46e5 =246000.<br><br /> Weeks U-238 ---> Th-234 ---> Pa-234 ---> U-234<br><br /> <br /> (Contents of table snipped because it's hard to get the formatting right. Click on the link below to view the table)<br /> <br /> After 25 weeks, Th-234 and Pa-234 have reached 99.4% of the decay rate of U-238 and for practical purposes have reached secular equilibrium with U-238, their parent isotope. Secular equilibrium means that the decay progeny of U-238 are being replaced at the same rate they are decaying; after 25 weeks all three isotopes are decaying at approximately the same rate. This is a maximum time; in reality, equilibrium will be reached much faster, since these two isotopes can never be separated totally from U-238. The isotope U-238 emits alpha particles and also emits some gamma rays. Its decay progeny Th-234 and Pa-234 each emit beta particles and gamma rays. An alpha particle is a fast helium atom with its two electrons removed, a beta particle is a high-speed electron and a gamma ray is like an X-ray.<br /> <br /> From this analysis we conclude that in a solid sample of DU, six months at most after manufacture of a DU penetrator, or DU armor for a tank, or DU particles in a person's body, substantial additional radiation in the form of beta particles and gamma rays always will be present. In fact, most of the penetrating gamma radiation and all of the penetrating beta radiation from DU comes, not from uranium, but from the decay progeny of U-238 (Ref. 15). In a year, only one-thousandth of a gram (1 milligram or mg) of DU generates more than a billion alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. The U.S. Army has investigated the generation of DU aerosols in armored vehicles hit by DU cannon rounds. Their investigators report "...that personnel inside DU struck vehicles could receive a dose in the `tens of milligrams' range due to inhalation" (Ref. 16). This exposure results in an acute dose of uranium.</i><br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.wise-uranium.org/dgvd.html">Dietz - Contamination by DU</a><br /> <br /> <i>While uranium-238 is minimally radioactive, its decay products - Thorium 234 and Protactinium 234 - are beta particle emitters with half-lives about 20 days and one minute respectively (Pa 234 decays to Uranium 234, which has a half-life of hundreds of millennia, and this isotope does not build to equilibrium concentration for a very long time). When the two first isotopes in the decay chain reach their (tiny) equilibrium concentrations, <b>a sample of initially pure uranium-238 will emit three times the radiation due to uranium-238 itself, and most of this will be beta radiation.</b> (emphasis mine /spanky) After all the beta radiation is almost over, the by-product of uranium-238 would be (Pb) lead.</i><br /> <br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U238">U-238, Wikipedia.com</a><br /> <br /> <i><b>Depleted Uranium, Facts and Fictions from the Uranium Medical Research Centre </B><a href="www.umrc.net">www.umrc.net</a><br /> <br /> Fiction: Alpha particles can't penetrate clothes and skin.<br /> <br /> Fact: This statement ignores the most prevalent and dangerous pathway for uranium to get into the human body. Inhaled uranium can remain in the lungs and bones for years where it continues to emit alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Each alpha particle can traverse up to several hundred cells causing somatic and genetic alterations. Multiply this by billions of such particles and a huge amount of cellular damage becomes possible. The majority (50-70%) of the airborne DU particles sampled during the testing of 105 mm DU projectiles were in the respirable range and capable of reaching the non-ciliated bronchial tree. Studies also indicate that the half-time in the lungs is up to 5 years.<br /> <br /> Soluble DU compounds have rapid access to the bloodstream with consequent toxic effects on the target organs and the bone where it is incorporated. Mass spectrometry results of deceased Canadian veteran, Captain Terry Riordon, confirmed that depleted uranium was present in his bone. From there it can compromise the immune system and affect the stem cells that travel throughout the body thereby affecting many other organs. Soldiers inside a tank or armoured vehicle can inhale tens of milligrams of DU after the shell goes through the tank. Compare this to the maximum allowable yearly dose in the U.S. for inhaled uranium is 1.2 milligrams per year. </i><br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.umrc.net/facts_and_fictions.aspx">DU Facts and Fictions</a><br /> <br /> And as a final note to any Canadian Armed Forces personnel who might read this, if you are ever on ops or exercises somewhere and have to hitch a ride with the Yanks, and they offer you an ammo box for a seat, it might be best to decline and remain standing. It could save you some unnecessary radiation up the bunghole.<br /> <br /> <i>Soldiers who served in Bradley fighting vehicles, where it was common to sit on ammunition boxes where depleted uranium ammunition was stored, are now reporting that many have rectal cancer.</i><br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MOR20040708&articleId=709">Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War</a>

[FootPrints]

Great post Spanky. <br /> And the world leader's close their eyes, as usual. <br /> It's not like it's their families that will be affected by it, so expect nothing to be done. <br /> <br /> Oh, I'm sure we can expect an apology ten to twenty years from now. <br /> A few payouts once most of the families are long passed away anyway.<br /> <br /> It sucks when we realize we are nothing but dirt...and always have been.

