Depleted Uranium in War.

• Author: Judson, Tim

In a stunningly familiar show of camaraderie, the nuclear power and conventional weapons industries and the Departments of Defense and Energy (DoD & DoE) united efforts in the struggles for cheap waste disposal and humanitarian destruction in the Balkans. After a fitful short-term project in the Persian Gulf eight years ago, the coalition prepared to really take on the task this time. The A-10 "Warthog" antitank/waste-transport vehicle would both decimate Serbian armored vehicles and move hundreds of tons of waste to its new permanent home. This new program will bring untold misery to generations of grateful Balkan peoples.

With over 1.5 billion pounds of depleted uranium; (DU, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process for creating nuclear fuel) and marginalized communities being increasingly uncooperative; the nuclear industry offered the entire stockpile of DU to the weapons industry in the late 1970s if they could find something to do with it. Companies like Nuclear Metals (now Starmet) devised ways of converting the unusable uranium hexafluoride back into metal alloy form, for use in weapons. Because DU is 1.7 times more dense than lead, it is valuable for mechanical use (in counterweights, for instance) but the DoD is especially fond of its superkiller qualities: because of its greater density, bullets made with DU are known to slice through conventional armor "like a hot knife through butter," according to Pentagon officials.

DU lived up to all of its promises the first time it was tested on a large scale. During the Gulf Massacre, the US used over 14,000 M1A1 tank rounds and 940,000 30mm rounds from A-l0 jets. The A-10 "Warthogs," responsible for over a third of the Iraqi tanks destroyed, spread over 550,000 pounds of DU in the region. Altogether, the Pentagon deposited over 650,000 pounds of DU waste for the nuclear industry. However, while the M1A1 tanks deliver the waste in large bundles of 8-10 pounds per round, the A-10 is by far the heavier hitter for the nuclear industry and made a name for itself as a highly successful waste transport vehicle.

Despite the controversy surrounding the issue, the mainstream media has been numbingly silent--the New York Times has not mentioned DU since March 15. One of the only sources published in the US since the war began is an already much-quoted April 1 article by Kathleen Sullivan in the San Francisco Examiner, in which she quotes DoD spokespeople and policy-makers from a pro-DoD...