US using depleted uranium

[plenderj]

So the US give out to Saddam for using chemical and biological weapons, when at the same time the US are going to cause generations of radiation poisioning by using uranium.

A tad hypocritical.

[honeybee]

And using Cluster bombs, and making Baghdad and other areas potential minefields for the Iraqi citizens, whatever will be left of them after all the checkpost firings have been done ...

.

[run_GMoney]

I vote for Honeybee to be the next truck driver that Sadaam sends through a US checkpoint.

[hellswraith]

Originally posted by plenderj
So the US give out to Saddam for using chemical and biological weapons, when at the same time the US are going to cause generations of radiation poisioning by using uranium.

A tad hypocritical.

You are funny, you used the word yourself "Depleted" uranium. How does it cause radiation poison? Stupid post. Our soldiers work with those bullets all the time, they are not radiated.

[kleinma]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe...lth/index.html

[Memnoch1207]

hahaha, any rebutals?

[Cander]

Im sure the rebuttal will be 'Coalition is attacking civilians' in typical misdirection tactic.

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by Memnoch1207
hahaha, any rebutals?

Just one and It is from the article

..... they said they would remain alert to any scientific evidence suggesting that the use of the armour-piercing ammunition had negative effects on human health

Someone please inform They, whoever the hell that is, that getting shot in the head with armour-piercing ammunition has negative effects on human health

[kleinma]

Originally posted by MasterBlaster
Just one and It is from the article



Someone please inform They, whoever the hell that is, that getting shot in the head with armour-piercing ammunition has negative effects on human health

but that quote says the USE of... doesn't say anything about takin one in the noggin

[Arc]

The only thing (as far as i know) that we use DU weapons on are enemy Tanks. That is all they are needed for. THey use the DU becasue it is denser than lead and therefore has no problem penetrating thru thick armour. Plus the action of it penetrating thru the armour causes it to burn very violently on the inside of the tank preventing anyone from escaping.

America has "Clean Up" crews that go in after the war and decontaminate these tanks and despose of them.

DU is perfectly harmless in it's pre-exploded state, but it could pose a small health risk to anyone crawling around licking all over the destroyed tank that it hit.

So my advice to any non enemy Military people would be, don't crawl around on or lick all over any blown up tanks.


You know living next to power lines has been linked to cancer too let's make a thread on that.

[Cander]

Lets just distribute cigrettes to the Iraqi troops

[kleinma]

Originally posted by Arc
The only thing (as far as i know) that we use DU weapons on are enemy Tanks. That is all they are needed for. THey use the DU becasue it is denser than lead and therefore has no problem penetrating thru thick armour. Plus the action of it penetrating thru the armour causes it to burn very violently on the inside of the tank preventing anyone from escaping.

America has "Clean Up" crews that go in after the war and decontaminate these tanks and despose of them.

DU is perfectly harmless in it's pre-exploded state, but it could pose a small health risk to anyone crawling around licking all over the destroyed tank that it hit.

So my advice to any non enemy Military people would be, don't crawl around on or lick all over any blown up tanks.


You know living next to power lines has been linked to cancer too let's make a thread on that.

also it sharpens as it penetrates armor to make sure it goes all the way through... pretty cool if u ask me

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by kleinma
but that quote says the USE of... doesn't say anything about takin one in the noggin

Ok, A few days ago I bought a new toaster. (Nice shiny silver one and it dosn't burn one side of the toast and not toast the other side like my old one did.Great fookin toaster if you ask me). Any how, I pull it out of the box and on the side of it I find a big sticker read instructions before operating, may cause Serious health risks or even death! or some sheit like that. *** It's a gaddamn toaster. You mean to tell me that a toaster poses a greater risk to human health than a Armour-piercing bullet. I dunno about you but I never say any warning labels on a 50 Cal armour piercing round. I'm calling my congressman to complain. We should be dropping Toasters and Hair dryers on Iraqi tanks. Hell if that don't work we could always spill danger- contents are extremely hot and may cause serious injury McDonalds coffee on them.

[plenderj]

Its fairly well known at this stage that the "depleted" uranium used in the weapons is far more radioactive than permitted.

The US troops used those weapons in the gulf last time.
Many soldiers then started to suffer the effects of radiation poisioning.