[Milton]

Yes, very informative post Spanky. Keep 'em coming, eh! <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/smile.gif' alt='Smile'>

[Spanky]

Thanks Footprints and Milton.<br /> <br /> Please forward the links far and wide. Especially to any Armed Forces personnel that you might know. Now that Canada's top general apparently is a wannabe George Patton in the <a href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html">war on terror</a>, it's likely Canadian troops are going to be placed in situations where they're encountering depleted uranium on an increasingly frequent basis, and it's not like the military/industrial complex (the same one that Eisenhower warned us to look out for) is not still doing its level best every day to find new and creative ways to use the stuff. <br /> <br /> There is a lot of it laying around the uranium processing facilities and they have to get rid of it somehow. I guess they figure putting it in a bomb or missile and dispersing it over the countryside in someone elses backyard where the bogeyman du jour is allegedly hanging out is as good a way as any. They're mostly all poor, heathen, brown people anyway who will bear the brunt of it. Not good, God fearing, Jesus loving, Christian white folks (aside from a few troops of course, but as the Agent Orang and Purple incidents show, they are expendable too).<br /> <br /> [QUOTE]U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf may be armed with radioactive bombs and missiles hundreds of times more potent than similar weapons used during the Gulf War and the U.N. military campaign in Bosnia.<br /> <br /> As evidence that the United States is expanding its use of depleted uranium weapons beyond the relatively small 30-millimeter to 120-millimeter armor-piercing bullets and shells used by tanks and tank-killer aircraft in the Gulf and Balkans, weapons watchdogs cite the so-called "bunker-buster" bombs and missiles unleashed on Afghanistan.<br /> <br /> The Pentagon has not confirmed the use of uranium or depleted uranium in the bunker-busters, and it has refused to identify the composition of the dense-metal warheads that enable the missiles to penetrate structures deeply buried under earth, steel and reinforced concrete.<br /> <br /> But critics such as British researcher Dai Williams contend that only uranium -- in one form or another -- possesses the density and other characteristics necessary to achieve the penetration levels attributed to such weapons as the 2,000-pound AGM 130C air-to-ground cruise missile, and the guided bomb unit, or GBU, series of laser-guided hard-target penetrators intended to pierce bunkers and other reinforced structures.<br /> <br /> Williams and others also claim that patents covering conversion or modification of earlier generation bombs for use as bunker-busters indicate that depleted uranium is being used in these weapons. [/QUOTE]<br /> <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,57959,00.html">www.wired.com</a><br />

[Spanky]

A new university study validates the concerns expressed by Dr. Fasy (see first post in this thread) about depleted uranium's ability to bind to and damage DNA are valid.<br /> <br /> <br /> <b>Uranium’s Effect On DNA Established</b><br /> <br /> The use of depleted uranium in munitions and weaponry is likely to come under intense scrutiny now that new research that found that uranium can bind to human DNA. The finding will likely have far-reaching implications for returned soldiers, civilians living in what were once war-zones and people who might live near uranium mines or processing facilities.<br /> <br /> Uranium - when manifested as a radioactive metal - has profound and debilitating effects on human DNA. These radioactive effects have been well understood for decades, but there has been considerable debate and little agreement concerning the possible health risks associated with low-grade uranium ore (yellowcake) and depleted uranium.<br /> <br /> Now however, Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns has established that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations, triggering a whole slew of protein replication errors, some of which can lead to various cancers. Stearns' research, published in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis, confirms what many have suspected for some time - that uranium can damage DNA as a heavy metal, independently of its radioactive properties. "Essentially, if you get a heavy metal stuck on DNA, you can get a mutation," Stearns explained. While other heavy metals are known to bind to DNA, Stearns and her team were the first to identify this characteristic with uranium.<br /> <br /> <A href="http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060307010324data_trunc_sys.shtml">Uranium's Effect on DNA</A><br />

[Dr Caleb]

Nasty stuff. The effects are far worse than just the heavy metal poisoning I'd assume you'd get.<br /> <br /> Keep 'em coming Spanky!<br /> <br />

[Diogenes]

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james43.htmLUNG CANCER EPIDEMIC FROM DU HAS BEGUN IN U.S. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.<br /> April 6, 2006<br /> NewsWithViews.com<br /> <br /> In the year 2005 there were 175,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States. The months of January and February of 2006 have already yielded 172,000 new cases of lung cancer in our nation. What has lead to this shocking new development

[Perturbed]

