The Danger of Depleted Uranium in Artillery

Regular reader and commenter Opit is the latest to beseach me to tackle the issue of depleted uranium in weapons used by the US military. I can drag my feet no more. This is going to be a project. I am taking a grad level Cellular Bio and Physical Chemistry this semester, and I am teaching Chem for Health Sciences and Cellular Bio 101. In both the courses I teach and the classes I take, DU will be addressed. If I am going to tackle such a weighty topic, I'm going at it full throttle, I'm not dicking around ("Uh, depleted uraniums bad, 'mkay?")

This is the first post on the topic, and merely tells my intent and provides a couple of links. I have not even begun to dig into this topic. But I can tell you this:

I fear what is in store for many of our troops after they come home. I fear what the effects to their health will be after they have been exposed to depleted uranium. I fear that many of them will experience a long, slow, agonizing death from systemic cancers in the not too distant future.

See, if you make your artillery shell casings from an alloy that contains depleted uranium (DU from here on) it will pierce armored vehicles and bust bunkers; and usually kill most of the occupants. DU is derived from Uranium 238. The reason it can pierce armor is because it is heavier than any other metal in use (hence the atomic number 238). DU weapons are horrifyingly effective - against DU artillery, tanks and armor are useless and bunkers are blown to bits like the houses of the first two little pigs. The devastation they rend make them a net-gain asset in the mindset of the pentagon. I have taken statistics - I can imagine the formula used to justify the use of DU in artillery; and it kinda makes me sick.

But it's more than a little creepy, too. We all know that U-238 is radioactive, and that the radioactive half life of U-238 is 4 billion years. The amount of decay in a human lifetime is, to be charitable, minute. We all know that U-238 is some really nasty stuff. It causes leukemia, systemic cancers, hematologic disorders, immune system compromise and genetic mutations. We all are exposed to approximately 1.9 mmicrograms of Uranium every day, so who in their right mind would want to add to that background exposure? I don't know who it was, what evil genius, came up with the idea of recycling spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants into artillery casings, but if there's an evil-genius ring of hell, that bastard is holding court. Yes the armor of the enemy is rendered veritable tinfoil, but at what cost? Those we send to war, those who take the field of battle in our name, handle these shells and are in the area after they explode. They are inherently exposed to massive amounts of carcinogenic and mutagenic materials and the greater their susceptibility and exposure, the grimmer the future they face.

And what of the Iraqi's who don't get to leave? What are we doing to their future generations who have nothing to do with this mess in Mesopotamia? Are we engaging in a low level atomic war against Iraq? I fear that answer might be yes.