Iraqi Cancers, Birth Defects blamed on U.S. depleted Uranium

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Another forgotten aspect of the war against Iraq, thousands of children have been diagnosed with cancer and hundreds have died and many scientists state that these are directly attributable to the effects of DU munitions. And now the Iraqi people could face another devastating war, perhaps many thousands more children will contract cancer because of DU.

Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/iraq2002/95178_du12.shtml)

By LARRY JOHNSON Seattle Post-Intelligencer Foreign Desk Editor

SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq – On the “Highway of Death,” 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.
They also are radiating nuclear energy.

[thumb=A]cancerchildmom.JPG[/thumb]
Six-year-old Fatma Rakwan, being held by her mother at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children, was recently diagnosed with leukemia.

In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium – the first time such weapons had been used in warfare – as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name. Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland – and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.

Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995. With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions – still a major part of the U.S. arsenal – will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.

THE DANGERS
Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. **DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years. **Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.

[thumb=A]geigertanks1.JPG[/thumb]
Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a radiation expert, holds a Geiger counter next to a hole in an Iraqi tank destroyed by depleted uranium weapons in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The shell holes show 1,000 times the normal background radiation level.

DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy. The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.

But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions. **A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain. Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program. Studies show it can remain in human organs for years. **

The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that “contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption.”

Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat. Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems. The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions. But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is “40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium.”

The report also said, “Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU’s chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . .” In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, “The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU’s superior lethality against armor and other hard targets.”

It said DU munitions are “war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes,” with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes. In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.

[thumb=A]canceriraq1.JPG[/thumb]
Hamdin and his brother Amhid are receiving follow-up treatment after being treated successfully for leukemia two years ago at the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Children.

Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations. Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU “violates the existing law and customs of war.”

Read full article here](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/iraq2002/95178_du12.shtml)

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No, it's Sadam who used Uranium on it's own ppl, it's all Sadams fault. He is Evil and he is to be killed.
IF a state lets games being released where you have to attack Iraq and finally kill a running Sadam then what else do you accept them in their policies?
I just wonder what if that country would been Israel or US and the final Boss Bush or Sharon...Oh i think I gotta stop. I'M an "anti-semit" with "anti-american" sentiments.

3

Ali, the question is, are the American public aware of what is actually occuring in Iraq? Unfortunately millions of Americans support another war despite the humanitarian disaster that has been inflicted on the Iraqis. I think many people are easily misled by watching one-sided newscasts from certain US networks. Thankfully, the vast majority of the worlds nations are against WAR and favour diplomacy and an end to the draconian sanctions regime which have led to the deaths of thousands of people.

Unfortunately, humanitarian issues seem to be VERY LOW down in the list of concerns for the Bush administration, they are more interested in sustaining their role as an economic powerhouse than anything else. Many analysts state that by taking control of or having strong influence on the economic policies of the Gulf states, they are only safeguarding their own interests (OIL !). To Mr. & Mrs Arab and family who live in a ‘Tin shack’ in iraq with no running water, with BROKEN sewage lines, with a local hospital having extremely LOW medical supplies and BROKEN/Outdated equipment, life can only get worse.

In the event of another war, the remnants of the Iraqi infrastructure will almost certainly be TOTALLY destroyed thereby bringing further death and destruction to millions of Iraqis through disease and hunger; Add to that thousands of people will be further exposed to VERY HARMFUL radiation from DU shells :nook:

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DhP the sad thing is, even if a limited number of public knows about the FAQs, they see that justified since Saddam is the EVIL Warrior and an enemy of States. They would tolerate deaths of Iraqi ppl just for their cause to protect their home country (if that worry is worth deaths of 1000s is another chapter!).
As you mentioned the own interested are money as it always has been.

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Here we go again.

More pseudo science.

Follow the link below to an analysis of DU done by a Swiss laboratory for the EU. Bringing up this subject is mere fear mongering, and flies in the face of rational science. Uranium is a naturally occuring element, it is in the world all around us, in every corner of the world. Much is known about Uranium toxicity and side effects, these things have been studied among Uranium miners. The term “depleted” actually refers to the fact that the most toxic and radioactive portins of the Uranium ore is removed. The report on this link below is prepared by the Swiss, who manufacture no DU weapons, nor do they deploy them in their military units. They are a competent and independent source of information.