<a href="http://http://pnews.org/ArT/FrE/DeaTHStar.shtml">here</a><br /> <br /> DU Contaminates Europe<br /> <br /> by Leuren Moret <br /> <br /> "Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War II result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK," reported the Sunday Times Online (February 19, 2006) in a shocking scientific study authored by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan.<br /> <br /> The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia; of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, and the "Shock & Awe" bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003.<br /> <br /> Out of concern for the public, the official British government air monitoring facility, known as the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), at Aldermaston, was established years ago to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.<br /> <br /> The British government facility (AWE) was taken over 3 years ago by Halliburton, which refused at first to release air monitoring data to Dr. Busby, as required by law.<br /> <br /> An international expert on low level radiation, Busby serves as an official advisor on several British government committees, and co-authored an independent report on low level radiation with 45 scientists, the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), for the European Parliament. He was able to get Aldermaston air monitoring data from Halliburton /AWE by filing a Freedom of Information request using a new British law which became effective January 1, 2005; but the data for 2003 was missing. He obtained the 2003 data from the Defence Procurement Agency.<br /> <br /> The fact that the air monitoring data was circulated by Halliburton/ AWE to the Defence Procurement Agency, implies that it was considered to be relevant, and that Dr. Busby was stonewalled because Halliburton/ AWE clearly recognized that it was a serious enough matter to justify a government interpretation of the results, and official decisions had to be made about what the data would show and its political implications for the military.<br /> <br /> In a similar circumstance, in 1992, Major Doug Rokke, the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Cleanup Project after Gulf War I, was ordered by a U.S. Army General officer to write a no-bid contract "Depleted Uranium, Contaminated Equipment, and Facilities Recovery Plan Outline" for the procedures for cleaning up Kuwait, including depleted uranium, for Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton.<br /> <br /> The contract/proposal was passed through Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, to the Emirate of Kuwait, who considered the terms and then hired KBR for the cleanup.<br /> <br /> Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities throughout Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric radiation levels, transported by atmospheric sand and dust storms, or air currents, from radiation sources in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.<br /> <br /> After the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003, very fine particles of depleted uranium were captured with larger sand and dust particles in filters in Britain.<br /> <br /> These particles traveled in 7-9 days from Iraqi battlefields as far as 2400 miles away.<br /> <br /> The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003 campaign, and at one of the 5 monitoring locations, the levels twice required an official alert to the British Environment Agency. In addition to depleted uranium data gathered in previous studies on Kosovo and Bosnia by Dr. Busby, the Aldermaston air monitoring data provided a continuous record of depleted uranium levels in Britain from the other recent wars.<br /> <br /> Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided irrefutable documented evidence that the US has unethically and illegally used depleted uranium munitions on cities and other civilian populations.<br /> <br /> These military actions are in direct violation of not only the international conventions, but also violate US military law because the US is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol. <br /> <br /> Depleted uranium weaponry meets the definition of a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in two out of three categories under US Code TITLE 50, CHAPTER 40 Sec. 2302.<br /> <br /> After action mandates have also been violated such as US Army Regulation AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278 which requires treatment of radiation poisoning for all casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians, and remediation.<br /> <br /> Dr. Busby's request for this data through Halliburton from AWE, and subsequently provided by the Defence Procurement Agency, was necessary to establish verification of Iraq's 2003 depleted uranium levels in the atmosphere.<br /> <br /> These facts demonstrate why Halliburton (AWE) refused to release the 2003 data to him, and it obviously establishes that weaponized depleted uranium is an indiscriminate weapon being distributed all over the world in a very short period of time, immediately after its use.<br /> <br /> The recent documentary film BEYOND TREASON details the horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on American troops and Iraqi civilians in the Gulf region in 1991; not to speak of those civilians continuing to live in permanently contaminated and thus uninhabitable regions.<br /> <br /> Global increases since 1991 of melanoma, infant mortality, and frog die-offs can only be explained by an environmental contaminant. Alarming global increases in diabetes, with high correlation to depleted uranium wars in Iraq, Bosnia/Kosovo, and Afghanistan, demonstrate that diabetes is a sensitive indicator and a rapid response to internal depleted uranium exposure. <br /> <br /> Americans in 2003 reported visiting Iraqi relatives in Baghdad who were suffering from an epidemic of diabetes.<br /> <br /> After returning to the US following 2-3 weeks in Iraq, they discovered within a few months that they too had diabetes.<br /> <br /> Japanese human shields and journalists who worked in Iraq during the 2003 war are sick and now have symptoms typical of depleted uranium exposure.<br /> <br /> Likewise, after the US Navy, several years ago, moved depleted uranium bombing and gunnery ranges from Vieques Island in Puerto Rico to Australia, health effects there are already being reported.<br /> <br /> The documentary film BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, has an interview with a family with two normal teenage daughters, living near the bombing range where depleted uranium weaponry is now being used.<br /> <br /> The parents showed photos of their baby born recently with severe birth defects. The baby looked like Iraqi deformed babies, and like many of the Iraqi babies, died 5 days after birth.<br /> <br /> Other than anonymous British government officials denying that Iraq was the source of the depleted uranium measured at Aldermaston by AWE, and some unnamed 'establishment scientists' blaming it on local sources or natural uranium in the Iraq environment, there is no one, as of this writing, willing to lend their name or office to refuting this damning evidence reported by Dr. Busby. <br /> <br /> All of the anonymous statements used by the media thus far are contradicted by the factual evidence found in the filters, which was all transported from the same region.<br /> <br /> The natural abundance of uranium in the crust of the earth is 2.4 parts per million, which would not become concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain during a long journey from the Middle East. These particles traveling over thousands of miles would dilute the concentration rather than increase it.<br /> <br /> There are no known natural uranium deposits in Iraq which make it impossible for these anonymous claims to have scientific credibility.<br /> <br /> Unnamed government sources blamed local sources in Britain such as nuclear power plants; however that would also leave evidence of fission products in the filters which were not in evidence.<br /> <br /> The lowest levels measured at monitoring stations around Aldermaston were at the facility, which means it could not be a possible source. Atomic weapons facilities would be more likely to produce plutonium contamination, also not reported as a co-contaminant at Aldermaston.