Depleted Uranium

By John Sturdevant Visalia
(Published Friday, February 7, 2003, as a letter to the Fresno Bee)

Pacifica news -- 88.1 FM -- has been reporting recently on the use of depleted uranium by the United States in the Persian Gulf War and in our recent campaign in Afghanistan. The half-life of depleted uranium -- an inexpensive byproduct of uranium enrichment -- is 4.5 billion years; read "until the end of time."

Depleted uranium is now a standard in the American arsenal. The cancer rates in former battlefield regions of Iraq are very high, as are the cancer rates of American service personnel who handled and used depleted uranium munitions during the Persian Gulf War.

What happens is when the uranium shells pierce armor or explode as bunker busting bombs, the radioactive material gets pulverized and mixed in with the soil. The desert wind blows this radioactive dust, which is then inhaled, causing severe damage to the individual. If this isn't bad enough, Bush and his henchmen have added nuclear weapons to their battlefield arsenals for the upcoming war with Iraq. President Bush has threatened the use of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iraq.

This is a violation of international law, which states that a nuclear power may not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation. The inclusion of battlefield nukes (which incidentally have many times the power of the bombs our country dropped on Japan) in the arsenal for the upcoming war means our president is contemplating the unthinkable. This is not only immoral, it is illegal. For this and Bush's blatant disregard for decency, morality and international law, we must remove him from office. Impeach President Bush.