In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, New York, which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing more than 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dr. Jawad Al-Ali 55yrs old, director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent (2003) conference in Japan: ""Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient, e.g. leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers, one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney; he had three different types of cancer. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer"". ""Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now common, too."" ""We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I even feel afraid to talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait , we were accused of being Saddam supporters."" John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of U.S.A. today related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret.  He stated that he had prepared breaking news stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. Ever since he has been replaced as editor of U.S.A. today. Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization's (WHO)chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has stated that his report on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq due to breathing uranium contaminated dust, was  also deliberately suppressed. The information released by the U.S. department of defense is not reliable, according to some sources even inside the military. In 1997, while citing experiments by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,  ""The U.S. government's Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.""   At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. army. Ever since, he has left the military to found the uranium medical research center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada. PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 army division, 34th Platoon. (Names and numbers have been changed) was diagnosed with cancer several times after returning from Iraq.  Seven other men in the Platoon also have malignancies. Doug Rokke, U.S. army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War, states: ""Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity."" Rokke's own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. He stated: ""When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy,"" After performing clean-up operations in the desert, mistakenly without protective gear, 30 members of his staff died, and most others, including Rokke, developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems.  ""We warned the department of defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension. Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is ""not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most  cases."" Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases? Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore Lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb. ""That's exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way."" According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact.  ""The larger the bang"" the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the ""micron size"" or smaller, he said. When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific: ""I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.""
 When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat “sufficient heat to ignite the DU.  From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur). Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and therefore inhalable. Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised.  In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a small fraction of the cases are being reported. Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in world war II. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on an on.  Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU Weapons. Now they are commonplace.  In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, ""Doctor, is it a boy or girl?"" but rather, ""Doctor, is it normal?""  The photos are horrendous; they can be viewed on the following website: Depleteduraniumthechildkiller.com Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated: ""Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA."" Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author  of the ""Baghdad Diaries"" wrote: ""Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia.""
""The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas."" This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers).  So, it's 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!!   Estimates of the percentage of D.U. which was 'aerosolized' into fine uranium oxide dust are approximately 30-40%. That works out to over one million pounds of dust scattered throughout Iraq. As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002.  Iraqi deserts were bombarded by about 300 tons of DU bombs, by the U.S. and UK armies.
(Source: globalresearcg.com)