Last sunday there was a BBC documentary on tele.
Some researcher went out to Basra in Iraq to find out what the long term consequences are when missile / bombs with deriched uranium (DU) are used.
I found the results to be shocking!

There is uranium 236 in the food chain in these area. They found spots next to public roads and foodstands measuring 20.000 (!!!!) times the allowed background radiaton.
Local people are already suffering severly because of this.

The main dangers are:
* radioactive particles have been found in waterstorage facilities.
* it is blown around in the air with the dust. It is 'airborn'.
* it is very likely that local food and local veggie's are contaminated.
* together with the uranium they also found traces of plutonium, wich is a milloin times more posion then uranium.

How serious is this? Well the investigators that hanged around and visited sites for two weeks had traceble quantities of radioactive material in there system that shouldn't be there. In other words a much higher risc for cancers, leukemia,... for the rest of there life.

Again, the main problem / danger is that you get into your body (food, dust, water,...) and it stays there. That is the worst contamination there is with radioactive material and should be avoided at all times.

Where are the hot spots:
* Iraq, any area wich has been bombed or the scene of a tank-battle. Smart bombs and anti tank bombs are the ones that had these DU missile heads. Sadly enough this means lots places in Iraq...
* Any tankwrecs should be avoided since they release the contaminated dust particles.
* same goes for bombed constructions
* wach out for the actual DU-heads. Childeren in Basra where playing with them after painting a face on them. The German researcher took one home and was arrested. He served prison time for transporting radioactive material and bringing a healthrisc into the country!
* Former Yougoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo,..) idem dito.
* Afhanistan, idem dito.

And... Uranium 236 takes 4.5 miljard (don't know what this exactly is in Enlgish, some 1000 times a million) years to get halve in radiation strength.... Sadly enough it is there forever.

[This message has been edited by fireboomer (edited 04 August 2004).]