<br /> <br /> In other words, all factual evidence considered, the question must be asked, what were the media's anonymous experts and government officials basing their claims on?<br /> <br /> Dr. Keith Baverstock exposed a World Health Organization (WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium in an Aljazeera article, "Washington's Secret Nuclear War" posted on September 14, 2004. It was the most popular article ever posted on the Aljazeera English language website.<br /> <br /> <br /> Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he wrote, to the media several years ago after the WHO refused to publish it. He warned in the report about the mobility of, and environmental contamination from, tiny depleted uranium particles formed from US munitions.<br /> <br /> Busby's ECRR report challenged the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) standards for radiation risk, and reported that the mutagenic effects of radiation determined by Chernobyl studies are actually 1000 times higher than the ICRP risk model predicts.<br /> <br /> The ECRR report also establishes that the ICRP risk model, based on external exposure of Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims, and the ECRR risk model, based on internal exposure, are mutually exclusive models. In other words, the ICRP risk model based on external exposure cannot be used to estimate internal exposure risk.<br /> <br /> The report also states that a separate study is needed for depleted uranium exposure risks, because it may be far more toxic than nuclear weapons or nuclear power plant exposures. In July of 2005, the National Academy of Sciences reported in their new BEIR VII report on low level radiation, that there is "no safe level of exposure".<br /> <br /> The report also finally admitted that very low levels are more harmful per unit of radiation than higher levels of exposure, also known as the "supralinear" effect.<br /> <br /> This is extremely alarming information on low level radiation risk, since the AWE data from Aldermaston confirms that rapid global transport of depleted uranium dust is occurring.<br /> <br /> Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, has estimated that the atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991, from the use of depleted uranium munitions.<br /> <br /> It is completely mixed in the atmosphere in one year. The "smog of war" from Gulf War I was found in glaciers and ice sheets globally a year later. <br /> <br /> Even more alarming is the non-specific catalytic or enzyme effect from internal exposures to nanoparticles of depleted uranium. Soldiers on depleted uranium battlefields have reported that, after noticing a metallic taste in their mouths, within 24-48 hours of exposure they became sick with Gulf War syndrome symptoms.<br /> <br /> Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare? Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book THE ENEMY WITHIN, that the British Royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines. <br /> <br /> The mining company was formed for the British Royal family in the late 1950's by Roland Walter "Tiny" Rowland, the Queen's buccaneer. <br /> <br /> Born in 1917 through illegitimate German parentage, and before changing his name, Roland Walter Fuhrhop was a passionate member of the Nazi youth movement by 1933, and a classmate described him as "...an ardent supporter of Hitler and an arrogant, nasty piece of work to boot."<br /> <br /> His meteoric rise and protection by intel agencies and the British Crown are an indication of what an asset he has been for decades to the Queen, as Africa's most powerful Western businessman.<br /> <br /> Africa and Australia are two of the main sources of uranium in the world. The Rothschilds control uranium supplies and prices globally, and one serves as the Queen's business manager.<br /> <br /> Filmmaker David Bradbury made BLOWIN' IN THE WIND to expose depleted uranium bombing and gunnery range activities contaminating pristine areas of eastern Australia, and to expose plans to extract over $36 billion in uranium from mines in the interior over the next 6 years. Halliburton has finished construction of a 1000 mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.<br /> <br /> The Queen's favorite American buccaneers, Cheney, Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia. <br /> <br /> The major roles that such diverse individuals and groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University of California managed nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore, and US and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known or in most instances even recognized, inside or outside the country.<br /> <br /> God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity in turning Planet Earth into a "Death Star."<br /> <br /> by Leuren Moret <br /> In accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine for educational and discussion purposes, this essay, "Iraq War: Depleted Uranium Contaminates Europe", is copyrighted and being used here without permission - for non-commerical use and reproduced here in an effort to advance understanding. I believe this constitutes a 'Fair Use' per section 107 of the US Copyright Law. <br /> <br /> Leuren Moret is an independent scientist who works on radiation and public health issues with communities around the world. Ms. Moret works with the Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of independent scientists who have written ten books on low level radiation and public health. She has also written a scientific report on depleted uranium for the United Nations subcommission investigating the illegality of depleted uranium munitions. She has been trained on radiation issues by a former Manhattan Project Scientist and retired insider at the Livermore Lab who is an expert on radioactive fallout and rainout. Together with Dr. Hari Sharma, they have studied high levels of depleted uranium measured in the tissue samples of residents of Basra, Iraq, who died after the Gulf War from internal exposure to depleted uranium. Ms. Moret has detailed her research on the important issue of depleted uranium particle size formed under high temperature conditions on the battlefield. The production of these particles in very high concentrations and numbers results in the permanent suspension of depleted uranium particulate matter in the atmosphere that has been ignored, but is a major contributor to adverse health effects caused by DU exposure.<br /> <br /> Ms. Moret also wrote the Forword to Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Hiroshima journalist Akira Tashiro. The book can be read online. In February 2002, she introduced Martin Meissonier's film The Invisible War: Depleted Uranium and the Politics of Radiation at the Arab Film Festival in Berkeley. Most recently, she helped to introduce Takashi Morizumi and his photo exhibit A Different Nuclear War: Children of the Gulf War to the United States in October 2002, where the first US exhibit was in the city of Berkeley.<br /> <br /> Ms. Moret has also worked extensively with Indigenous People contaminated by radiation from the nuclear weapons program, communities in the US and other countries exposed to radiation from related activities, and communities impacted by radiation from nuclear power plants. She is the Official Bay Area Representative for members of the Japanese Parliament opposed to the US war against Iraq, and is working closely with Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Her Berkeley Resolution which was passed September 10, 2002, by the first city in the world calls for a permanent ban on the weaponization of space. She proposed the resolution after learning that lower orbital space is contaminated with uranium and its decay products from man-made sources.<br /> <br /> Leuren Moret is President, Scientists for Indigenous People, Past President, Association for Women Geoscientists, City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner, Official Bay Area Representative for Japanese Parliament Members opposed to the US War against Iraq.<br /> <br /> Resources<br /> http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/<br /> <br /> Letter from Leuren Moret to Congressman McDermott<br /> <br /> Leuren Moret Speaking on Depleted Uranium: Nuclear Holocaust and The Politics of Radiation<br /> <br /> Depleted Uranium - A Hidden Looming Worldwide Calamity<br /> <br /> Resolution to Banthe Use of Radioactive Weapons in Warfare <br />

