Depleted Uranium - Myth vs Reality

The following is totally false 
 
Given that the US political military regime has used illegal DU (Depleted Uranium) weapons to make 8% of the world\'s surface uninhabitable for all eternity in the most horribly unthinkable way – radioactivity – 
 
The 14 states suing the US government over car emission limits should be suing the US government for war crime trials over using DU weapons in Lebanon, Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in testing and training grounds in USA and Australia, blowing tons of lethal radioactive dust into the atmosphere around the entire globe  
 
DU never was used in Lebanon - the UNEP has confirmed that with field testing - DU is not used in bunker buster bombs - Doug Rokke may claim so, but he also has claimed to be a disabled COMBAT veteran yet never saw combat! The US has never attacked Iran so it has never used DU there either. I doubt that DU was used in Serbia - there were no Yugoslavian tanks that were threatening NATO forces - it was used in Boznia-Herzegovina and Kosovo - you can read the Boznia-Herzegovina report at the link below. It was used at a small number of testing grounds in the US (not in training, except as a simulator of the weight and shape of the nuclear warhead of the ill conceived and short lived Davey Crockett battlefield nuclear delivery system. It most likely was never used in Australia. The only place that DU rounds were fired for training was in northern Saudi Arabia before Desert Storm and possibly in Kuwait before entering Iraq in 2003. There is no lethal radioactive dust circling the globe - that is a myth from the so-called independent scientist Leuren K Moret whose sole brush with the Lawrence Livermore nuclear lab was as a Senior Scientific Technologist at the Center for Applied Computing for less than a year from 1989-90. That sounds more like computer lab tech than someone who worked with radiation or DU, but she travels the world claiming to be an expert. 
 
The rest I sent in my e-mail to the author of this piece -  
 
Your article tows the anti-depleted uranium crusader line, but they just carry on the myths that were started by Saddam Hussein and given publicity by the peace activists in 1998 when Saddam wanted out from under the UN Sanctions.  
 
Meantime, learn about DU -- here are two links that are especially relevant since you claim some 8% of the world is now uninhabitable - the reality is more like ZERO percent of Iraq is even uninhabitable. DU does not permanently poison the soil; it imperceptibly adds to the existing natural uranium already present. There are areas of the world that have high background radioactivity - one of those is the beach at Rio de Janeiro -- do you see topless babes in bikinis or men in white suits with respirators? The beaches there are much more highly radioactive than even the inside of a destroyed Iraqi tank.  
 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/40 (all of the DUStory messages can be read by the public) - this one has a number of links 
 
The DUStory links and files sections, which you also should read, require you to join the Yahoo Group (Yahoo\'s rules, not mine) - I prefer entirely open access to everything - I want people to read about the charlatans in the anti-DU crusade like Douglas Lind Rokke and Leuren K Moret and I want them to learn about a real radioactive accident like Goiana, Brazil or about the High Background Radiation Areas (I added that link from the links section and I will probably post a new message to replace #40 and add the most current links - the files, though, I still can not post as messages and you have to join - please, do, everyone with an interest in DU is welcome - it is not a discussion list so I don\'t keep anyone out; no one is on the banned list like I am on a number anti-nuclear crusade/anti-DU Yahoo Groups, most of which claim to be some sort of scientific discussion, but scientists discuss alternatives and don\'t freeze people out because they disagree (AmericanDUST is a classic example of that, but there is another one that bounced me as soon as I started posting Rokke\'s military records)  
 
Depleted Uranium in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Postconflict 
Assessment 300 pg detailed UN Environmental Programme Report 
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf  
 
Radiological Conditions in Areas of Kuwait With Residues of Depleted 
Uranium Includes Appendix III - Experiments to Examine Resuspension 
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1164_web.pdf 
 
Uranium Emitted from Coal Fired Power 
Plants - Even U-235 is emitted from coal fired plants  
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html 
 
Los Alamos Researchers find time in dusty polar 
ice - Note that this uses measurements of \"femtograms\" - one quadrillionth 
of a gram -- same (except misspelled) measurement as that for Specialist  
Matthew Gerard of NY National Guard 
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/1034 
 
High Background Radiation Areas of Ramsar, Iran  
Introduction to High Background Radiation Areas (HBRA) and their study  
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/ramsar.html  
 
Feel free to write back - even post this message if you care. 
 
Roger Helbig 
concerned, angry veteran with enough basic knowledge of radiation to know that the anti-DU crusade is mythology and the smarts to find real experts - only time I was in the Pentagon, I was a tourist and I retired from the AF Reserve in 1994 (just in case you Google me and think you know who I am -- I am a whistleblower - I was very politically active for John Kerry

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dustory/message/40

Guest