The US troops used those weapons in bosnia.
US and Italian soldiers reported feeling ill and suffered the effects of radiation poisioning.
Also, many many rounds of ammunition were left on streets.
Many of which were subsequently picked up by children.
Those children too have suffered from radiation poisioning.


If the shells are left lying around, they can get into the water table of a country or an area and irradiate the entire water supply.


Regarding the cleanup crews, it takes an entire team of men weeks upon weeks to clean a tank after its been in contact with uranium shells.
It also requires the tank to be housed in specially built warehouses.

There simply aren't enough people specialized, nor is there the equipment, for cleanup crews to track down every single round of ammunition fired, and every single vehicle destroyed or damaged.



The use of these weapons is highly irresponsible.

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by plenderj
Its fairly well known at this stage that the "depleted" uranium used in the weapons is far more radioactive than permitted.

Bullsheit

[plenderj]

Originally posted by MasterBlaster
Bullsheit

No its not bull****. Check the statistics.
Its banging out far more rads per second than should be allowed for human exposure.

[plenderj]

Just check it out for yourself. I've done a lot of reading up on depleted uranium, and its an absolute disgrace that anyone would use them.

Iraq hasn't used chemical weapons, but the US is showering Iraq in radioactive material.
There will be questions to be answered after this war is over.
Public opinion was that the use of depleted uranium in the n last military engagements the US military has had was deplorable.

A search on "Depleted Uranium" :
http://www.google.ie/search?q=%22dep...-8&hl=en&meta=



Then also add to that that you're using cluster bombs.
Cluster bombs become land mines when they don't detonate on a target.
This too is completely deplorable.



*note: I meant Kosovo above, not Bosnia.

[honeybee]

Originally posted by plenderj
The use of these weapons is highly irresponsible.

Whoever talked about being responsible? They are making good use of their chances of using up the old stocked weapons, missiles and all, lest they become useless and the country loses billions of dollars because of that.

.

[DeadEyes]

How can one explain that children of Gulf War veterans suffer the same birth defects as Iraqi children born in zones contaminated by DU? That the same symptoms - fatigue, depression, respiratory and kidney problems and in many cases leukaemia - affect civilians and soldiers exposed to DU in both the Gulf and the Balkans? And if DU is harmless, why is Kuwait paying private companies millions of dollars to decontaminate its battlefields?

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0201-01.htm

[NotLKH]

Here is an interesting article from jamie's google search:

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm

Despite being full of statements like:

depleted uranium rod poses an extremely low radiological threat

it lays fondations for critical questions with statements like:

Depleted uranium is approximately 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium
so, since it is more than half as radioactive as natural uranium, iy really isn't all that depleted now, is it? 10 kilos of DU is more radioactive than 5 kilos of NU, and its intent is to be used in areas that contain no Natural uranium anyways, surely this is a radiological hazard?

But, rest assured, there is nothing to be feared, because:

While natural and depleted uranium are considered chemically toxic, they are not considered a radiation hazard.
WHAT!!! NU os not a radiation hazard!!! What about Godzilla! Rodan! THEM! I grew up with all these movies which, realistically overamplified what radiation can do, they were playing off of real dangers of Urnium and its radiation. And now, it turns out there are no radiological hazards to Uranium??? I HAVE BEEN CHEATED!!!

Apparently the only danger is if you introduce uranium into your body:

Heavy metals (uranium, lead, tungsten, etc.) have chemical toxicity properties that, in high doses, can cause adverse health effects. Depleted uranium that remains outside the body can not harm you.

hmmm,

-Lou

[plenderj]

Except the problem is that when the shells impact on tanks, they disintegrate into fine dust, and that can be spread over a large area.
And if you breath that dust in - you're ****ed.

Also, if the shells are left there they can end up in the water table of an area.
That could irradiate thousands upon thousands of people.



At least if Saddam uses chemical weapons you'll roll around in agony for a few minutes and choke to death.
But if you get radiation poisioning, you'll die a slow and horrid death.

[venerable bede]

Dont be such a lefty ponse.

[hellswraith]

At least if Saddam uses chemical weapons you'll roll around in agony for a few minutes and choke to death.
But if you get radiation poisioning, you'll die a slow and horrid death.

Look, if you are in a tank that gets hit with DU bullets from an A-10 aircraft, you won't live.... So there is no radiation poisoning, there is just instant death. This is because the bullet goes inside, heats up termendously to the point of exploding the ordinance inside the tank, therefor killing all inside and around the tank.