[Perturbed]

U.S. WEAPONS POISON EUROPE<br /> <br /> RADIATION FROM IRAQ WAR DETECTED IN UK ATMOSPHERE<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> By Leuren Moret<br /> <br /> A shocking new scientific study by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan asks: “Did the use of uranium weapons in Gulf War II result<br /> in the contamination of Europe?”<br /> <br /> High levels of depleted uranium (DU) have been measured in the atmosphere in Britain, transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Scientists cited the U.S. bombing of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 and the “Shock and Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003 as one of the main reasons.<br /> <br /> In the 1950s the British government had established an air monitoring facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.<br /> <br /> Ironically, AWE was taken over three years ago by Halliburton, which at first refused to release key data as required by law to Busby. <br /> <br /> An international expert on low-level radiation, Busby serves as an official advisor on several British government committees. He recently co-authored an independent report on low-level radiation with 45 scientists with the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) for the European Parliament.<br /> <br /> Busby was eventually able to get Aldermaston’s air monitoring data from Halliburton by filing a freedom of information request using a new British law that became effective Jan. 1, 2005. Critical data from 2003 was missing, however, so he had to obtain the information from the Defence Procurement<br /> Agency.<br /> <br /> Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities throughout Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric radiation levels transported by sand, dust storms and air currents from radiation sources in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.<br /> <br /> <b>After the “Shock and Awe” campaign in Iraq in 2003, very fine particles of depleted uranium were captured along with larger sand and dust particles in filters in Britain. These particles traveled in seven to nine days from Iraqi battlefields as far away as 2,400 miles.<br /> <br /> The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003 campaign, and at one of the five monitoring locations, the levels twice required an official alert to the British Environment Agency.</b><br /> In addition, according to Busby, the Aldermaston air monitoring data provided a continuous record of depleted uranium levels in Britain from other recent wars. <br /> <br /> Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war, including Fallujah in 2004, provided evidence that the United States has illegally used depleted uranium munitions on civilian populations. These military actions are in direct violation of not only international conventions but also violate U.S. military law because the United States is a signatory to The Hague and Geneva conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol.<br /> <br /> Depleted uranium weaponry meets the definition of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in two out of three categories under U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 40 Sec. 2302. After action mandates have also been violated such as U.S. Army Regulation AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278, which requires treatment of radiation poisoning for all casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians.<br /> <br /> In the mainstream press, British officials have attempted to counter the study by blaming the elevated uranium levels on “local sources.” Anonymous statements by government scientists used by the media thus far, however, have been contradicted by evidence disclosed in the report. <br /> <br /> Naturally occurring uranium in the crust of the Earth is only 2.4 parts per million and could not become concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain. As far as nuclear power plants are concerned, the lowest levels of uranium measured at monitoring stations around Aldermaston were actually taken at the facility, which designs and tests nuclear weapons—meaning this could not possibly be a source. <br /> <br /> Atomic weapons facilities would be more likely to produce plutonium contamination, which was not reported as a contaminant.<br /> <br /> This wasn’t the first time a noted scientist has discussed global pollution from the use of DU. <br /> <br /> Dr. Keith Baverstock, an expert on radiation, exposed a World Health Organization (WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium. Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he had written for the organization but was never published. He warned in the report about the environmental contamination from tiny DU particles formed from U.S. munitions. <br /> <br /> <b>In addition, Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, estimated that the atomic equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global atmosphere since 1991 from the use of DU munitions. He said it is mixed in the atmosphere in one year.</b> <br /> <br /> DU PROFITS<br /> <br /> As if Busby’s report is not bad enough, a new book by a leading scientist notes who is making billions from nightmare armaments.<br /> <br /> <b>Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book The Enemy Within that the British royal family privately owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6 billion through Rio Tinto Mines in Australia. The mining company was formed for the British royal family in the late 1950s by Roland Walter “Tiny” Rowland, who was known as the queen’s banker and the master financial manipulator behind billionaire Robert Maxwell’s fortune.*</b><br /> <b>The Rothschilds are also profiting enormously from their control of the price and supply of uranium globally. </b><br /> <b>The ubiquitous Halliburton just recently finished construction of a 1,000-mile railway from the mining area to a port on the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.</b><br /> <b>The queen’s favorite American buccaneers, Dick Cheney and the Bush family, are tied to her through uranium mining and the shared use of DU munitions in the Middle East, Central Asia and Kosovo.</b><br /> The role that such diverse groups and individuals as the Carlyle Group, George H.W. Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci, Los Alamos and Livermore labs, and U.S. and international pension fund investments have played in proliferating depleted uranium weapons is not well known. God save the queen from her complicity in turning planet Earth into a death star.<br /> <br /> Leuren Moret is an international expert on the environmental<br /> effects of depleted uranium and has worked at two U.S. nuclear<br /> weapons laboratories.<br /> <br /> (Issue #10/11, March 6 & 13, 2006)<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/weapons_poison_europe.html">here</a>

