More on Depleted Uranium

As you may recall, I pointed you to the excellent discourse on dailyread's Trailing Edge Blog a week or so ago. Now Karlo (after kindly counseling me on my negativism) at SwerveLeft offers more:

A few comments back, Delftsman questioned the dangers of DU armor-piercing shells. I recommend the doubters take a look at the following article (a bit dated now) by Scott Peterson. Visiting various sites (some randomly chosen), investigators found significant radiation from the 75 tons of DU the U.S. used in Iraq. At one site, radiation exceeded 1,300 times that of background levels. The article mentions the fact that "six American vehicles struck with DU friendly fire in 1991 were deemed to be too contaminated to take home, and were buried in Saudi Arabia. Of 16 more brought back to a purpose-built facility in South Carolina, six had to be buried in a low-level radioactive waste dump." It doesn't sound like the sort of things you'd want your children playing around after dinner.