Should I respond to this somewhat inflammatory post? I think I should just to clear the air a little.
Most people would not describe DU weapons as nuclear weapons. They contain uranium - just like the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 - but there are huge differences. Here are a few of them, elaborated in a very simple-minded fashion:
- The destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb came from the splitting of the uranium nucleus into two lighter nuclei, plus neutrons and other radiation - aka nuclear fission. An enormous amount of energy is released in the fission process because the resulting light nuclei have higher binding energies than the parent uranium nucleus. This energy was stored in the uranium nucleus which is held together by the strong nuclear force. Hence the name nuclear weapon. The explosive release of nuclear energy creates an enormous firebomb which gives the weapon its godawful destructive power. It also leaves behind long-lived radioactive byproducts and gives off huge amounts of "radiation" of various sorts. It's all very nasty...
- The idea behind weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) is very different. DU is very heavy and very hard, so it does more damage in the simple way that heavy and hard things always do. They are hard to stop, and they pierce armour. DU is used to make bullets and shells. In this case the DU is the core of the shell; in simple terms it is the shell - it's not just the pointy tip. DU is also pyrophoric, it burns easily at room temperature, and it burns and explodes once inside its target. This leaves behind the infamous radioactive DU dust that is of great concern. DU is also (alledgedly?) used in the casing for smart bombs, cruise missiles, and perhaps other weapons. Note that DU weapons do not release energy from the nucleus. Their extraordinary effectiveness comes from their kinetic energy (via their heaviness and high speed), and from chemical energy released in self-burning or by conventional chemical explosives. So DU weapons are clearly not nuclear weapons in the usual sense.
Is it therefore incorrect to say that DU weapons are nuclear weapons? I would "yes, it is incorrect" simply because DU weapons release essentially no nuclear energy when used, and no nuclear processes take place during that time. It's perhaps possible to make the opposite case because DU weapons leave behind lots of uranium (obviously!), and this is radioactive. But I think that's pushing semantics to the limit.
DU is also chemically toxic, and I must admit that I don't know whether the toxicity or radioactive danger is worse. I would guess there are experts reading this who are cringing at my naive attempts to explain all this. :o
Where did you get the birth-defect figure of 67%? I Googled for a while but the highest figure I found was 3%. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
Also, what is the justification for your claim that "in Iraq the depleted uranium radiation equals that of 250,000 Nagasaki bombs"? I'm sure that that the explosive power was nowhere near that level, and you are clearly not claiming that anyway. It's also clear that the amount of DU used in Iraq is far higher than the 64kg of enriched uranium used in the Hiroshima bomb. Perhaps you are claiming that about 15,000 tonnes of DU were used in weapons in Iraq - that's roughly 250,000 times as much uranium as in the Hiroshima bomb. (The Nagasaki bomb was plutonium-based.) But that's not the same thing. Uranium 238 has a half-life of nearly 5 billion years so it'll be a long time before most of it emits anything! Yes, I know, that's not the point. The point is that there are pooloads of the stuff in Iraq (and elsewhere), it's a radioactive alpha-emitter and therefore very dangerous if ingested, it's chemically toxic, and it's gonna take forever to clean up the mess. In the meantime people will suffer, and some will suffer dreadfully.
DU weapons are nasty - make no mistake about it - but they ain't nuclear explosives. Have they been classified and banned as WMDs? "Yes", say many. "No", say the US military. Sigh...
Should they be banned? I like to think the world might see a way to ban them, but I can't see it happening soon. Please, please, please can we have a sensible Democrat in the White House next time?
Finally, the above is essentially a brain-dump and may contain a few errors. Feel free to point them out. I've also been lazy about quoting references. Yell if you need some.