[Spanky]

Depleted Uranium as a Weapon of War<br /> by Dr. Rosalie Bertell<br /> Ph.D., GNSH <br /> <br /> I am an epidemiologist, with 30 years of experience in studying the health effect of exposure to ionizing radiation. I would like to call the attention of the UN Human Rights Tribunal to the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons against Iraq in the Gulf War, and by NATO in Bosnia and the Kosovo-Yugoslavian war. DU is radioactive waste, and it attains special deadly properties when it is fired in battle. Because of its density and the speed of the missile or bullet (up to 5 mach) containing it, DU bursts into flame on impact. It reaches very high temperatures, and becomes a ceramic aerosol which can be dispersed 100 km from the point of impact.<br /> <br /> Because the radiation dose to the person depends on the strength of the source of radiation, and the time duration of the exposure, this ceramic aerosol formation is important. Ceramic (glass) is highly insoluble in the normal lung fluid, and when inhaled, this ceramic particulate will remain for a long time in the lungs and body tissue before being excreted in urine. The Rand report, which was commissioned by the US government in response to criticisms of the use of DU in weapons, failed to note this nasty form of insoluble DU which distinguishes it from the uranium dust in the mining or milling experience. This property means the uranium and its decay products will remain inside the body longer, thereby increasing the local alpha particle radiation dose to tissue.<br /> <br /> Much of the ceramic DU aerosol is in respirable sized particles -10 micrometer and less in diameter. It stays in the lungs for upwards of two years. The uranium oxide, which was discussed in the Rand report, had a one-year half-life in lungs. Most natural uranium contamination in the human body comes via food and to a lesser extent from drinking water, not via the lungs. Ingested uranium is excreted in feces, basically never entering into the human blood and lymph system. In contrast, the DU ceramic aerosol released in war entered directly into lymph and blood through the lung-blood barrier and circulated throughout the whole body. All internal contamination is excreted through either sweat or urine.<br /> <br /> DU is a very powerful alpha particle emitter, with each particle carrying a force of about 4.2 MeV (million electron volts). It requires only 6 to 10 eV (electron volts) to break the DNA or other large molecules in the body. This long stay of DU from weapons within the body can now be demonstrated through 24-hour urine analysis. The presence of DU eight years after the Gulf War exposure, means that the internal organs: lung, lymph glands, bone marrow, liver, kidney, and immune system have experienced significant localized radiation damage. Testing of urine for both veterans of the Gulf War and citizens of Iraq has confirmed this long-term exposure to DU.<br /> <br /> Women (because of their radiation sensitive breast and uterine tissue) and children (because their bones are growing, thus able to pick up more DU than adults, and because they have a long expected life-span in which the cancers with long latency periods can develop) will be most at risk from the delayed DU weapon action.<br /> <br /> SNIP<br /> <br /> Two points need to be stressed: veterans and civilians in these wars WERE exposed to DU; and this inhaled DU represents a seriously enhanced risk of damaged immune systems and fatal cancers. This type of radiological and chemical warfare should be banned.<br /> <br /> <A HREF="http://www.iicph.org/docs/DU_Human_Rights_Tribunal.htm">Depleted Uranium as a Weapon of War</A>

[Marcarc]

