|
|
|
|
Radioactive shells spiked with plutonium
by John M Laforge, Z Magazine October 2002
. . .Worldwide use by the United States of radiological dirty bombs has moved well beyond the plotting and shooting stage and has begun to produce dire consequences. Toxic, radioactive uranium-238ãso-called depleted uraniumãused in munitions, missiles, and tank armor may be responsible for deadly health consequences among U.S. and allied troops and populations in bombed areas. It has probably caused permanent radioactive contamination of large parts of Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and perhaps Afghanistan. Depleted uranium „penetrators,¾ as they are called, burn on impact and up to 70 percent of the DU is released (aerosolized) as toxic and radioactive dust that can be inhaled and ingested and later trapped in the lungs or kidneys.
In January 2001, the world press discovered depleted uranium (DU) weapons, the super-hard munitions made with waste U-238ãan alpha emitter with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years. Nine years of radiation-induced death, disease, and birth abnormalities in Iraq did not move major news organizations to investigate but the deaths from leukemia of 15 Western Europeansãafter their participation in military missions in Bosnia and Kosovoãprompted the major media, the European Parliament, and 11 European governments to launch investigations into the health and environmental consequences of what Dr. Rosalie Bertell calls „shooting radioactive waste at your enemy.¾ DU is left after uranium ore has gone through the gaseous diffusion process that removes most of the fissionable isotope U-235. The refuse also of nuclear weapons and reactor fuel production, some 700,000 tons, are now left in the U.S. as „resource materials¾ãa legal definition that saves the Energy Department the cost of managing DU as radioactive waste.
Prized for its high density, DU is used in munitions for piercing armor plate. Shot from planes like the USAF A-10 Warthog, the DU shells are called „tank killers.¾ But by building radioactive waste into armaments, the U. S. is, in effect, using poisoned weapons as gene busters in war. At least five types of U.S. munitions contain DU, which is also used in casings for bombs, shielding on tanks, counter-weights for commercial jet aircraft, and „ground penetrators¾ on missiles. . . . [Among corporations making DU shells,] Alliant Techsystems in Minneapolis (formerly Honeywell Corporation) assembled over 15 million DU shells for the Air Force in the 1990s.
Between 300 and 800 tons of DU munitions were blasted in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait by U.S. forces in 1991. The Pentagon says the U.S. fired about 10,800 DU roundsãclose to three tonsãinto Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. More than 31,000 rounds, about 10 tons, were shot into Kosovo in 1999, according to NATO.
A total of 24 soldiers from Europe have died of cancer since their 1994 and 1995 service in Bosnia. In response, Portugal¼s Prime Minister Antonio Guterres wrote to NATO¼s Robertson demanding an explanation of where and why DU munitions were used in Europe.
The Pentagon and the nuclear industry reacted typically to European politicians who in 2001 demanded health physics information from the Pentagon. After a laughable week-long study NATO assured them that DU used in the Balkans can be „ruled out¾ as a significant health hazard. When Italy, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and Norway all called for a moratorium on the use of DU, NATO ministers flatly rejected the suggestion.
Prominent scientists also worked to calm the uproar. Dr. John Boice, of the International Epidemiology Institute, told the New York Times, „To get leukemia you need to get the radiation to the bone marrow. The radiation does not go to the marrow. And Uranium 238 will not get to the bone marrow. I don¼t think it causes leukemia at all.¾ U. S. physicist Steve Fetter told the Times that uranium did not penetrate to bone and bone marrow where leukemia originates.
This sophisticated obfuscation refers to external DU exposure and ignores the hazard from DU ingestion or inhalation. Jean Francois Lacronique, director of France¼s National Radiation Protection Agency, flatly contradicted NATO, saying, „U-238 has been found stored in bone, and if it gets into bone, it can reach the bone marrow.¾ Dr. Frank von Hipple, author of a December 1999 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article on DU, told me, „Yes, it does get to the bone. We looked at that in our study.¾ The December 2000 Science for Democratic Actionãfrom the Institute for Environmental and Energy Research (IEER)ãreports, „Some [DU] particles remain in the body where they can build up in lung [tissue], or enter the blood stream where it can accumulate in bone tissue.¾ Internal exposure, the IEER article says, „increases the risk of leukemia and lung, bone and soft issue cancers, particularly when inhaled or ingested.¾
At the height of the January 2001 media frenzy over cancers among peacekeeping troops deployed in Bosnia, a 17-year-old advisory bulletin from the Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA) was leaked to the press. Still in effect today, it puts the lie to industry, Pentagon, UK, and NATO denials of health risks associated with DU exposure. The 1984 memo warns FAA crash site investigators that, „if particles are inhaled or ingested, they can be chemically toxic and cause a significant and long-lasting irradiation of internal tissues.¾
More recently, the prestigious British Royal Society¼s second DU study found that troops who inhale or ingest „high levels¾ of DU could suffer kidney failure within days and that children in DU-bombed areas face long-term risk of cancer and heavy metal poisoning. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned in March 2002 that there is a danger of groundwater contamination from corroding DU ammunition at six sites in Serbia and Montenegro bombed in 1999. UNEP president Pekka Haavisto said he „was surprised to find DU particles still in the air two years after the conflict¼s end.
