Re: DU issues

[Fritz Seiler <faseiler@nmia.com>]

Dear Phil,

As a former (part-time) CBR officer in the Swiss Army and CO of its then 37
radiation
labs, I really appreciated your input.  It was dead on target.

Best regards

Fritz


Phillip Hypes wrote:

> As an HP who also has experience as an Armor officer, I'd like to make a
> few points about the use of DU in the gulf.  I have done my best to
> minimize my comments on non - radiological topics, although I may have
> stretched the definition of “radiological topics” once or twice.
>
> First of all, some background is necessary to be able to intelligently
> consider the issue of whether the use of DU by soldiers meets the ALARA
> principle.  It is the responsibility of any nation sending
> it’s sons (and daughters) to war to equip them as well as possible, giving
> them the best possible chance of coming home.  As has already been pointed
> out, the alternatives to DU hardly have a clean bill of health either.  And
> nothing (despite what the folks who used to make a LOT of money selling
> tungsten to ammo manufacturers say) is more effective than DU, for
> metallurgical reasons.  The Geneva accords require that the weapons used in
> war not cause unnecessary suffering (I can’t
> remember the exact wording, but that’s the gist of it).  To my knowledge,
> there has never been an ethical objection to the use of these munitions.
>
> Yes, there are ethics on the battlefield.  I know of no long-standing army
> in history that has had a better ethical record than the U.S. Army,
> although I will be the first to admit that this is hardly an unbiased
> opinion (and there have been tragic exceptions to the rule).  The law of
> war does require combatants to use the least force that will get the job
> done.  This is why tanker doctrine does not allow firing DU main gun rounds
> at infantry when there are other alternatives.  No law of war prevents
> using whatever means are necessary to defend yourself.  If all you have is
> main gun ammo, you can (and will) use it.  That being said, I have never
> heard a gulf war veteran talk about using DU tank ammunition against
> infantry.  DU tank ammunition was used against Iraqi armored vehicles, and
> it is
> reasonable to assume that any crewmen fortunate enough to survive may have
> body burdens of DU.  I doubt if anyone could even hazard an order of
> magnitude guess as to how many veterans of the world's conflicts are
> walking around today with fragments of other metals in their body (lead,
> steel, tungsten, etc.).  Had U.S. penetrators been made of tungsten, the
> war would have lasted much longer, been much bloodier, and we'd probably be
> hearing about heavy metal poisoning from tungsten instead of radiation from
> DU.  If we weren't hearing about tungsten poisoning, it would be because
> nothing catches headlines like the "r" word.  Claiming that the U.S.
> contaminated Iraq with radioactive materials gets a lot more attention that
> complaining about bits of "ordinary" metal littering the landscape.
>
> Much the same situation has prevailed with environmental contamination (of
> which there is plenty after any conflict, as any land mine expert can tell
> you).  The main difference is that throughout much of history, the
> vanquished have been charged for damages in the form of reparations.  This
> has taken place even when the vanquished nation has suffered more damage
> than the victorious nation.  In the particular case of DU, given the
> relative densities of DU dust and sand, I would not expect much of a health
> hazard from DU dust post-conflict.  True, some respirable particles will
> probably be produced when a DU round strikes a hard target, but I doubt
> their "respirable life span" (to coin
> a term) would be longer than a few days.  I imagine they would soon form
> larger, non-resuspendable particles and be submerged in the lower layers of
> sand.  Solid masses of DU could pose a low level external exposure risk, of
> course, if laying on the surface.  The magnitude of this risk can be
> appreciated by the fact that it takes extended periods of time in close
> proximity to large quantities of
> penetrators to approach the U.S. exposure limit for members of the general
> public (100mrem/yr).  Handling a solid piece of DU, of course, would raise
> the issue of potential internal contamination.  The magnitude of this
> hazard will depend on the chemical form of the DU oxides and the particle
> size, as discussed later in this message.
>
> An interesting development in the issue of environmental contamination,
> though, is the fact that issues like Gulf War Syndrome have forced the
> military to change the way it thinks about deployments.  The military is
> working toward being able to apply peacetime occupational health standards
> in operations up to and possibly including full scale war.  How do you deal
> with an area that needs to be patrolled or guarded when your opponent has
> used a radiation dispersal weapon (or the mere rumor of one) to spread low
> level contamination in the area?  How do you demonstrate that
> personnel in that area will not exceed 100 mrem/yr?  If they will exceed
> it, how do you provide any sort of dosimetry in a combat zone?  We seem to
> have a public that believes that any endeavor should be made into a “zero
> risk” activity, even war.
>
> Whether DU poses more of a toxological hazard or a radiological hazard
> depends on it's chemical form and particle size.  Respirable sized particle
> of soluble compounds can be absorbed into the bloodstream through the lungs
> and present a heavy metal toxicity hazard to the kidneys.  Respirable sized
> insoluble compounds may be retained in the lungs long enough to pose a
> radiation exposure risk.
>
> Larger particles can be trapped in the linings of the upper respiratory
> system and may eventually be expectorated or swallowed.  For such
> particles, their solubility in the digestive tract (which may differ from
> their solubility in lung fluid) will determine if the heavy metal toxicity
> to the kidneys outweighs the hazard from the exposure of the digestive
> system to radiation.  Of course, in many of these instances, the issue of
> which hazard outweighs the other may be irrelevant.  If the levels are low
> enough, they may well be no significant biological response.  Other factors
> may override the DU body burdens as well;  injury, disease, malnutrition
> from your own army neglecting to supply
> you with food...
>
> Far be it from me to ridicule the sacrifice made by any soldier in any war,
> but that does not require me to treat the unscientific, PR-driven claims of
> an oppressive, totalitarian regime with anything but contempt.  The U.S.
> had every right to use the most effective means available to defend an
> ally.  Any ally, by the way, is a nation with which we share various goals,
> including economic goals.  Many wars have been fought over economic issues,
> one of any nation’s primary concerns.  Okay, now I’m totally off topic (not
> that I don’t have company in that respect), so I’ll back away from the
> keyboard.
>
> PURELY my own opinions.  Not to be constued as the official policy or
> position of any governmental organization.  Not my current employer, not
> the U.S. Army, JUST MINE.
>
> Address flames to:
>
> Phil Hypes
> phypes@nis5.lanl.gov
>
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--
*************************

Fritz A. Seiler, Ph.D.
Principal
Sigma Five Associates
P.O. Box 14006
Albuquerque, NM 87191-4006
Tel.    505-323-7848
Fax.    505-293-3911
e-mail: faseiler@nmia.com

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