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March 20, 2002
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http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,57959,00.html
Wired
March 10, 2003
U.S. Stocking Uranium-Rich Bombs?
By Elliot Borin
-"Who would want thousands of
solid uranium
penetrators or pencils of masses
between 180 and 4,500
grams lying in your backyard?
Who would want any
uranium contamination of any
type lying in your
backyard?"
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. [that is, NATO]
military campaign in
Bosnia.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For example, the patent application
for a
narrow-profile version of the
BLU-109B bomb (which is
delivered by a GBU-24) specifically
refers to
penetrating bodies made of tungsten
or depleted
uranium.
"If they're really using tungsten,
why keep it
classified?" Williams said.
Depleted uranium, a byproduct
of the nuclear fission
process that powers both atomic
bombs and
power-generating plants, is
an ideal material for
munitions intended to blast
holes into armored or
otherwise reinforced targets
that can only be pierced
by projectiles possessing enormous
amounts of kinetic
energy.
Since the kinetic energy of an
object is one half its
mass times the square of its
speed, the denser the
projectile, the higher the kinetic
energy. When it
comes to density, uranium (2.5
times heavier than iron
and 1.7 times heavier than lead)
is rivaled only by
tungsten, which lacks depleted
uranium's intense
incendiary properties.
Tungsten has another drawback:
It's expensive.
Depleted uranium, on the other
hand, is dirt cheap.
Tons of it, over 500 million
pounds the last time
anyone counted, is lying around
in various states of
nuclear "decay" at government
repositories throughout
the country.
In an attempt to reduce this
over-abundance of nuclear
waste, the Defense Department
provides depleted
uranium to munitions makers
such as Alliant
Techsystems -- the largest maker
of depleted uranium
projectiles in the world --
at no cost and buys it
back as completed weapons.
Depleted uranium has a few drawbacks.
It is 40 percent
as radioactive as pure uranium
and has a half-life of
4.5 billion years. In addition,
the very volatility
that makes it blaze like an
atomic furnace upon impact
converts a large percentage
of the spent projectile
into microscopic radioactive
oxides that, when borne
by the wind, may be inhaled
by civilians miles from
the battlefield.
Despite this, Pentagon and Veterans
Administration
brass are adamant in insisting
that depleted uranium
is absolutely harmless to both
combatants and
non-combatants, and is in no
way responsible for any
of the symptoms associated with
so-called "Gulf War
syndrome."
Perhaps the most extraordinary
official endorsement of
depleted uranium's benign nature
came from former
Secretary of Defense William
Cohen, who once deemed it
as safe as "leaded paint." Federal
law has banned the
use of leaded paint in residential
structures since
1978 because of its extreme
toxicity.
But not everyone connected with
the military is
convinced that depleted uranium
is risk-free.
In early 1991, the Army sent
physicist Doug Rokke to
Iraq as part of the task force
charged with assessing
the after-battle effects of
the estimated 300 tons of
depleted-uranium weapons expended
during the Gulf War.
In the mid-1990s, he was recalled
to active duty and
made director of a project intended
to develop
training and management procedures
for handling
depleted uranium contamination.
According to Rokke, "we are seeing
adverse health
effects among the entire group
of warriors exposed
during combat in Iraq, Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait (and)
civilians exposed in Iraq" and
at U.S. and foreign
installations where depleted
uranium weapon testing
and training has been carried
out.
Rokke also said the Pentagon
was aware of "the
probable hazards" prior to the
Gulf War, a contention
bolstered by an Army Armament,
Munitions and Chemical
Command report -- issued shortly
before Iraq invaded
Kuwait -- that stated that depleted
uranium is "linked
to cancer when exposures are
internal."
Rokke said on-site investigators
in Iraq found that 40
percent of the initial mass
of the depleted uranium
penetrators was converted to
radioactive oxide while
60 percent was left on and around
the impact area in
solid form.
"Equipment contamination included
uranium oxides,
other hazardous materials, unstable
unexploded
ordnance and byproducts of exploded
ordnance," he
said. "In addition, other radioactive
materials were
detected that could pose a risk
through inhalation,
ingestion or wound contamination.
"Who would want thousands of
solid uranium penetrators
or pencils of masses between
180 and 4,500 grams lying
in your backyard? Who would
want any uranium
contamination of any type lying
in your backyard?"
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