Friday, November 6, 2009

There are WMD in Iraq - ours


Depleted uranium (DU) is the waste product from the process of enriching uranium ore for use in nuclear weapons and reactors. It is a very heavy substance, 1.7 times denser than lead, it is highly valued by armies for its ability to punch through armored vehicles. When a weapon made with a DU tip or core strikes a solid object, like the side of a tank, it goes straight through it and then erupts in a burning cloud of vapor. The vapor settles as dust, which is both chemically poisonous and also radioactive. (BBC News, 4 January 2001)

As an alpha particle emitter, DU has a half life of 4.5 billion years. DU materials are in the warheads of 23 weapon systems, including cruise missiles, bunker busting bombs and cluster bombs. DU munitions were central to the "shock and awe‚" attack on Iraq in 2003 and the continued military conflict since.

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