As late as July 1990 (one month before Iraq invaded Kuwait) official reports warned against using DU as an antitank weapon. It was reported that the public outcry regarding the use of such a controversial weapon on a conventional battlefield would likely make it impossible to ever use it again. Obviously, those in positions to authorise the use of depleted uranium were well aware of the consequences.
For whatever reason, it was decided that DU would be used against Iraq and the warnings issued by physicists, physicians and good intentioned environmental scientists were to be ignored. That decision alone marks the Gulf conflict of 1991 as the biggest political cock-up (military term) of modern times. Bigger even than the first use of atomic bombs against the already defeated Japanese, marking the end of W.W.II.
Ironically, before the start of the ground war phase of Operation Desert Storm the British Ministry of Defence issued a warning to British ground forces. It stated that care should be taken to avoid areas were DU had been used. Probably for reasons of operational efficiency that warning was not permitted to reached the front line troops. Would an infantry man be so willing to take up his personal weapon and engage the enemy at close quarters, if he had been warned that the burning tank only feet away was belching radioactive dust? I think not! Particularly if he was made aware that the dust would not only endanger his life but also those of any children he fathered at a later date.
For whatever reason, it was decided that DU would be used against Iraq and the warnings issued by physicists, physicians and good intentioned environmental scientists were to be ignored. That decision alone marks the Gulf conflict of 1991 as the biggest political cock-up (military term) of modern times. Bigger even than the first use of atomic bombs against the already defeated Japanese, marking the end of W.W.II.
Ironically, before the start of the ground war phase of Operation Desert Storm the British Ministry of Defence issued a warning to British ground forces. It stated that care should be taken to avoid areas were DU had been used. Probably for reasons of operational efficiency that warning was not permitted to reached the front line troops. Would an infantry man be so willing to take up his personal weapon and engage the enemy at close quarters, if he had been warned that the burning tank only feet away was belching radioactive dust? I think not! Particularly if he was made aware that the dust would not only endanger his life but also those of any children he fathered at a later date.