DU

Depleted Uranium (238)
a waste product
left over from enriched uranium (234 & 235)
for nuclear bombs, for nuclear power
Dilemma: what to do with nuclear waste?
illegal under Int'l law to dispose of outside ones own borders.
DU - radio active half life of 4.5 BILLION years
the age of Earth herself.

DU: extremely dense
loved by the military
for shell casing, bomb core, whole bombs, for bombing
cuts through metal (tanks), concrete (bunkers)
like a hot knife through butter,
70% burns
on impact,
into fine ceramic dust of uranium particles
blowing in the wind
to breathe into the lungs,
in the ground water, the soil
to be ingested by mouth, by touch,
from poisoned earth

IRAQ: Nuclear waste dump 1991;
one million rounds of DU fired
over 300 tons

Baghdad: bomb slices into suspected bunker;
800 women and children
in a shelter
incinerated.
The Highway of Death:
(outside Basra) every tank and truck
incinerated.
Basra: 100 - fold increase in ground water uranium

The Aftermath
for those spared by bombs;
Cancers of every kind.
children most vulnerable, then adults.
Leukemia first,
children dying
without benefit of treatment
of pain relief,
thanks to UN sanctions.
Birth defects
too horrible to describe
increase 10 fold.
Make no mistake,
"What happened in the Gulf was a form of nuclear warfare"

and the soldiers?
Gulf War syndrome swept under the rug,
slow death, suicide,
children with congenital abnormalities.
New recruits: Black, Hispanic, 1st Nations ......

Iraq: 1991 (1 million DU rounds)
Bosnia: 1994 - 95; (10,800 DU rounds)
Kosovo: 1999; ( 31,000 DU rounds)
Aghganistan: 2001; (how many rounds?)
and 2003 in Iraq?
800 cruise missiles in 2 days, (more than in 40 days in 1991)
"no safe place in Baghdad"
"never contemplated before"
this "shock and awe"
"rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima,
not taking days or weeks, but minutes."

DU - radio-active half life of 4.5 BILLION years
the age of Earth herself.

What can we do?
Read, Learn, Speak, Organize, Work together, Write letters
“NOT in our name!”
with or without permission of UN Security Council
bullied into agreement.
NOT in the name of Canada (with Canadian Uranium)
This apocalyptic SHOCK & AWE campaign,
this massive dump of nuclear waste
this burnt offering, genocide, near extinction
of a whole people/peoples
of the Middle East.
NOT in our name!

• The Guardian from Britain first made me aware of the issue of DU in1993;
• Felicity Arbuthnot, The New Internationalist issue on Iraq, Sept. 1999;
• CBS & Sun Herald quotes from Pentagon officials and military strategist, Harlan Ullman, architect of Shock & Awe;
• CBC website on DU;
• "The Cost of Conflict" from "The new rulers of the World" by John Pilger in "The Saddam Hussein Reader", selections from leading writers on Iraq, edited by Turi Munthe, Thunders Mouth Press, 2002.
• quotes from Hans Von Sponek, senior UN official in Iraq (after Dennis Halliday quit) & Professor Doug Rokke, US Army physicist responsible for cleaning up nuclear waste in Kuwait
• Guy Dauncey, Sustainable Communities, Victoria;
• Thanks to Ross MacKay for invaluable email sources.
• Stephen Lewis discussion of Aids in Africa "African leaders beginning to speak of extinction" triggered the actual nightmare that led to this writing.