Iraqi "insurgents" use "dirty" bomb.

[NNadir]

I don't want to get into the media's use of words, which is confusing because you can't tell the "insurgents" from "the freedom fighters" from the "terrorists" from the "extremists" from the "patriots..." etc.

However, according to the MSM, the Iraqis who are fighting "our troops" in the "war on terrorism" are now using "dirty bombs."

Now I used to think that "dirty" bombs were defined by our media as consisting of "dangerous nuclear waste," and all Americans have been invited to cower in fear of "dirty bomb" terrorists. Now, curmudgeon that I am, I have long pointed to the technical difficulty of actually making a "dirty bomb," but while I was talking about nuclear issues, a new kind of "dirty" bomb became "dirty."

From the Associated "Press" comes the following description:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents exploded a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters Wednesday — the second such "dirty" chemical attack in two days — while a U.S. official said ground fire apparently forced the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. All nine aboard the aircraft were rescued.

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

Military officials worry extremists may have recently gained more access to firepower such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns — and more expertise to use them. The Black Hawk would be at least the eighth U.S. helicopter to crash or be taken down by hostile fire in the past month.

Dirty.

Wow.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070221/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

This means that environmentalists everywhere should be calling for a ban on dangerous electrolysis, I guess.

[1620rock]

1. Well. we are using "dirty bomb" depleted uranium daily.

:shrug:

[NNadir]

2. It must be very tragic, far more tragic than using "dirty" lead in "dirty" bullets.

[Chemical Bill]

3. Yes, it is....

Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium

By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.

They also are radiating nuclear energy.

<snip>

Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.

With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.

<more>

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

Depleted Uranium Blamed for Cancer Clusters Among Iraq War Vets
by Christopher Bollyn August 15, 2004

A discovery by American Free Press that nearly half of the recently returned soldiers in one unit from Iraq have "malignant growths" is "critical evidence," according to experts, that depleted uranium weapons are responsible for the huge number of disabled Gulf War vets - and damage to their DNA.

A growing number of U.S. military personnel who are serving, or have served, in the Persian Gulf, Iraq , and Afghanistan have become sick and disabled from a variety of symptoms commonly known as Gulf War Syndrome. Depleted uranium (DU) weapons have been blamed for causing many of the symptoms.

"Gulf War vets are coming down with these symptoms at twice the rate of vets from previous conflicts," said Barbara A. Goodno from the Dept. of Defense's Deployment Health Support Directorate.

A recent discovery by American Free Press that nearly half the soldiers in one returned unit have malignant growths has provided the scientific community with "critical evidence," experts say, to help understand exactly how depleted uranium affects humans - and their DNA.

<more>

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/08/15_bollyn_depleted-uranium-blamed-cancer.htm

WHO ‘suppressed’ scientific study into depleted uranium cancer fears in Iraq

Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf war pose long-term health risk

By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

02/22/04: (Sunday Herald) An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret.
The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.

Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards.

Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.

“Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock told the Sunday Herald.

<more>

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5749.htm

These articles/studies are from before "Shock and Awe", so the US has been using "dirty bombs" in Iraq for years.

Bill

[NNadir]

4. Of course, we could read the scientific literature on this subject but

that wouldn't be as much fun.

So Bill, how's the campaign against electrolysis going?

How about the campaign against uranium? Do you think you can stick it all back in the supernova it came from?

[Chemical Bill]

5. Provide any scientific literature you wish.

How much is there? I would expect that the studies done by the US government, if there are any, may have a little bias, but certainly the vets and the Iraqis with cancer have their bias as well. Frankly, the scientific literature you have provided in the past to answer my posts seemed to have only a tangential relationship with my posts. For example, when I provided an opinion on what fuel is desirable for transportation in the future, you only provided reports on energy generation in the past, as if there has never been a major shift in the way energy is generated on this planet. But please, show me something that you think would persuade me that "depleted" uranium is safe, and the ill effects suffered by those exposed to it are coincidence. You may not convince me, but plenty of other eyes see these threads, so give it a shot for their sake.

While you're at it, please show me any post I have made that even mentioned this supposed quest of mine to stick any and all uranium back in a supernova.

I feel no need to campaign against electrolysis, save for the passing mention of the energy needed to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen (which, as you know, is more than twice the energy obtained when the hydrogen is burned). My opinion is that there will be, and should be, no large scale hydrogen generation in this country. If I were to campaign against electrolysis, I would be sure to mention that hydrogen gas will eat through the ozone layer at a rate which would make us wish for the good old days, when freon was the only threat to ozone. Melanoma anyone?

