When a projectile made with DU penetrates a vehicle, small particles of DU can be formed and breathed in or swallowed by service members in the struck vehicle. Small DU fragments can also scatter and become embedded in muscle and soft tissue.
Military public health authorities knew about this contamination and took on-site corrective measures. Veterans at K-2 are eligible for DU testing. DU is a potential health hazard if it enters the body, such as through embedded fragments , contaminated wounds, and inhalation or ingestion.
Simply riding in a vehicle with DU weapons or DU shielding will not expose a service member to significant amounts of DU or external radiation. Inhaled DU particles are likely cleared from the lungs over several years. DU fragments may remain for many years. Older studies show high exposures to U may especially affect the kidneys.
In , in a U. The potential popular blowback from using DU, however, is very real. The U. The Pentagon said the Nov. Though the coalition said that the strikes occurred entirely in Syrian territory, both sides of the frontier were completely under the control of the militant group at the time. Any firing of DU in Iraqi territory would have far greater political repercussions, given the anger over its previous use there. The Nov.
Centcom and the U. Air Force at first denied it was fired, then offered differing accounts of what happened, including an admission in October that the weapon had been used. However, the dates confirmed by Centcom at that point were off by several days. It is now clear that the munitions were used in the most publicized of the Tidal Wave II attacks.
Depleted uranium is left over from the enrichment of uranium It is exceptionally hard, and has been employed by militaries both to penetrate armored targets and to reinforce their potential targets like tanks against enemy fire.
Though less radioactive than the original uranium, DU is toxic and is considered by the U. The most likely way for such intake to occur is through the inhalation of small particles near where a weapon is used.
Firing rounds near civilian populations has a powerful psychological effect, causing distress and severe anxiety, as the International Atomic Energy Agency noted in Internationally, DU exists in a legal gray area. It is not explicitly banned by U. Those videos — along with dozens of other strike recordings — have been removed from official coalition channels in recent months. Second, it is for those individuals who have served in the military for the right reasons and have become trapped in a vicious debate with no clear evidence or solutions; for individuals who became victims of conflicts they had no say in and who wonder why they are and never will be the same, why they are sick, and why world leaders, organizations, and government are not dealing with this issue in greater force.
DU is a waste by-product of uranium enrichment and has many practical applications in civil and military systems; however, DU is also an extremely dangerous environmental and organism pollutant. Depleted enriched uranium was first manufactured in the United States early in the s during the onset of the nuclear weapons program. Later in the decade, Britain, France and the Soviet Union began their nuclear weapons program and in turn ran into DU. Since the s, it has been used as armor and armor-piercing ammunition in many international military conflicts, which include the Gulf War, Kosovo Conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The United States military first began equipping its forces with depleted uranium in the s. The first things to be armed with DU were tanks, shells and rockets. DU is extremely dense and is one of the heaviest metals around, which enables it to burn and destroy conventional armor with precision and accuracy. DU munitions are extremely effective weapons that are known to infiltrate armor on any military vehicle, as well as protective bunkers.
DU can serve both as a weapon and a protective armored-plating shield. Non-DU shells do not stand a chance against this sort of armor. Currently, DU weapons are used unreservedly by the armed forces as necessary asset for the military. DU is not only a superior armor penetrator, but is required to compete with any modern military force in order to penetrate targets 3. These weapons, even though proven to contain toxic elements that effect the population and surrounding areas for decades, if not centuries, to come, from a military point of view, serve an extremely effective advantage over their opponents.
DU allowed for Iraqi tanks to be destroyed in a matter of hours with little casualties for Americans. Citizens of countries want to see as little death of possible from their soldiers. Nonmilitary uses of DU include counterweights in airplanes, shields against radiation in medical radiotherapy units and transport of radioactive isotopes 2.
It is also used in the shielding of radiographic cameras, coloring in consumer products, trim weights in aircraft, as well as sampling of calorimeters for detectors in high-energy particle accelerators. However, if DU is used extensively in the military and is quite common in civil usage, then why the concern? DU behaves both toxicologically and chemically like natural uranium metal.
DU can be toxic to many bodily systems. Most importantly, normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, and heart can be affected by DU exposure 2. An Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute study of rats after the Gulf War found that DU exposure damaged their immune and central nervous systems and may have contributed to some of the cancers they developed 3.
Yet DU on its own is quite safe, the main concern with DU is when it is used as a military shell, missile or projectile. Natural uranium is comprised of three radioactive isotopes: U, U, and U. While depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, it still retains all the chemical toxicity associated with the original element 5.
This toxicity is made evident in missile conflict. While DU does prove effective and has a very high rate of destroying its targets, there is a great side effect. The after-blast of DU continues with an army of toxic substances surrounding the exploded area.
The size of these toxic particles is smaller than 5 microns, and a human being can inhale anything under 10 microns. The DU radioactive dust settles in the soil, water and air, which then can be moved great distances by plants, underground water and wind currents.
This transfer to drinking water or locally-produced food has enough potential to lead to significant exposures to DU. Once inhaled, depending on aerosol speciation, inhalation may lead to a protracted exposure of the lungs, blood and various other systems and begin to emit a dose of alpha radiation. Chronic low-dose exposure to depleted uranium also alters the genetic structure of developing organisms.
Adult animals that were exposed to depleted uranium during development display persistent alterations in behavior and brain chemistry, even after cessation of depleted uranium exposure 2. Despite its reduced level of radioactivity, evidence continues to accumulate that depleted uranium, if ingested, may pose a radiologic hazard 2. The former state of knowledge concerning DU is currently being debated and discussed. Still, the United States Military was not the only institution which began to question the use of DU.
The court ruled that nuclear weapons are legal because their primary or exclusive use does not fall under the category for use of poisoning or asphyxiating. This ruling removed depleted uranium from the weaponry category. Again, in , Y. But since weapons containing DU are relatively new weapons no treaty exists yet to regulate, limit or prohibit its use. The legality or illegality of DU weapons must therefore be tested by recourse to the general rules governing the use of weapons under humanitarian and human rights law which have already been analyzed in Part I of this paper, and more particularly at paragraph 35 which states that parties to Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of have an obligation to ascertain that new weapons do not violate the laws and customs of war or any other international law.
This again was neglected and the use, transport and further development of DU continued. Del Ponte concluded that:.
There is a developing scientific debate and concern expressed regarding the impact of the use of such projectiles and it is possible that, in future, there will be consensus views in international legal circles that use of such projectiles violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict.
In , some states and the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, a coalition of more than nongovernmental organizations, asked for a ban on the production and military use of depleted uranium weapons. Three years ago, in December, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for users of DU to hand over quantitative and geographical data on their use.
The resolution passed by votes to four, with 30 abstentions. The countries which abstain or vote against any anti-DU regulation are also the countries with the largest and most developed militaries. The value of DU usage in warfare was first seen and thoroughly analyzed during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in by the American and British militaries.
Most of the main battle tanks fired rounds that contained DU rounds.
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