Depleted Uranium Released During Canadian Plane Crash<br /> <br /> <br /> Little-Known Use of DU in Commercial Jets Exposed<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> By Christopher Bollyn<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> The recent crash of a Boeing 747 in Halifax, Canada, raises a number of questions about the use of depleted uranium (DU) in airplanes, public health concerns and the 9-11 attacks. When a Boeing 747 crashed and burned on takeoff at Halifax International Airport in Nova Scotia, Canada, on Oct. 14, an official accident investigator said the aircraft probably contained radioactive depleted uranium.<br /> <br /> Bill Fowler, an investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the plane was likely equipped with DU as counterweights in its wings and rudder.<br /> <br /> “A 747 may contain as much as 1,500 kilograms [3,300 lbs.] of the material,” the Canadian Press reported. It took 60 firefighters and 20 trucks about three hours to control the fire.<br /> <br /> Fowler said: “there is no threat or concern” about DU exposure to those working on the wreckage.<br /> <br /> “That’s baloney,” Marion Fulk, a retired staff scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, told American Free Press. Fulk, 83, is currently researching how low-level ionizing radiation causes cancer, birth defects and a host of other health problems. Burning depleted uranium creates a “whole mess of oxides,” Fulk said, “which is what makes it so wicked biologically.”<br /> <br /> In 1988, American physicist Robert L. Parker wrote that in the worst-case scenario, the crash of a Boeing 747 could affect the health of 250,000 people through exposure to uranium oxide particles. “Extended tests by the Navy and NASA showed that the temperature of the fireball in a plane crash can reach 1,200 degrees Celsius. Such temperatures are high enough to cause very rapid oxidation of depleted uranium,” he wrote.<br /> <br /> “Large pieces of uranium will oxidize rapidly and will sustain slow combustion when heated in air to temperatures of about 500 degrees Celsius,” Paul Lowenstein, technical director and vice-president of Nuclear Metals Inc., the company that has supplied DU to Boeing, wrote in a 1993 article.<br /> <br /> Now, some researchers are turning to the large number of sick firefighters and workers from the World Trade Center site and reports of elevated radiation levels around the Pentagon after 9-11. They contend that the Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft involved in the attacks may have also contained depleted uranium counterweights.<br /> <br /> PENTAGON RADIATION LEVELS<br /> <br /> Around the Pentagon there were reports of high radiation levels after 9-11. American Free Press has documentation that radiation levels in Alexandria and Leesburg, Va., were much higher than usual on 9-11 and persisted for at least one week afterward.<br /> <br /> In Alexandria, seven miles south of the burning Pentagon, a doctor with years of experience working with radiation issues found elevated radiation levels on 9-11 of 35 to 52 counts per minute (cpm) using a “Radalert 50” Geiger counter.<br /> <br /> One week after 9-11, in Leesburg, 33 miles northwest of the Pentagon, soil readings taken in a residential neighborhood showed even higher readings of 75 to 83 cpm.<br /> <br /> “That’s pretty high,” Cindy Folkers of the Washing ton-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) told AFP. Folkers said 7 to 12 cpm is normal background radiation inside the NIRS building, and that outdoor readings of between 12 to 20 cpm are normal in Chevy Chase, Md., outside Washington.<br /> <br /> The Radalert 50, Folkers said, is primarily a gamma ray detector and “detects only 7 percent of the beta radiation and even less of the alpha.” This suggests that actual radiation levels may have been significantly higher than those detected by the doctor’s Geiger counter.<br /> <br /> “The question is, why?” Folkers said.<br /> <br /> If the radiation came from the explosion and fire at the Pentagon, it most likely did not come from a Boeing 757, which is the type of aircraft that allegedly hit the building.<br /> <br /> “Boeing has never used DU on either the 757 or the 767, and we no longer use it on the 747,” Leslie M. Nichols, product spokesperson for Boeing’s 767, told AFP. “Sometime ago, we switched to tungsten, because it is heavier, more readily available and more cost effective.”<br /> <br /> The cost effectiveness argument is debatable. A waste product of U.S. nuclear weapons and energy facilities, DU is reportedly provided by the Department of Energy to national and foreign armament companies free of charge.<br /> <br /> DU is used in a wide variety of missiles in the U.S. arsenal as an armor penetrator. It is also used in the bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles. Because no photographic evidence of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon is available to the public, 9-11 skeptics and independent researchers claim something else, such as a missile, struck the Pentagon.<br /> <br /> A white flash, not unlike those seen in videos of the planes as they struck the twin towers, occurs when a DU penetrator hits a target.<br /> <br /> Photographs from the Pentagon reveal that large round holes were punched through six walls in the three outer rings. The outside wall is 24 inches thick with a six-inch limestone exterior, eight inches of brick and 10 inches of steel reinforced concrete; the other walls are 18 inches thick.<br /> <br /> The object that hit the Pentagon on 9-11 penetrated several feet of reinforced concrete, leaving holes with diameters between 11 and 16 feet.<br /> <br /> Bill Bellinger, then head of the EPA’s Radiation Program for Region III, which includes Virginia, told AFP that he had received information of elevated radiation levels and contacted EPA officials at the Pentagon.<br /> <br /> “I was concerned about that,” Bellinger said. “I didn’t disregard it at all.”<br /> <br /> Bellinger told AFP that he thought the radiation was from DU in the aircraft.<br /> <br /> Bellinger, who was based in Philadelphia, did not personally visit the Pentagon site and said that EPA personnel at the site had not reported high levels of radioactivity. However, the EPA official who Bellinger said had worked at the Pentagon, Craig Conklin, now at FEMA, told AFP that he had not been involved at the site, “directly or indirectly.”<br /> <br /> Workers and FEMA officials at the Pentagon were seen wearing special protective outfits and respirators. FEMA photos show the workers going through decontamination procedures.<br /> <br /> Bellinger told AFP that the Department of Defense was responsible for on-site safety procedures at the Pentagon.<br /> <br /> In New York, however, considerably less attention was paid to the health risks the burning rubble posed to workers at the WTC site. A recent screening done by Mount Sinai Hospital found that nearly three-quarters of the 1,138 first responders had experienced respiratory problems while working at Ground Zero, and half had respiratory ailments that persisted for an average of eight months afterward.<br /> <br /> “We were dumfounded by how many people were sick, and how sick they were, and how sick they still are,” said Robin Herbert, co-director of the program.<br /> <br /> Thomas Cahill, professor of physics and atmospheric sciences, analyzed the plumes from a station one mile north of the burning WTC rubble. “The small particles worried me the most,” Cahill told AFP, referring to the sub-micron-size particles, which can pass through the filters of respirators.<br /> <br /> Cahill said the high levels of silicon, vanadium, nickel and sulfuric acid concerned him. The fine concrete dust, he said, acted “like Drano” in the lungs of the workers, where it irritated and burned the wet membranes.<br /> <br /> Until Dec. 15, the pile was so hot, a piece of paper would ignite on contact with the rubble, Cahill said. “You had the workers working on top of a huge incinerator in the rush to get Wall Street going again,” Cahill said. “It was really dumb.<br /> <br /> “Only 30 percent of the firefighters working at the site in October were wearing any protection at all,” he said.<br /> <br /> A class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 800 people who suffer health effects was filed against WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein and the companies that supervised the cleanup: AMEC, Bovis Lend Lease, Turner, and Tully Construction.<br /> <br /> The suit was filed on Sept. 10, the last day set by a federal three-year statute of limitations for lawsuits related to 9-11.<br /> <br /> “Under state labor law, employers have a duty to provide a safe place to work,” lead attorney David Worby said. “They violated that duty. Everyone knew what was on the ground.”<br /> <br /> As many as 100,000 workers at Ground Zero and hundreds of thousands more people in the area were exposed to airborne toxins, Worby said.<br /> <br /> “If you expose a person to this amount of lead, cadmium, benzene, asbestos and glass shards, they are going to be sick,” he said. “More people could die from this than died on the day of 9-11.”<br /> <br /> AMEC Construction Management, a subsidiary of the British engineering firm AMEC, renovated Wedge One of the Pentagon before 9-11 and cleaned it up afterward.<br /> <br /> AMEC had also renovated Silverstein’s WTC 7, which collapsed mysteriously on 9-11, and then headed the cleanup of the WTC site afterward. The AMEC construction firm is currently in the process of closing all its offices in the United States.