Bill

edit: punctuation

[NNadir]

6. Sure. Maybe this will help you ban an element in the periodic table.

Here is a reference in the scientific literature (as opposed to cartoonish evocations from the popular press) about cartoonish claims that every cancer that occurs in Iraq is related to uranium tank shells: Chemical Reviews, 2003, Vol. 103, No. 11

The following excerpt from the scientific article is found on pages 4269-4270:

In addition to the ever-increasing amounts of uranium handled worldwide as the use of nuclear power continues to expand,4,5,445 the use of depleted uranium (DU) has added another dimension to potential introduction of uranium into the human body in the form of finely divided shrapnel.446-448 A large fraction of the DU leaving enrichment facilities in the United States is converted for use as military ordinance and armor and as ballast in airplane construction. A number of military personnel were accidentally wounded by DU shrapnel during the Gulf War, and the slowly dissolving, finely divided DU fragments are continuous sources of systemic uranyl ion (UO2 2+, uranyl). Persons wounded during the Gulf conflict and in Kosovo with DU shrapnel present a unique medical problem. The fragments of the DU ordinance, many too small to remove surgically, are chemically reactive and locally irritating, and as they slowly dissolve, they are potentially exposing the wounded individuals to chronic kidney poisoning and an unacceptable amount of uranium accumulation in the skeleton.446-4

...The role of DU in the development of illnesses in veterans of the Persian Gulf conflict has recently been discounted, as the soldiers most directly in contact with dust, namely those in or near explosions of DU ordinance or armored vehicles or others who treated or rescued the wounded, do not exhibit any increase in the symptoms expected in those with more direct exposure.449,450 Depleted uranium has 40% less specific activity than naturally occurring uranium, but as a heavy metal, it is still chemically toxic.450 Thus, it follows that the kidney should be the first organ directly affected by poisoning with uranium, and yet these soldiers were not found to have suffered any impairment of renal function...449

...Studies seeking to establish a connection between uranium exposure and bone cancers are inconclusive. 449 The potential for kidney damage or increased bone cancer is still being followed in these patients...

I would link the references contained therein, but you wouldn't understand them anyway and would (and probably will) continue to offer the cartoon version of what depleted uranium is, since you and your buddies are engaged in belief and not science.

For the record, in case you haven't heard of this, the main cause of melanoma is not the billions of tons of uranium distributed on the earth.

The main cause of melanoma is sunlight. Therefore I hope you will become an activist not only in banning the elements of the periodic table that occur on a billion ton scale, but also are working on banning the sun, (and solar power) since sunlight causes cancer. Another agent causing melanoma is coal tar but you have no interest in that, I bet, because you don't give a shit about coal.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/ped_7_1_What_You_Need_To_Know_About_Skin_Cancer.asp

I call for the banning of coal, but then again, I know what the fuck I'm talking about and you don't.

You may think that everyone on earth is so poorly informed as to buy into your rote assertions. Actually though there are many people who are educated.

Now, would you like to produce a scientific article proving that all of the melanoma in Iraq is the result of uranium weapons while asserting that melanoma is unknown in the absence of uranium?

You are speaking about a subject about which you know almost nothing.

You don't call for the banning of electrolysis because of chlorine "dirty bombs" in Iraq because your assessments of risk are arbitrary and totally based on mysticism.

[Chemical Bill]

7. About the DU...

oddly enough, you neglected to highlight the paragraph providing fairly graphic summations of the role of DU in specific illness that has been well researched. The quotation you did highlight, however, doesn't address anything but kidney illnesses of Gulf War veterans that have long since returned. It uses statistics to discount the role of DU in their "Gulf War Syndrome". While I am not prepared to specify a cause for "Gulf War Syndrome", I am prepared to say that your reference does nothing to refute may assertions that Iraqi cancer rates and even Gulf War veterans' cancer rates could have been raised by DU. It says studies are inconclusive.

Did you read my entire post, and connect the melanoma to the potential role of hydrogen in destroying the ozone layer?

I don't call for the banning of chlorine bombs for several reasons, not the least of which is that I feel we should clean up our own house before pointing any fingers.

Why do you feel that you need to subject me to abuse? Please don't think it superior to rational discourse.

Bill

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chemical Bill]

10. Um...

Your scientific resource, the journal put out by the American Chemical Society (an industry group), states the following:

In addition to the ever-increasing amounts of uranium handled worldwide as the use of nuclear power continues to expand,4,5,445 the use of depleted uranium (DU) has added another dimension to potential introduction of uranium into the human body in the form of finely divided shrapnel.446-448 A large fraction of the DU leaving enrichment facilities in the United States is converted for use as military ordinance and armor and as ballast in airplane construction. A number of military personnel were accidentally wounded by DU shrapnel during the Gulf War, and the slowly dissolving, finely divided DU fragments are continuous sources of systemic uranyl ion (UO2 2+, uranyl). Persons wounded during the Gulf conflict and in Kosovo with DU shrapnel present a unique medical problem. The fragments of the DU ordinance, many too small to remove surgically, are chemically reactive and locally irritating, and as they slowly dissolve, they are potentially exposing the wounded individuals to chronic kidney poisoning and an unacceptable amount of uranium accumulation in the skeleton.446-4

That says that DU is not safe, nor harmless. So is lead, yes, but your source didn't equate DU with lead, it specifically said: "Persons wounded during the Gulf conflict and in Kosovo with DU shrapnel present a unique medical problem."

So when you assert that DU is not a "dirty bomb" you are disagreeing with the material you provided to back up your assertion.

Bill

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chemical Bill]

8. BTW, save some straw for the horses. n/t