"In the vicinity of the impact point of DU ammunitions, it is not excluded that individuals unaware of the contamination (e.g. children playing with pieces of ammunition or in tank wrecks) and who stayed there for an extended period of time, could have accumulated radiation doses and/or could have incorporated uranium quantities exceeding the internationally recognized limits. However, the probability that these quantities and doses were so high that they led to acute illnesses, is very slim. Overlaying the relatively high rate of naturally-occurring cancer, the additional risk of cancer resulting from this radiation dose would be very small and hardly detectable.

In all other places further away from the immediate battlefield it is extremely improbable that people living there were afflicted by health-threatening quantities of DU, through one of the contamination pathways. In particular, the ingestion pathway is even less dangerous, since uranium is only poorly transferred into the biological cycle “soil - plants - animals - man”. Evidence of damage to the genetic material with an increase in abnormalities in newborns is not to be expected from such very small DU doses."

http://www.vbs.admin.ch/ls/e/bg_info/du/

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Here we go again.

More pseudo science.

Follow the link below to an analysis of DU done by a Swiss laboratory for the EU. Bringing up this subject is mere fear mongering, and flies in the face of rational science. Uranium is a naturally occuring element, it is in the world all around us, in every corner of the world. Much is known about Uranium toxicity and side effects, these things have been studied among Uranium miners. The term “depleted” actually refers to the fact that the most toxic and radioactive portins of the Uranium ore is removed. The report on this link below is prepared by the Swiss, who manufacture no DU weapons, nor do they deploy them in their military units. They are a competent and independent source of information.

"In the vicinity of the impact point of DU ammunitions, it is not excluded that individuals unaware of the contamination (e.g. children playing with pieces of ammunition or in tank wrecks) and who stayed there for an extended period of time, could have accumulated radiation doses and/or could have incorporated uranium quantities exceeding the internationally recognized limits. However, the probability that these quantities and doses were so high that they led to acute illnesses, is very slim. Overlaying the relatively high rate of naturally-occurring cancer, the additional risk of cancer resulting from this radiation dose would be very small and hardly detectable.

In all other places further away from the immediate battlefield it is extremely improbable that people living there were afflicted by health-threatening quantities of DU, through one of the contamination pathways. In particular, the ingestion pathway is even less dangerous, since uranium is only poorly transferred into the biological cycle “soil - plants - animals - man”. Evidence of damage to the genetic material with an increase in abnormalities in newborns is not to be expected from such very small DU doses."

http://www.vbs.admin.ch/ls/e/bg_info/du/ /QUOTE

OG that crap you already posted months back and I guess we had that matter cleared once and for all, but I guess you have a weak memory.
So Sadam order his ppl to play with uranium and make them “born death” or what is your point?

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My point is, taking this pseudo science and whipping it up into a political frenzy about the US and it’s military is untruthful to the general public. Breathing the air in Karachi is more likely to give you cancer and mutate your kids than DU. “Uranium” and “Nuclear” are such emotionally loaded topics that people stop thinking rationally, and political points can be made with little or no valid scientific proof that any harm whatsoever has been done. Blaming the US for genetic defect and cancer has virtually no proof. Here is what the World Health Organization says:

"Uranium is a silver-white, lustrous, dense, natural, weakly radioactive element. It is ubiquitous throughout the natural environment, and is found in varying but small amounts in rocks, soils, water, air, plants, animals and in all human beings.

Health effects of exposure to depleted uranium

DU has both chemical and radiological toxicity with the two important target organs being the kidneys and the lungs.

