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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Sept. 26, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
[From a paper presented by Dan Fahey, a Gulf War veteran working with the Depleted Uranium Network of the Military Toxics Project]
Why is the Pentagon so enamored of DU shells and shields? One incident in particular illustrates it. As allied forces pushed into southern Iraq at the start of the ground war, an M1A1 tank was left alone stuck in the mud.
The book "From Shield to Storm" (J. Dunningham and A. Bay, 1992) describes what happened.
"Three [Iraqi] T-72s appeared and attacked. The first fired from under 1,000 meters, scoring a hit with a shaped-charge [high explosive] round on the M1A1's frontal armor. The hit did no damage.
"The M1A1 fired a 120mm armor-piercing [DU] round that penetrated the T-72 turret, causing an explosion that blew the turret into the air.
"The second T-72 fired another shaped-charge round, hit the frontal armor, and did no damage. This T-72 turned to run, and took a 120mm round in the engine compartment that blew the engine into the air.
"The last T-72 fired a solid shot (sabot) round from 400 meters. This left a groove in the M1A1's frontal armor and bounced off. The T-72 then backed up behind a sand berm and was completely concealed from view. The M1A1 depressed its gun and put a [DU] sabot round through the berm, into the T-72, causing an explosion."
U.S. forces in the Gulf encountered DU in a variety of ways. Some were exposed during combat. Some were exposed during the recovery of contaminated U.S. vehicles that had been hit in friendly-fire incidents.
Some were exposed when they explored the battlefields after the cease-fire. Some were exposed during a massive fire in July 1991 at the U.S. base in Doha, Kuwait.
And some who continue to work with DU weapons, or deploy to contaminated areas in Kuwait, are being exposed today.
The U.S. military issued no warnings about DU weapons and shields to their troops.
Given the battlefield success of DU weapons, in addition to the U.S., the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Japan, Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, France, Taiwan, Bahrain, Greece, South Korea and other countries are developing or already have DU weapons in their arsenals.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)