[hellswraith]

Oh ya, and if it was such a hazard, why are we using them on our own ranges for practice firings? They even bring back the vehicles they shot up and let people see them. I haven't been radiated yet.

[MasterBlaster]

Jamie, It does not throw off hardcore gamma rads at you like the type of radiation poison you are thinking of(the really nasty sort). As long as people dont go around eating spent cartriges they will be fine.

The other cases you are refering to are absolute Bullsheit. GWS is not caused by radiation poisoning it is caused by nerve agents inhaled by Army engineers who were sent in to destroy Saddams VX storage facilities.

Kosovo LMFAOAYFS Buildings/ bridges insulated with asbestos, painted with lead paint and asbestos tar roofs, electrical systems consisting hightly of heavy metals, and lead water pipes running throughout the entire buildings were blown into clouds of dust and spread all over the place Now please try blaming exploded bullets as the reason people got sick again.

Yes cluster bombs are very very nasty. Thank god we have mine sniffing Monkeys and gas chickens.

[nishantp]

People tend to see the worst in the US and the best in everyone else.

[please]

They thought that nuclears on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have no further effect too...

[Pc_Madness]

Got a quote on that?

[plenderj]

Originally posted by hellswraith
Look, if you are in a tank that gets hit with DU bullets from an A-10 aircraft, you won't live.... So there is no radiation poisoning, there is just instant death. This is because the bullet goes inside, heats up termendously to the point of exploding the ordinance inside the tank, therefor killing all inside and around the tank.

1) Granted the GE gatling cannon on the nosecone of the A-10 has a very high spin rate and will probably blow a bank to pieces, but when you're chucking out thousands of rounds a minute, how do you track every single round that's fired ?

Add to that the fact that when the rounds impact, they'll vapourize and that dust will kill.


2) "This is because the bullet goes inside, heats up termendously to the point of exploding the ordinance inside the tank, therefor killing all inside and around the tank."

Have you no concept of how weaponry works at all ?
The A-10's gatling cannon is designed to just rip an object to pieces - that is how an object is destroyed.

The object's own munitions do not heat up and explode.
Its the high rate of fire from the A-10 itself that destroys the object.

[plenderj]

Originally posted by hellswraith
Oh ya, and if it was such a hazard, why are we using them on our own ranges for practice firings? They even bring back the vehicles they shot up and let people see them. I haven't been radiated yet.

1) On a firing range you can track where the bullets go.

2) Objects that have been struck with DU slugs are cleaned by a team for a very long time under special conditions to remove all radioactive material from them. Check it out if you want - its true.

It takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to 'clean' a tank after its been hit with DU.
On a battlefield, hundreds upon hundreds of tanks and buildings will be struck with DU - and they cannot be cleaned.


If its so safe, then why does the US military bother 'cleaning' test vehicles struck with the rounds ?

[plenderj]

Originally posted by MasterBlaster
Jamie, It does not throw off hardcore gamma rads at you like the type of radiation poison you are thinking of(the really nasty sort). As long as people dont go around eating spent cartriges they will be fine.

The other cases you are refering to are absolute Bullsheit. GWS is not caused by radiation poisoning it is caused by nerve agents inhaled by Army engineers who were sent in to destroy Saddams VX storage facilities.

Kosovo LMFAOAYFS Buildings/ bridges insulated with asbestos, painted with lead paint and asbestos tar roofs, electrical systems consisting hightly of heavy metals, and lead water pipes running throughout the entire buildings were blown into clouds of dust and spread all over the place Now please try blaming exploded bullets as the reason people got sick again.

Yes cluster bombs are very very nasty. Thank god we have mine sniffing Monkeys and gas chickens.

1) No it doesn't give off the same level of gamma radiation as enriched uranium does, but it is still uranium.
A lifelong exposure to granite rock will highly increase your chances of cancer - that's because it is weakly radioactive.
We're talking about uranium here - its very radioactive.
Check the stats on DU - its very dangerous stuff.

2) GWS was caused by a lot of things.
Again, check the stats on this - radiation poisioning is one of them.

3) It was soldiers themselves that came in contact with DU that became sick. Italian and US soldiers.
Again, check the stats.

4) I doubt you're going to comb the entire of the country looking for mines - especially if you couldn't of been bothered to comb the country for illegal weapons in the first place.