Canadian researchers have found „unequivocal evidence¾ of long-term DU contamination of Persian Gulf vets: they found that eight years after the bombing, Canadian veterans were still passing U-238 in urine. Italy announced last August 5 that its soldiersãafflicted with cancer after service in the Balkans and potential exposure to some of the three tons of DU exploded there by U.S. jetsãwill be awarded medical compensation. British researcher Albrecht Schott has found that UK soldiers exposed to DU in wartime have suffered 10 times more genetic damage than the general population. Prof. Schott said of this study, „This level of genetic damage doesn¼t occur naturally.¾ In the U.S., a Dept. of Veterans Affairs study recently found that children of veterans of the Persian Gulf bombardment are two to three times as likely as those of other vets to have birth defects. The U.S. vets also reported more miscarriages. In Iraq, government figures show an increase in cancer cases from 6,555 in 1989 to 10,931 in 1997ãmostly in areas bombed by the U.S.-led coalition in 1996ãand the number of reported cancer cases increased 12-fold between 1991 and 2001.
Ironically, the clearest U.S. government admission of the dangers of DU came from U.S. intelligence officers fighting in Afghanistan, when Knight Ridder newspapers reported on December 21, 2001, that U-238 had been found in „Taliban hideouts.¾
U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had concluded, „al-Qaida intended to use the U-238 to make „dirty bombs,¾ which use conventional explosives to spread radioactive material over a wide area. In addition to killing people in the bomb blast and poisoning others with radiation, the officials said, such a bomb could render large areas unusable and require lengthy and expensive clean-up efforts.¾
Agreeing it had sufficient evidence of harm from DU, the European Parliament, on January 17, 2001, voted 394 to 60 in favor of a moratorium on the use of DU among its members. NATO commanders issued a one-page statement February 13, 2001 dismissing concerns. But the navy and marines decided sometime before June to stop using DU. „We¼re not considering [DU] anymore because of the environmental problems associated with it . . . . We don¼t want to be in a position of having someone say, åyou can¼t bring your armor piercing rounds on the battlefield.¼¾ said Colonel Clayton Nans, head of the Marines¼ Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle program. . . .
In Europe, a wildfire of publicity was lit anew by the United States¼ official admission that its DU contains plutonium and other reactor-borne fission products far more radioactive and carcinogenic than U-238.
The discovery of U-236 contamination in spent munitions used against Kosovo revealed that the DU was not obtained before the nuclear reaction process. The Pentagon, NATO, and the British Ministry of Defense have always downplayed the danger of DU, saying it was „less radioactive that uranium ore.¾ But at least half of the DU (250,000 metric tons) is left over from the reprocessing of irradiated reactor fuel (done to extract weapons-grade plutonium), leaving it salted with fission products.
„If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium,¾ says Dr. Michael Repacholi of the World Health Organization, which has demanded to know how much plutonium is in DU ammunition. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is still working on an answer to that question.
As early as January 2000, the DOE admitted that its DU munitions are spiked with plutonium, neptunium and americiumã¾transuranic¾ (heavier that uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear reactors. The health consequences here are fearsome: americium-243ãwith a half-life of 7,300 yearsãdecays to plutonium-239, which is more radioactive than the original americium.
DU „contains a trace amount of plutonium,¾ said the DOE¼s assistant Secretary David Michaels, who wrote to the Military Toxics Project¼s Tara Thornton January 20, 2000. „Recycled uranium, which came straight from one of our production sites, e.g. Hanford [Reservation, in Richland, Washington], would routinely contain transuranics at a very low level. . . ,¾ Michaels wrote. „We have initiated a project to characterize the level of transuranics in the various depleted uranium inventories.¾ he said.
Von Hippel says in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that plutonium-239 is 200,000 times more radioactive than U-238. Plutonium „is probably the most carcinogenic substance known,¾ according to Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER, writing in his 1992 book Plutonium.
The government¼s bland assurance regarding material carcinogenic to animals in microgram quantities appear scientifically preposterous, yet the AP reported on February 3, 2001: „U.S. officials have said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm. . . .¾ This public relations ploy failed to calm the furor raised across Europe, especially after the leak of a July 1, 1999 „hazard awareness¾ memo issued by the Pentagon. The memo warned military personnel entering Kosovo against touching spent ammunition, suggested the use of protective masks and skin covering while in contaminated areas, and recommended follow-up health assessments. The warning was sent to defense ministries in Europe but it is not known to have been given to civilians or returning refugees.
. . . The Hague Conventions explicitly outlaw poison saying, „It is especially forbidden: To employ poison or poisoned weapons.¾
Poison is defined by the Air Force manual as, „biological or chemical substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or bloodstream, or touch the skin.¾
