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Grave danger of depleted uranium weapons used on Libya

“We are saturating the ground with Depleted Uranium ammunition ……we are subjecting civilians of Libya to a far greater danger in the long run than they currently face from the civil war that’s going on.”…

AUDIO   PressTV – US heavily dependent on use of Depleted Uranium , PressTV, 14 April 11, NATO continues to deny the use of depleted uranium in its humanitarian efforts in Libya. Conn Hallinan, Columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, spoke to Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Thursday regarding the continued use of Depleted Uranium ammunition. “I think you have a situation now where the United States and Britain and France, being the major countries involved here are basically claiming that they are engaged in the Libyan Civil War in order to protect the civilians. Unfortunately, what is happening is that in the process of attacking Muammar Gaddafi’s military forces, particularly his tanks and armor and artillery the U.S. is heavily dependent on the use of Depleted Uranium Munitions,” Hallinan said.

“Now the allies are denying that they are using Depleted Uranium Munitions but the denials don’t hold water. Any analysis of the explosions show that it is Depleted Uranium Ammunition/munitions and the particular entrance, destruction on these tanks indicate that they are using this particular kind of munitions'”, he said. Hallinan went on to add, “The danger here is the same danger that you had in the first (Persian) Gulf war, in Iraq war, and in Kosovo which is that Depleted Uranium Ammunition, is extremely dangerous. It’s not terribly radioactive but if it is ingested, in the form of powder or anything like that, then it can damage chromosomes, it can damage bone marrow.”

“It’s also extremely toxic so it destroys livers and kidneys and things like that. The World Health Organization have asked for its ban, sub-committee of the United Nations have asked for its ban. That ban has been blocked so far by Britain and France and the United States,” he continued.

 Hallinan added that the Latin American parliament had called for a moratorium on it, while Belgium had specifically banned it. He said, “We are saturating the ground with Depleted Uranium ammunition and I am just wondering how can we be there to protect civilians when what we are doing is that we are filling the terrain, the environment with this highly dangerous and highly toxic materials and people should know that the half life of Uranium is 4.4 billion years which is the current age of the world at this point.”

 Hallinan concluded that there has been no real effort at this point to challenge this and, “I think that we are subjecting civilians of Libya to a far greater danger in the long run than they currently face from the civil war that’s going on.”…

PressTV – US heavily dependent on use of Depleted Uranium

April 15, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | depleted uranium, Libya