[hellswraith]

Have you no concept of how weaponry works at all ?
The A-10's gatling cannon is designed to just rip an object to pieces - that is how an object is destroyed.

The object's own munitions do not heat up and explode.
Its the high rate of fire from the A-10 itself that destroys the object.

I work on A-10 aircraft, I am the one with more of a concept of how weaponry works! You are sooo funny.

In addition to its penetrating capability DU is a natural pyrophoric material which enhances the incendiary effects.

that is from http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/gau-8.htm

Just to help you out because I am not sure if you know what those words mean (from Websters so you can't argue it):
pyrophoric - igniting spontaneously
incendiary - an incendiary agent (as a bomb)

[hellswraith]

4) I doubt you're going to comb the entire of the country looking for mines - especially if you couldn't of been bothered to comb the country for illegal weapons in the first place.

All though I don't doubt that DU can maybe cause some harmful effects if a person was to be constantly exposed to it for a long time, I have never had ill effects from it, and I have been exposed to it.

Now, I do take issue with that last statement that I quoted. We WILL comb the country for illegal weapons. That is the major reason we are over there. The weapons inspectors sucked at it. The military has found places that the weapons inspectors didn't even know about. Granted, they didn't find anything, but it goes to show how clueless those people were. Plus, their quarters were bugged, so the Iraq regime already knew where the inspections were going to take place before the inspectors went there. It is a cat and mouse game that was going to keep going on and on and on.

Next, we DON'T leave the mines we lay down. If there are residual mines from Iraqi forces that we don't know about, well, we can't get rid of them without knowing about them. When you say statements like that it just shows how uninformed you really are.

[hellswraith]

Another thing, I am suprised I don't hear you complaining about all the lead dust that gets left behind. There is far more of it, and it is also dangerous to people. All the small arms produce it when their bullets hit things. But if you get mad about it, then you would also have to be mad at the Iraqi's for using thier guns, and that isn't good.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Lead dust is an unfortunate issue, but it isn't one that anybody gets terribly concerned about. It took us a long time to get it out of paint and birdshot, but both are still with us in places. DU is another toxin spread by the military during the course of normal operations. There are many such things, and the alternatives are not always clear or available. War does tend to harm people. Now we can harm them long after the fighting stops, but that has been true for a long time now, maybe since the dawn of history.

We are getting more and more humane in how we conduct our affairs, both on and off the battlefield. We get there because some people pushed us to recognize problems and improve. DU may be such a thing. Nothing will change unless we push the change.

Hellswraith: My understanding is that if you actually feel ill from working with radiological agents, that's REAAALLY bad. However, the long term effects of radiation exposure are bad enough. If the DNA damage caused by the radiation causes cancer in you next year, will it really matter then that you felt nothing now?

[plenderj]

Yes the rounds themselves might be incendiary devices, but the fact remains that the gatling cannon on the A10 is designed to throw enough metal at an object fast enough to destroy it.

You do not fire one bullet into a tank, wait for it to heat up, and then let the munitions inside explode.
The bullets just rip through the tank because of the high speed and high rate of fire.

Just because you work on A10s doesnt mean you know jack-**** about the weaponry.


To quote your website :

During Operation DESERT STORM the Air Force fired 30mm Armor Piercing Incendiary (API) munitions using a depleted uranium [DU] penetrator slug from the GAU-8 Gatling gun mounted on the A-10 Aircraft. The 148 A-10s that deployed to Saudi Arabia flew 8,077 combat sorties. The Air Force fired a total of 783,514 rounds of 30mm API in the Gulf War. Since each round contains approximately 0.66 pounds of DU, the Air Force expended a total of 259 tons of DU in the Gulf. The armor-piercing capability of the DU projectiles fired from A/OA-10s proved exceptionally effective in countering threats from the Iraqi tanks so that a successful ground offensive could then be achieved.


At times 30mm DU rounds misfire in the A-10’s GAU-8 cannon. These "hangfires" have to be cleared and removed from the gun barrel, potentially exposing ground crews to airborne DU. Technical data available to maitenance crews does not provide an accurate means for determining the status of rounds in an unsafe/jammed gun, and revisions are in progress.


Depleted Uranium is deadly dangerous. There is no denying it.
There is no moral equivalence between chemical or biological or, as this fact actually is, nuclear weapons.
It is radioactive.
It is more radioactive than natural uranium.
Natural uranium - which would kill after time.

