What is Depleted Uranium (DU)?
Reality Sandwich / KPOO 89.5 FM
12may2005
US Army S. Sgt. Dennis Kyne, Leuren Moret, whistle-blower, and Dr. Doug Rokke,
veteran of both Vietnam and GWI (L-R)
Photo by Paul Goettlich (2003)
Co-hosts Paul Goettlich and Julie Matthews spoke with Gulf War veteran Dennis Kyne and Livermore National Lab whistle-blower Leuren Moret about depleted uranium (DU). Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. was unavailable at the time of the broadcast. He was the person who researched and wrote the Army's manuals on DU. He is a Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran.
We spoke about how the Army lies to our valiant warriors about this most deadly and eternally radioactive weapon, telling then that it is safe. Dennis and I agreed that the government sees soldiers as expendable commodities, much like a paper cup from a water cooler. Leuren Moret, the brilliant scientist and archive of information on depleted uranium quoted the illustrious Henry Kissinger, "Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy,” from the book Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam. Our best advice to anyone contemplating a stint in the military for any purpose other than suicide is to forget it quickly. The government thinks you're trash. We know you're better than that. So don't throw your life away for a cause that is phony from the get-go.
DU is commonly used as tank armour-piercing munitions. You should care about it even if you don't go to Iraq and don't even know anyone who has. DU is an eternal threat that is impossible to clean up now that the US has rained the equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs on innocent people of the Gulf region and other places such as Bosnia. It takes 4 days for it to blow in the wind from Iraq to the US, where even one particle, smaller than a virus or blood cell, can get deep into your lungs and radiate you to death.
Background articles:
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Dennis Kyne Be sure to visit his website: www.denniskyne.com
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Depleted Uranium (DU) Munitions - What the Army knew and talked about. This is from a PowerPoint presentation by Col J. Edgar Wakayama August 2002
More documents of interest
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Photos of Babies Deformed at Birth as a Result of Depleted Uranium (DU) 2003 photos: Dr. Jenan Hassan WARNING: Extremely Graphic Images!
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Declassified memo to General L.R. Groves, Director of the Manhattan Project, October 30, 1943. This shows they knew quite a lot about how deadly DU was back in 1943! Source – US Army Major Doug Rokke
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Chart showing relative sizes of particles (DU has been measured to less than 1/10th micron, which is smaller than a virus. Notice the vertical yellow line. DU falls into the "Metallurgical Dusts and Fumes" category.
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Chart showing penetration of HEPA filters, which is what soldiers should be wearing. But even if they did wear them, they don't fit correctly and do not filter out small enough particles. (Pretty well useless!)
A CD of this show will be available for $10. Contact Mindfully.org
Depleted Uranium (DU)
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process.
Presently there is no acceptable solution for safe disposal of radioactive waste. The laws and precautions governing its use have largely been discarded since large-scale military use made them impractical. Depleted uranium is also now being made available to be recycled as an element going into manufacturing of consumer or industrial products.
The enrichment process also creates small quantities of the man-made isotopes U236 and plutonium (Pu239). These isotopes are included in the “depleted” uranium mass as it is too expensive to extract them.
For every gram of enriched uranium that is produced there are 7 grams of depleted uranium. This results in huge stockpiles of radioactive waste. It is estimated that there is over one million tons of DU stockpiled in the U.S. The quantities of plutonium in these stockpiles are a well-kept secret. It is routinely measured but not publicly reported.
Isotope Composition, Chemical Half-lives and Isotope Ratios in Natural and Depleted Uranium
ISOTOPE NATURAL DEPLETED HALF-LIFE U-238 99.2749% 99.7947% 4.49 billion years U-235 0.7196% 0.2015% 710 million years U-234 0.0055% 0.0008% 248,000 years
Non-Depleted Uranium (NDU)
Non-depleted uranium is uranium with a U238/U235 isotopic ratio comparable to natural uranium but having quantities of U236 and presumably plutonium.
U236 is a man-made element not found in nature. It's presence suggests that the uranium has been through a reactor or has been mixed with reactor by-products.
While some studies have shown that U236 may be produced in nature by natural reactors, the quantity of U236 is 10,000 times less than the amount UMRC is measuring in NDU.
Uranium and Weapons
Modern warfare since the Gulf War in 1991 has employed weapons which make use of DU for its properties:
- It is cheap and available to arms manufacturers free of charge.
- It has a very high-density which makes it a superior armour piercing material.
- It burns upon impact producing intense heat and easily cuts through steel.
- It acts as a self-sharpening penetrator.
The danger posed by DU in weapons:
- When DU weapons hit a target, a fine aerosol of uranium oxides is formed. The majority of particles (46 - 70%) are less than 10 microns.
- The aerosol-like particles (dust) are easily inhaled into the lungs.
- These fine particles can be spread by the wind and are readily re-suspended by modest breezes or vehicle and personnel movements. There is no existing study measuring the distance traveled by such particles. However, there is a documented instance were particles were physically captured 42 km from a test site. (Dietz 1999).
- This only proves migration beyond the specific site but does not preclude the possibility that particles can travel a great many times more kilometers. Fluid dynamic studies report that particles fewer than 5 microns can remain almost permanently suspended in the atmosphere.
- While some of the DU is soluble, the majority (in the form of other oxides) is insoluble and remains in the body for years. Once in the body, DU slowly spreads from the lungs, mainly into the lymph nodes and bone. Excretion from the body is very slow.
- The uncontrolled use and spread of uranium goes against the scientifically established conventions for handling radioactive substances and contravenes international laws. See the case made by Karen Parker at the UN that DU weaponry is illegal under existing human rights and humanitarian (armed conflict) law
- It is estimated that 300 - 800 metric tons of DU were deposited in the battlefield in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. Dr. Doug Rokke (DU expert and former US army physicist) estimated that 120 to 480 million grams of DU would be aerosolized if 40% of the DU were burnt up.
- These airborne and respirable sized particles will be radioactive for billions of years into the future.
Source: Uranium Medical Research Centre www.umrc.net
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