I would like to respond to John Mercieca's misguided letter "Bullets, cluster bombs and nukes". In particular to the implication made that depleted uranium is "not much more radioactive than other rocks".
I have done my best to find as much information as possible so as to inform Mr Mercieca as well as other readers of the potential hazards of depleted uranium. I have researched many papers and websites and would invite readers to read one that is very detailed and researched and where I got most of my information: http://vzajic.tripod.com/index.html#top.
Depleted uranium is radioactive; in fact, "other rocks" have a background radiation that is approximately 60,000 lower than the radioactivity of depleted uranium.
When a shell containing DU hits armour, 18-70 per cent of the uranium rod, inside the shell, burns and two oxides of uranium are formed, UO2 and UO3.
The DU oxide spray formed when the rod burns has 50-96 per cent of breathable sized particles. While the heavier non-breathable particles settle down quickly, the breathable DU spray remains in the air for hours and may spread over an area much greater than the battlefield.
A reporter from The Christian Science Monitor visited the Rumeila oil fields north of the Kuwaiti border in April 1999 (eight years after the first Gulf war). Alongside a representative from Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission, carrying a radiation detector, they measured radiation levels that were 35 times above background levels over the battlefields and 50 times above background over the rusting tanks hit by DU ammunition.
Hospital statistics showed that the number of Iraqi children with cancer rose by four times after the first Gulf War; from 32,000 in 1990 to 130,000 in 1997. Air, soil and water samples that were collected in southern provinces showed unusually high levels of radiation.
I believe that war is never the answer and no matter what weapons are used they cause great harm to citizens of the conflicting nations. I urge Mr Mercieca and others to consider the quality of life for a person in Iraq while the bombs were dropping, and to decide if such a situation really is productive or detrimental to peace.
As an end note I cannot but comment on Mr Merciea's suggestion that "Mr Cassar had better apologise to the Americans and thank them for protecting him and the free world from the threats of crazy dictators".
Perhaps we should also pause to thank the Americans for supplying many of these dictators with the military and financial support that kept them in power. For example, Suharto, Ferdinand Marcos, Pinochet and Saddam Hussein!