[Marcarc]

Halifax Waters Used for DU Firing Range<br /> <br /> <br /> HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The Canadian Navy fired thousands<br /> of toxic, radioactive uranium-238 shells into a target range near Halifax. Fishermen in the area say they had no idea depleted uranium (DU) was scattered over the fishing grounds. The Navy says the ammunition is safe, but nuclear experts disagree. Some say it could pose a serious hazard.<br /> Until about a year ago the shells were fired from a Phalanx gun, which used shells made of DU, a by-product of the nuclear industry. The hardened shells are used to penetrate armor plating.<br /> The guns were installed on Canadian ships just prior to the Gulf War.<br /> Over the years the Navy fired six tons of DU shells, mostly into a fishing area near Eastern Passage, off Halifax Harbor. The Navy says the depleted uranium is safe. “From our viewpoint we have not dumped nuclear waste, that’s stretching it,” Lt. Cmdr.<br /> <br /> Bill McKillip, a Navy spokesman, told CBC TV. DU was widely used in the Gulf War. It is being blamed for cancers in Iraq and even for Gulf War Syndrome. Now thousands of shell casings are lying a few kilometers offshore from Halifax. Lt. McKillip said there are no plans to either clean up the slugs or test to see if<br /> radioactive material has entered the food chain.<br /> — CBC News Online, Sept. 22, 2003

[Perturbed]

[QUOTE BY= Marcarc] Halifax Waters Used for DU Firing Range<br /> <br /> <br /> HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — The Canadian Navy fired thousands<br /> of toxic, radioactive uranium-238 shells into a target range near Halifax. Fishermen in the area say they had no idea depleted uranium (DU) was scattered over the fishing grounds. The Navy says the ammunition is safe, but nuclear experts disagree. Some say it could pose a serious hazard.<br /> Until about a year ago the shells were fired from a Phalanx gun, which used shells made of DU, a by-product of the nuclear industry. The hardened shells are used to penetrate armor plating.<br /> The guns were installed on Canadian ships just prior to the Gulf War.<br /> Over the years the Navy fired six tons of DU shells, mostly into a fishing area near Eastern Passage, off Halifax Harbor. The Navy says the depleted uranium is safe. “From our viewpoint we have not dumped nuclear waste, that’s stretching it,” Lt. Cmdr.<br /> <br /> Bill McKillip, a Navy spokesman, told CBC TV. DU was widely used in the Gulf War. It is being blamed for cancers in Iraq and even for Gulf War Syndrome. Now thousands of shell casings are lying a few kilometers offshore from Halifax. Lt. McKillip said there are no plans to either clean up the slugs or test to see if<br /> radioactive material has entered the food chain.<br /> — CBC News Online, Sept. 22, 2003[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> <br /> Yeah I heard about this. However the shells could not have been fired from a Phalanx gun as the Phalanx only fires bullets, not shells--it is for anti-aircraft and anti-missile fire for defensive purposes only.<br /> <br /> DU create a dust on land that can travel huge distances and contaminate areas for an unimaginable number of years apparently....back during the GUlf War, people said it was safe and many probabyl thought it was. I am almost positive Canada no longer uses it for anything. Conventional weapons are more than strong enough for almost every possible need....also, as more information comes out about the hazards of the technically banned Depleted Uranium, it will be harder to cover up the risks.<br /> <br /> This said, the use of DU in Iraq MAY be a prime example of the military insustrial complex, as contaminating an area forever to destroy tanks or bunkers seems like major overkill to me......see my previous posts. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/wink.gif' alt='Wink'> <br />