*Although the Pentagon has issued contradictory statements about the dangers posed by the 320 tons of DU fired in Iraq, it predicts that every future battlefield -- including in the former Yugoslavia, where DU is now being used by US forces -- will be contaminated with DU.

Radiation occurs almost everywhere, at low levels known as "background." DU, however, is a highly concentrated form, consisting of the "tailings" left over from the enrichment process that produces nuclear fuel and bombs. When protectively encased, DU's health risks are small. But when DU smashes at twice the speed of sound against metal, it burns and pulverizes, becomes toxic and releases radioactive dust that can soar in the heat column of a flaming tank and waft for miles in the desert wind.

As a heavy metal, DU's short-term risk is chemical toxicity. Although DU is only 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium, its particles can become trapped in the body for long periods, which can result in severe health problems.

A visitor witnessed a radiation detector register about 35 times normal background radiation in some battlefield areas in southern Iraq. Old tanks "killed" with DU bullets showed radiation levels 50 times above background. "It's hot forever," says Doug Rokke, a former Pentagon DU expert. "It doesn't go away. It only disperses and blows around in the wind." The military's reluctance to acknowledge DU's dangers reminds Rokke of another war, in Vietnam: "[DU] is the Agent Orange of the 1990s," he says. "Absolutely."*

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer211/211_peterson.html


I guess this would explain why the US military use radiation detection equipment when they decontaminate equipment that has been contaminated by DU (according to the US military DU training video I posted earlier).