Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: URANIO IMPOVERITO (part2)

Direttamente dal sito 
www.thenation.com
The proliferation of D.U. ammunition around the world boosts the chances
that U.S. soldiers will eventually be on the receiving end of the
devastating weapon.
A broad coalition of veterans organizations, environmental groups and
scientists hope that won't happen. On September 12, they met in NewYork
to kick off a campaign calling for an international ban on D.U. weapons.
Even the conservative-minded Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American
Legion recently passed resolutions calling on the Defense Department to
reconsider its use of the controversial weapon.
"Clearly the Department of Defense hasn't thought through the use of
D.U. on the battlefield and what kind of exposures they are subjecting
our troops to," charged Matt Puglisi, the assistant director of veterans
affairs and rehabilitation for the American Legion. "It is a very
effective weapon, which is why the D.O.D. really doesn't want to see it
re-examined. We only spent a couple of days [in winning the Gulf War].
But what if we had a fight that took years and years? We could have tens
of thousands of vets with D.U. shrapnel in them."
[...]
The D.U. weapons succeeded beyond the Pentagon's wildest dreams. But
they received little public attention compared with the fanfare over
other high-tech weapons: smart bombs, stealth fighters and Patriot
missiles (which looked good, even if they didn't, as it turned out,
work). D.U., perhaps the most effective new weapon of them all, was
mentioned only in passing. "People have a fear of radioactivity and
radioactive materials," explained Dan Fahey, a former Navy officer who
served in the gulf. "The Army seems to think that if they are going to
keep using D.U., the less they tell people about it the better."
[...]
At war's end, U.S. forces left behind about 300 tons of expended D.U.
ammunition in Kuwait and Iraq, a veritable radioactive waste dump that
could haunt inhabitants of the region for years. In August 1995, Iraq
presented a study to the United Nations demonstrating sharp increases in
leukemia and other cancers as well as other unexplained diseases around
the Basra region in the country's south. Iraqi scientists attributed
some of the cancers to depleted uranium.
Some U.S. officials and scientists have questioned the Iraqi claims. But
former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who has made two recent trips to
Iraq, observes that "the health ministry and doctors particularly in
Basra and the south are terribly concerned about a range of problems
that were not experienced before: fetuses with tumors, high rates of
leukemia." And a secret British Atomic Energy Authority report leaked to
the London Independent in November 1991 warned that there was enough
depleted uranium left behind in the Persian Gulf to account for "500,000
potential deaths" through increased cancer rates, although it noted that
such a figure was an unlikely, worst-case scenario. That figure was
based on an estimate that only forty tons of D.U. was left behind.
Another study, by Siegwart Gunther, president of the Austrian chapter of
Yellow Cross International, reported that D.U. projectiles "were
gathered by children and used as toys." The study noted that a little
girl who collected twelve of the projectiles died of leukemia. Gunther
collected some D.U. rounds in southern Iraq and took them to Germany for
analysis. However, when Gunther entered Germany, the D.U. rounds were
seized. The authorities claimed that just one projectile emitted more
radiation in five hours than is allowed per year under German
regulations.
Cleaning up the radioactive mess in the Persian Gulf would cost
"billions," even if it were feasible, said Leonard Dietz, an atomic
scientist who wrote a report on depleted uranium for the Energy
Department. But the Pentagon maintained in a report that "no
international law, treaty, regulation, or custom requires the U.S. to
remediate Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm battlefields."
[...]
Despite the Pentagon's love affair with D.U., there is an alternative --
tank ammunition made from tungsten. Matt Kagan, a former munitions
analyst for Jane's Defence Weekly, said the latest developments in
tungsten technology have made it "almost as effective as D.U." That
assessment is shared by Bill Arkin, a columnist for The Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists who has consulted on D.U. for Greenpeace and Human
Rights Watch. "It comes down to this," Arkin said. "Is there a logical
alternative that provides the same military capability and doesn't leave
us with this legacy? The answer is yes, tungsten."
But tungsten is more expensive and must be imported, while the United
States has more than 500,000 tons of depleted uranium, waste left behind
by the production of nuclear weapons and by nuclear generators.
Scientists have long looked for a way to re-use what otherwise must be
stored at great expense in remote sites.
"It's just a cost issue," argued Arkin. "But nobody ever thought through
what would happen when we shoot a lot of this stuff around the
battlefield. It's not a question of whether a thousand soldiers were
exposed or fifty soldiers were exposed. We were probably lucky in the
Gulf War. What happens when we're fighting a war that makes the Gulf War
look like small potatoes?"	
Ripeteremo tutto questo in Kosovo?
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>Ripeteremo tutto questo in Kosovo?
Un discorso in inglese? Perchč no...cosě imparano
un altra lingua...

ciro il camionista wrote:
Another study, by Siegwart Gunther, president of the Austrian chapter of
Yellow Cross International, reported that D.U. projectiles "were
gathered by children and used as toys." The study noted that a
littlegirl who collected twelve of the projectiles died of leukemia.
Gunther collected some D.U. rounds in southern Iraq and took them to
Germany for analysis. However, when Gunther entered Germany, the D.U.
rounds were seized. The authorities claimed that just one projectile
emitted more radiation in five hours than is allowed per year under
German regulations.
Questo tizio e` quello che ti dicevo che secondo me si e` fatto pagare
un po` troppo per fare il servizio che e` andato su RAI2 un paio di anni
fa.
Dopo l'intervista a lui doveva esserci l'intervista a me di cui ti
dicevo. Quindi ho fatto tutta la storia della tossicita` delle polveri
di Uranio, di come funzionano sulle corazze ect. etc. Ad un certo punto
la domanda fatidica: chi possedeva i proiettili con l'Uranio impoverito?
Ed io tutto candido: sia gli USA che gli Irakeni, perche` bla bla etc.
Quando e`andato in onda io ero sparito per ragioni di spazio.
Mi ci hanno fatto perdere un intero pomeriggio, per fare un favore ad un
amico, il giornalista che ha fatto il servizio.
Se il problema fosse bandire l'uso dell'uranio impoverito dai proiettili
non ci sarebbe problema, sarei d'accordo.
Ma qui mi sembra che il problema sia di altra natura.
Finche` lo usano Saddam o Milosevic per far sparare i loro carrettini
allora tutto va bene e non se ne deve parlare. Se invece viene sparato
dagli americani allora fa venire la leucemia ai bambini.
Mi sembra il periodo degli euromissili: i Cruise e i Pershing erano
missili cattivi, mentre gli SS20 sovietici erano buoni missili di pace.
Ma andiamo!
Luigi