Action Briefing June 2004 - July 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Depleted Uranium: radioactive legacy poisoning people and planet

Guest article: Carolyn D’Hesse Rogers reports on Depleted Uranium, the West’s very own Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Depleted Uranium (DU) is a waste product of the nuclear power industry given away virtually free to weapons manufacturers. It is the densest known metal available, capable of penetrating all known armour. Because of its hardness, DU is also used as armour plating around tanks.

Twenty-three weapons systems are now suspected of using DU warheads, including Cruise Missiles, Bunker Busting Bombs, Small Smart Bombs, and Cluster Bombs. The USA maintains that it uses weapons containing a "mystery metal" but examination of patents shows that this metal is in fact DU.

The use of DU in weapons, beginning with the Gulf War of 1991, and most recently again in Iraq last year, has shattered the taboo against the intentional battlefield use of radioactive materials and has created a military and legal precedent for using the "fourth generation nuclear weapons" being developed right now. These produce a radioactive burden that is much less than that of existing types of nuclear weapons, but have a destructive power about a thousand times larger than conventional explosives.

Deployed
During the Gulf War 320 tonnes of DU were deployed. DU weapons have also been used in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, as well as Iraq. The most recent war on Iraq is suspected to have left contamination from an estimated 1000-2000 tonnes of DU/Uranium.

On impact DU in weapons is ‘pyrophoric’, which means it ignites spontaneously and burns at 5000 degrees Celsius, carbonising its victims in a pall of black smoke and incandescent sparks. A firestorm of mostly insoluble radioactive uranium dioxide particles is created which stick to tanks and objects, penetrate the soil, sand and water and are inhaled by animals and people. DU is a low-level alpha radiation emitter and a chemical poison, the two properties reinforcing each others’ effects.

The radiation from these particles and debris will persist for the life of the planet, not only in target areas but also wherever they are carried by winds. The particles can remain suspended in the earth’s atmosphere for months and travel huge distances. They will eventually cover the whole planet, affecting the environment and health forever. In countries contaminated by DU, groundwater has been found to be contaminated with it, meaning that DU will find its way into the human food chain.

Commercial
Surprisingly, DU has a host of commercial applications: medicine (in radiation shielding); aviation (in counterweight components of aircraft elevators, landing gear, rotor blades and radar antennae); space exploration (as ballast in satellites, missiles and other crafts); and in drilling equipment used for petroleum exploration.

This poses a considerable health risk, especially to rescue workers and surrounding populations in the event of fires and accidents, and air crashes. On 8th February 1999, swarf ignited at a BAe Systems factory in Featherstone where DU was being machined, causing a serious fire; there had already been five smaller fires prior to the incident.
The principal way for DU to enter the body is by inhalation or ingestion of the tiny radioactive ceramic particles. These penetrate lung tissue where they become embedded, remaining there for the life of the individual while emitting a permanent stream of internal radiation.

Risk
The present radiation risk models accepted and used by the British and US governments were devised before the discovery of the genetic material, DNA, and before the biological responses of living cells to radiation were known. The European Committee on Radiation Risk has just published a report which concludes that the previous risk models for DU exposure are not correct. In fact, the report states that DU is 100-1000 times more carcinogenic (cancer-causing) than the present risk model suggests.

Incredibly, the US and British governments claim DU is "safe". However, the US military have known about the dangers of DU since 1943 and have reports to prove it. The Ministry of Defence acknowledges that alpha radiation emitted internally causes more damage to cells than equivalent doses of beta and gamma radiation.

Unexplained
In most areas where DU has been used local populations as well as allied troops in target areas have all suffered from the same symptoms and illnesses: unexplained cancers and leukaemia, neurological disorders, respiratory problems, immune deficiency syndromes, rare kidney and bowel diseases. Children are born with genetic defects, moderate to severe deformities, rare illnesses and develop cancers very young.

Gulf War veterans are still found with uranium in their systems years after the conflict. DU is implicated in Gulf War syndrome which has affected one third of all the troops involved in the fighting. Of these, several thousand have died.
DU is a weapon both of mass destruction and indiscriminate effect. As such, it should be banned under the First Protocol of the Geneva Convention. European MEPs voted for an immediate moratorium on uranium weapons in Strasbourg on 13th Feb 2003.

For more information on the campaign to ban DU, visit www.idust.net, www.bandepleteduranium.org/, and www.cadu.org.uk.

Carolyn D’Hesse Rogers