In the kidneys, the proximal tubules are considered to be the main site of potential damage. Long-term studies of workers chronically exposed to uranium have reported impairment of the kidneys that depended on the level of exposure. There is also some evidence that this impairment may return to normal once the source of excessive uranium exposure has been removed.
In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer has been demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. There is a possibility of lung tissue damage leading to a risk of lung cancer if a high enough radiation dose results from insoluble DU compounds remaining in the lungs over a prolonged period (many years).
Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin should not occur even if DU is held against the skin for prolonged periods (weeks). There is no established data to suggest that skin cancer results from skin contact with uranium dusts.
No consistent or confirmed adverse effects have been reported for the skeleton or liver. However, few studies have been conducted.
No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans, but studies are limited.
Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the studies. "

http://www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact257.html

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
My point is, taking this pseudo science and whipping it up into a political frenzy about the US and it's military is untruthful to the general public. Breathing the air in Karachi is more likely to give you cancer and mutate your kids than DU. "Uranium" and "Nuclear" are such emotionally loaded topics that people stop thinking rationally, and political points can be made with little or no valid scientific proof that any harm whatsoever has been done. Blaming the US for genetic defect and cancer has virtually no proof. Here is what the World Health Organization says:
[/quote]

Okay let us forget Iraq, just concentrate on Hiroshima. What excuse you have here?
OG, learning by doing, not doing by learning. We all criticize but don't learn from all that criticism. Karachi air is surely dirty, but keep remembering that America is ALSO the biggest dirt maker for carbon monoxid, dioxide. Most of us are aware of that fact since they don't agree on reducing it but again this will keep us off topic.
Back to the facts.

*"Uranium is a silver-white, lustrous, dense, natural, weakly radioactive element. It is ubiquitous throughout the natural environment, and is found in varying but small amounts in rocks, soils, water, air, plants, animals and in all human beings. *

Uranium is ubiquitous throughout the natural enviroment but up to some extend. If you cross limits you know what happens. I hope you had bio lesson at school so you should be aware of that.
When having dropped a bomb on some one and then to pretend nothing has happened it's sheer stupidity.

If you do wrongs then admit it. Once and for all! But patriots not gonna say sorry though.

[/QUOTE]

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Let's look at the article in this thread.

Here is the proof presented in the above article:

"Iraqi doctors believe...."

" they also suspect ..."

First, show me any valid scientific study that has linked DU to Leukemia. There is absolutely no proof of that. Second, show me any valid scientific study that shows DU linked to birth defects. There is none. If there is contamination with any type of uranium, it would immediately be evident in increased levels in the urine, this is very easy to detect, and coupld have been easily done. It HAS been done on NATO troops stationed in the Balkans in close proximity to DU attack site. Guess what? The Swiss actually saw their levels go DOWN compared to a control group still in Switzerland. Why? Because the water in Switzerland has high levels of trace Uranium.

I have quoted two sources, the World Health organization, and a Swiss Laboratory used by the UN to study DU contamination. Their conclusion is that soldiers may be exposed to DU during a battle, and people climbing on killed tanks may be exposed. But studies in Kosovo show that levels may be higher no more than 100 feet away. With rain wind and time the dust is quickly disbursed.

You are exposed to far more dangerous material sitting behind a diesel truck than you are from DU. But go ahead, try to scare some ignorant people by printing the "Nuclear Death" in nice bold type. Use it to your political ends if you must, but DO NOT claim it to be science.

And by the way, ask a bunch of those kids if they are missing any relatives to Saddam's prisons, genocides, purges, summary executions, or lack of food and medicine because he builds palaces, and spends money on weapons not people. In the Anfal campaigns Saddam is know to have butchered 100,000 people. Now that is deadly and that is toxic.

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OG, the PROOF that DU has increased the levels of cancer/serious illness rates in Iraq and amongst the US military is there for all to see. There are countless statements made my scientists and doctors, as well as ex-military personal who are themselves effected by illnesses caused by radiation from DU shells..

OG, as your memory seems very LIMITED, the subject was discussed in an earlier thread, EVEN the British Atomic Agency made a statement highly critical of DU use. Source: DU: Cancer as a Weapon](mothersalert.org)

A 1991 study by the UK Atomic Energy Authority predicted that if less than 10 percent of the particles released by depleted uranium weapons used in Iraq and Kuwait were inhaled it could result in as many as “300,000 probable deaths.”

And heres another startling FACT !
Doug Rokke, the health physicist for the US Army who oversaw the partial clean up of depleted uranium bomb fragments in Kuwait, is now sick. His body registers 5,000 times the level of radiation considered “safe”. He knows where to place the blame. “There can be no reasonable doubt about this,” Rokke recently told British journalist John Pilger. “As a result of heavy metal and radiological poison of DU, people in southern Iraq are experiencing respiratory problems, kidney problems, cancers. Members of my own team have died or are dying from cancer.” Source: DU: Cancer as a Weapon](mothersalert.org)

Thats just one of many articles, statements, army testimonials, UN officials statements which have condemned the use of DU shells.