Even granite itself will cause cancer after time.
And you're lobbing tonnes of radioactive material around their country.



Regarding the lead dust.
Bullets have different compositions of elements.
Granted yes lead is one of them.
But a bullet fired from a handgun, or ak47, or m16, or m60... etc. doesn't travel very fast in comparison to the rounds fired from the A10, which are, by design, supposed to travel at very high speed.

So when a round fired from one of those weapons impact on a target, it simply compresses and squishes up against the target.
Granted though yes, there is lead in it, and the weapon does cause gunshot residue.
That gunshot residue does contain lead.
But to check for the existance of gunshot residue requires neutron activation analysis, atomic absorption spectrop and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive analysis.

So the lead dust isn't a big issue.
Irrespective of that - lead isn't radioactive.

[hellswraith]

Originally posted by Shaggy Hiker
Lead dust is an unfortunate issue, but it isn't one that anybody gets terribly concerned about. It took us a long time to get it out of paint and birdshot, but both are still with us in places. DU is another toxin spread by the military during the course of normal operations. There are many such things, and the alternatives are not always clear or available. War does tend to harm people. Now we can harm them long after the fighting stops, but that has been true for a long time now, maybe since the dawn of history.

We are getting more and more humane in how we conduct our affairs, both on and off the battlefield. We get there because some people pushed us to recognize problems and improve. DU may be such a thing. Nothing will change unless we push the change.

Hellswraith: My understanding is that if you actually feel ill from working with radiological agents, that's REAAALLY bad. However, the long term effects of radiation exposure are bad enough. If the DNA damage caused by the radiation causes cancer in you next year, will it really matter then that you felt nothing now?

No it wouldn't matter, and it would suck. The thing is though, the exposure I have had won't cause cancer, because I would need some serious doses of it before I would get to that point. Just as MasterBlaster had stated above.

As far as the lead dust is concerned, it was to prove a point. No one even talks about it, but it would be more of a cause of illness than DU will be as far more lead is used in battle.

It is a shame, but war is never clean. If it was, no one would be scared of it. If people stopped being scared of it, more war would happen.

[Shaggy Hiker]

A quote from the Civil War (perhaps R.E. Lee) "It is good that war is so terrible, lest we come to love it too much."

I was originally thinking that you meant lead from bullets, but then I got thinking that you might have meant lead dust from paint powdered by bombing. I suppose you actually would include both.

War doesn't build anything, but destroys alot. There are times it must be fought, and there are wars that benefitted the world. I don't generally consider the subtle environmental damages caused by wars, since there are larger issues which will cause larger harm or larger good. I feel that this war was a mistake driven by short-sighted humans. Therefore, the environmental harm is outweighed by, what I fear will prove to be, larger geopolitical harm.

Low-level radiation is a probability thing. I have no idea whether or not the rads you are getting are enough to make a change in the probability of long-term harm. I certainly hope that you are not assuming your safety, but are actively assessing doses and risk.

[hellswraith]

Just because you work on A10s doesnt mean you know jack-**** about the weaponry.

Actually, it does mean I know jack-**** about it. What experience, besides reading little articles here and there, do you have with A-10 aircraft? What makes you the expert? I am just basing my information off of first hand knowledge from what I have read from the technical manuals for the aircraft. I gave you the web site to show you what the bullets do, but you still don't believe it. I can't offer you much more than my experience of actually working on the aircraft, learning the different systems in order to fix them, talking to the pilots that fly them, and hanging out/working along side with the ammo guys that load the weapons onto the aircraft. I guess you would call it a pool of subject matter experts, but hey, they all could be wrong.... you never know, but I am putting my money on myself and them because we have at least touched an A-10, been to schools to learn about them, and have delt with them for years.

[hellswraith]

Originally posted by Shaggy Hiker
Low-level radiation is a probability thing. I have no idea whether or not the rads you are getting are enough to make a change in the probability of long-term harm. I certainly hope that you are not assuming your safety, but are actively assessing doses and risk.

Your right, but the only thing I can go off of is the experts in that area to deem it safe for me. They may be wrong, and that would suck, but that is life. I take the same risk when I get in my car and go down the road. I didn't build it, but I trust the people that do it to do it right. They may make a mistake, and I might die because of it, but, again, that is life.