> From: John D. Giorgis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Come on now, Jeroen, are you really so easily fooled?
>
> I'm beginning to think that if someone started telling you that the US
puts
> Iraqi children in their soup, we'd be hearing about that criticism on
the
> Brin List in short order.......
The U.S. did in fact coat most of the munitions used in the Iraqi
conflict with depleted uranium. But that a different argument about
morality...
Me:
Not coat, no. DU (Depleted Uranium) is an extraordinarily dense, tough
metal. It is, I believe (and I'm going on this from memory, so it might be
wrong) the third most dense metal, after osmium (which will actually melt
in your hand) and iridium, which is just phenomenally rare and expensive,
although it would probably work even better. This makes it ideal for use
as both munition and armor, oddly enough. The A1, A1HC, and A2 variants of
the M-1 Abrams Tank are all swathed in DU as protective armor. Similarly,
the "long-rod penetrators" primarily used for anti-armor attacks are made
of DU, for pretty much the same reasons. The 30 mm rounds used by the
A-10, as well as a few other types of munitions, also use DU for its
penetrating effects. DU is depleted, however, precisely because it has
been processed to remove the U-235. The U-238 that remains is not, I
believe, a significant radiation source, although it does have some
toxicological effects. So the slugs themselves are actually _made_ of DU.
Gautam