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Oh no, I do remember our debate very well.

Perhaps you will learn science some day, but proving cause and effect is extremely difficult. Look at what a drug company goes through to prove that a drug is safe and effective.

What you are doing is using anecdotal evidence, which proves nothing. A good scientific study has NOT been done on DU, but it HAS been done on Uranium ore workers who live and breath the "full" uranium, not the "depleted" uranium. Those very long term studies have shown NO lymphomas, and NO birth defects. And that is breathing and touching highly concentrated versions of uranium ore every day of their lives in underground mines. That is the best available science that was used by the WHO article that I cited.

Of course if you choose to latch on to some highly politicized, sensationalized, and unresearched material, and try to defend it, I will not dissuade you from your ignorance.

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Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
**Oh no, I do remember our debate very well.
Perhaps you will learn science some day, but proving cause and effect is extremely difficult. Look at what a drug company goes through to prove that a drug is safe and effective. *

OG, I learnt science at University many years ago thank you very much. But what is that got to do with the huge increases in Cancer rates in Southern Iraq ?

Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
**What you are doing is using anecdotal evidence, which proves nothing. A good scientific study has NOT been done on DU, but it HAS been done on Uranium ore workers who live and breath the "full" uranium, not the "depleted" uranium. Those very long term studies have shown NO lymphomas, and NO birth defects. And that is breathing and touching highly concentrated versions of uranium ore every day of their lives in underground mines. That is the best available science that was used by the WHO article that I cited.*

OG, your problem is that you are attempting to DENY the link between DU use and Cancer rates in Iraq and you are failing. As I said before the PROOF is out there for all to see. If you wish to ignore medical reports, statements from ex-military personnel, actual studies carried out in Iraq by Doctors who are treating the patients, by International organisations who have seen a collossal increase in Cancer and birth defects, than thats up to you. I believe in the ACTUAL FACTS on the ground unlike your political gibberish.

Btw, at the end of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article above it says that in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States. Now its no surprise that the US has blocked the implementation of this banning. The FACTS speak for themselves.

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By 1999.....Not 1991

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CH, the UN subcommision convened in 1999. The British Atomic Authority made their report about DU in 1991.

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Oh my, perhaps a better University…

Here is what the Royal Society report said in March of 2002:

a Except in extreme circumstances any extra risks of
developing fatal cancers as a result of radiation from
internal exposure to DU arising from battlefield
conditions are likely to be undetectable above the
general risk of dying from cancer over a normal
lifetime. This remains true even if our estimates of risk
resulting from likely exposures are one hundred times
too low.
b The extreme circumstances will apply only to a very
small fraction of the soldiers in a theatre of war, for
example those who survive in a vehicle struck by a DU
penetrator, or those involved in cleaning up struck
vehicles. In such circumstances, and assuming the
most unfavourable conditions, the lifetime risk of
death from lung cancer could be about twice that in
the general population.
c Any extra risks of death from leukaemia, or other
cancers, as a result of exposure to DU are estimated to
be substantially lower than the risks of death from lung
cancer. Under all likely exposure scenarios the extra
lifetime risks of fatal leukaemia are predicted to be too
small to be detectable.
The radiological risks from the use of DU in munitions
are for the most part low, but there are uncertainties in
the levels of exposure that could occur under
unfavourable conditions, and for small numbers of
soldiers there could be circumstances in which the
excess risks of lung cancer are substantial. It is for this
reason that further work should be undertaken to
clarify the extent of intakes on the battlefield.
The estimated DU intakes for most soldiers on the
battlefield are not expected to result in concentrations
of DU in the kidney that exceed 0.1 microgram per
gram of kidney, even transiently. Consequently, in
these cases it is not expected that adverse effects on
the kidney or any other organ would occur.
Levels of uranium in the kidney of soldiers surviving in
tanks struck by DU rounds, or of soldiers working for
protracted periods in heavily contaminated vehicles,
could reach concentrations that lead to some shortterm
kidney dysfunction, but whether this would lead
to any long-term adverse effects is unclear as adequate
studies of the long-term effects on the kidney of acute
or protracted exposures to elevated levels of uranium
are not available. According to worst-case
assumptions, kidney uranium levels in some soldiers
could be very high, and would probably lead to kidney
failure within a few days of exposure. However, we are
not aware of any cases of kidney failure, occurring
within a few days of exposure, in US soldiers who
would have received the highest DU intakes during the
Gulf War, but we cannot rule out some kidney damage
for such soldiers under worst-case assumptions.
For those returning to live in areas where DU munitions
were deployed, including peace-keepers, the
inhalation intakes from resuspended DU are
considered to be unlikely to cause any substantial
increase in lung cancer or any other cancers. The
estimated excess lifetime risk of fatal lung cancer is
about one in a million, although there could be higher
risks for some individuals with worst-case intakes of
DU due to higher levels of local contamination.
Estimated risks of other cancers are at least 100-fold
lower. There are, however, large uncertainties in the
estimates of inhalation intakes in the years following a
conflict.
No effects on kidney function from inhalation of
resuspended DU are expected for most individuals who
return after a conflict. Small effects on kidney function
are possible using worst-case assumptions, but would
at most only apply to a small number of individuals.
Ingestion of DU in contaminated water and food, and
from soil, will be highly variable and may be significant
in some cases, eg children playing in areas where DU
penetrators have impacted, ingestion of heavily
contaminated soil, or where a buried penetrator feeds
uranium directly into a well. Environmental movement
of DU from buried penetrators into local water supplies
is likely to be very slow and over a period of decades
levels of uranium could increase in some local water
supplies.

Sorry about the formatting here, copying from a pdf report.

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OG, can you tell me any sensible reasons for all this deceases in that particular area? U mean Sadam used some Karachi air here?

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There seem to be a ton of conflicting reports about cancer and DU. I don't know what one is right and what one is wrong, proabably somewhere in between. With such questions existing it's use should be halted.

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Sure, in his book "Saddam's Bomb Maker", the author states that it was well known among Iraqi scientists that the US apparently hit some of Saddam's biological or chemical bunkers during the war. Even micrograms of that stuff can screw up chromosomes. Second, the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields released huge quantities of hyrdocarbons into the air. For most enviornmental factors it takes years of exposure to increase the level of lymphoma. There is a calculator on the Wise uranium web site that will enable anyone to see the increase of cancers given a fixed level of exposure. If DU was the cause of cancers, it would take 7 to 10 years of exposure for the cancers to even start showing up, even in the worst case exposure.

The fact is that the tank shown in this article is more than 125 miles from Basra unlikely that any kids would be playing around it. The penrators that go into the ground should not "bleed" DU, as there is less than 6 inches of rain per year, and the soil is very dry, leaving the possibility of water supply contamination very remote.

The other possibility is that this reported upsurge is a political event rather than a scientific one.

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NOw OG go to www.google.com/at
and enter "depleted uranium causing cancer".....do concentrate especially on the 3rd

[thumb=A]du.JPG[/thumb]

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ohioguy: *
Sure, in his book "Saddam's Bomb Maker", the author states that it was well known among Iraqi scientists that the US apparently hit some of Saddam's biological or chemical bunkers during the war. Even micrograms of that stuff can screw up chromosomes. Second, the burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields released huge quantities of hyrdocarbons into the air. For most enviornmental factors it takes years of exposure to increase the level of lymphoma. There is a calculator on the Wise uranium web site that will enable anyone to see the increase of cancers given a fixed level of exposure. If DU was the cause of cancers, it would take 7 to 10 years of exposure for the cancers to even start showing up, even in the worst case exposure.

The fact is that the tank shown in this article is more than 125 miles from Basra unlikely that any kids would be playing around it. The penrators that go into the ground should not "bleed" DU, as there is less than 6 inches of rain per year, and the soil is very dry, leaving the possibility of water supply contamination very remote.

The other possibility is that this reported upsurge is a political event rather than a scientific one.
[/QUOTE]

Ok lets take this for reason and who is responsible for it? The bomb itself?