US Dirty Bombs:
Radioactive Shells Spiked with Plutonium

Plutonium is a fuel that is toxic beyond human experience. It is demonstrably carcinogenic to animals in microgram quantities [one millionth of a gram]. The lung cancer risk is unknown to orders of magnitude. Present plutonium standards are certainly irrelevant."
-- Dr. Donald P. Geesaman, health physicist, formerly of Lawrence Livermore Lab

The Bush White House fooled most of the world's press with its unverified claims of intercepting a "dirty bomb" attack against the U.S. On its front page, USA Today barked: "US: 'Dirty Bomb' Plot Foiled." Newspapers everywhere explained breathlessly what radioactive materials could do if dispersed in populated areas. As Alex Cockburn reports in The Nation, when the story faced some mild scrutiny, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz backed away from the propaganda saying, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk."

Taking Action

In the first move by someone in Congress to investigate the military's use of DU weapons, U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has introduced the Depleted Uranium Munitions Suspension and Study Act of 2001, H.R. 3155. McKinney's bill would:

* Suspend the U.S. military's use and approval for foreign sale or export of DU munitions, pending a certification from the Sec. of Health and Human Services that DU munitions will not pose a long-term threat to the health of U.S. or NATO military personnel or jeopardize the health of civilian populations in the area of use;

* Suspend the foreign sale and export of plutonium-contaminated DU munitions;

* Initiate a GAO investigation of plutonium contamination of DU, and

* Initiate a study of the health effects of DU on current or former U.S. military personnel who may have been exposed and medical personnel who treated such affected personnel.

In an appeal for co-sponsors McKinney wrote, " ... the U.S. should take care not to leave a toxic legacy for either people in a foreign land, nor to our own military personnel. Approximately 300 tons of DU munitions were used in the Gulf War, much of which still sits on the ground in Iraq. Since we really do not know the comprehensive consequences of DU contamination, I urge you to support this legislation, and protect our soldiers and innocent citizens from any unnecessary health threats." Info: Eric Lausten at
-- JML



Meanwhile, the real-time, worldwide use by the United States of radiological dirty bombs has moved well beyond the plotting and shooting stage, and has begun to produce dire consequences. Toxic, radioactive uranium-238 -- so-called depleted uranium -- used in munitions, missiles and tank armor may be responsible for deadly health consequences among U.S. and allied troops and populations in bombed areas, and has probably caused permanent radioactive contamination of large parts of Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and perhaps Afghanistan. Depleted uranium "penetrators" as they are called burn on impact and up to 70 percent of the DU is released (aerosolized) as toxic and radioactive dust that can be inhaled and ingested and later trapped in the lungs or kidneys.

In January 2001, the world press finally discovered depleted uranium (DU) weapons(1), the super hard munitions made with waste U-238 -- an alpha emitter with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years. Nine years of radiation-induced death, disease, and birth abnormalities in Iraq did not move major news organizations to investigate, but the deaths from leukemia of 15 Western Europeans -- after their participation in military missions in Bosnia and Kosovo -- prompted the major media, the European Parliament and 11 European governments to launch investigations into the health and environmental consequences of what Dr. Rosalie Bertell calls "shooting radioactive waste at your enemy."