djsumdog

Real depleted uranium shouldn't do this at all. There are a couple of possibilities. One, the uranium isn't completely depleted. Government contractors cutting corners? Never you say?

The other, and much more likely possibility: soldiers fire a shit ton of ordinance. All the bombs dropped and every shell fired ends up on the dry beds of a desert. In the documentary "Iraq: The Untold Story," soldiers would fire endlessly at night over a lake, one of the few sources of water for an entire region.

Heavy metal toxicity -- it doesn't matter what metal: aluminum, lead, iron, uranium -- can lead to massive increases in cancer, birth defects and countless other diseases. The damage is worse in an area like Iraq simply because there is so little water. The US contractors charged with installing water filtration were beyond corrupt.

Iraq's groundwater is as about as polluted as a fracking site in West Australia.

B3bomber

Depleted uranium does do this. Your skin blocks the radiation. Here's the thing: when those shells, or shells striking DU armor, hit something hard, particulate DU breaks off and is now an airborne thing that can be inhaled. Direct exposure to a radioactive emitter. That also allows it into water supplies.

I don't remember DU being particularly good at dissolving in water by itself since there is lots of it on the ground in lower concentrations. I can't say the same for very small particles which can be suspended in water though.

cotyledon

When a DU shell hits armor plate it is pulverized to dust, and also combusts.

B3bomber

Inhaling that is lethal.

Crux

Depleted uranium is one of the most horrifying things on this earth.