What should we do with this stuff?
DoE: Hey, after we enrich uranium and extract all of the really nasty bits, we have all this extra stuff left over... what do you think we should we do with it?
DoD: Hmmm... we could make tanks and bullets out of it, that way we kill two birds with one stone.
DoE: How so?
DoD: We get impenetrable tanks and bullets that can kill their tanks, and we make it someone else's problem to clean up because we leave it "over there"!
DoE: Kewl! How much you want? We've got plenty.
clean up depleted uranium. The Pentagon denies that there's a problem, but says they're continuing to study the issue. Yet another arm of the Pentagon says that depleted uranium is chemically toxic and can present serious health risks. They've stepped up the training so that the troops know not to enter a burning tank to save their commrades since they will likely inhale toxic levels of DU in the process. Let's face it, this stuff isn't good for you!
Regardless, the more you chase this issue down, the uglier it becomes. Apparently, many suspect that DU is the cause of many of the cases of "Gulf War Syndrome". The Pentagon continues to deny that DU is the cause. However, most of the Pentagon's information is based on live-fire testing... remember the movie "Pentagon Wars"?
What really gets me is that, at least in Massachusetts, you can't buy a house until it has been tested for radium levels which at their worst are considered equivalent to smoking a pack a day if you don't open the windows and doors occasionally. We're talking miniscule traces of gas... miniscule.
And yet, I read in a number of places that the British had used an estimated 1.9 tons of DU... the British have something like 1/10 the contingent that the U.S. has in Iraq. You do the math (and that was last year's figure).
Bottom line, we're making a mess and doing nothing to clean it up. You don't think that the newly democratic Iraqi government won't demand reparations for this mess? Not only that but we're talking two wars... there's tons of the stuff left over from the first Gulf War that Saddam never bothered to clean up.
DoD: Hmmm... we could make tanks and bullets out of it, that way we kill two birds with one stone.
DoE: How so?
DoD: We get impenetrable tanks and bullets that can kill their tanks, and we make it someone else's problem to clean up because we leave it "over there"!
DoE: Kewl! How much you want? We've got plenty.
clean up depleted uranium. The Pentagon denies that there's a problem, but says they're continuing to study the issue. Yet another arm of the Pentagon says that depleted uranium is chemically toxic and can present serious health risks. They've stepped up the training so that the troops know not to enter a burning tank to save their commrades since they will likely inhale toxic levels of DU in the process. Let's face it, this stuff isn't good for you!
Regardless, the more you chase this issue down, the uglier it becomes. Apparently, many suspect that DU is the cause of many of the cases of "Gulf War Syndrome". The Pentagon continues to deny that DU is the cause. However, most of the Pentagon's information is based on live-fire testing... remember the movie "Pentagon Wars"?
What really gets me is that, at least in Massachusetts, you can't buy a house until it has been tested for radium levels which at their worst are considered equivalent to smoking a pack a day if you don't open the windows and doors occasionally. We're talking miniscule traces of gas... miniscule.
And yet, I read in a number of places that the British had used an estimated 1.9 tons of DU... the British have something like 1/10 the contingent that the U.S. has in Iraq. You do the math (and that was last year's figure).
Bottom line, we're making a mess and doing nothing to clean it up. You don't think that the newly democratic Iraqi government won't demand reparations for this mess? Not only that but we're talking two wars... there's tons of the stuff left over from the first Gulf War that Saddam never bothered to clean up.
posted by Chris at
Sunday, May 23, 2004
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