What is 'Depleted Uranium'
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Dept. Of Defence Briefing on Depleted Uranium
NEWS TRANSCRIPT from the United States Department of Defense
DoD News Briefing
COL James Naughton, U.S. Army Materiel Command
Friday, March 14, 2003 -- 1 p.m.EST
(Also participating; Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, (OASD HA) Deployment Health
Support Directorate
Slides shown during this briefing can be found on the Web at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/g030314-D-9085M.html
MODERATOR: Thank you for attending this afternoon. Today's briefing
is on
depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is something that I think we have
not done a
good enough job in making sure that everybody understands what depleted
uranium
is and what it isn't. And as we go forward, and if there is a conflict
in Iraq,
I think it's important for everybody to have a good understanding of
depleted
uranium, because there is an awful lot of misinformation out there
about
depleted uranium.
To help us do that today we have two briefers. We have Army Colonel
James
Naughton from the U.S. Army Materiel Command and he'll talk about depleted
uranium as a weapon and as an armor plating. And also with us today
is Dr.
Michael Kilpatrick, who is of the Deployment Health Support Directorate,
and he
will be here to talk to you about the health effects of depleted uranium.
We
have probably about 30 minutes or so, but we will try to get all your
questions
answered. So let's go ahead and get started. COL. NAUGHTON: I'm Colonel
Jim
Naughton from Army Materiel Command. I am currently the director for
munitions
in that organization. I have been involved in developing and buying
munitions
most of my military career.
We have several branches of service that use depleted uranium. We have
used it
for about two decades. Next chart please. During the Gulf War, we fired
ammunition weighing approximately 320 tons. That sounds like an awful
lot of
depleted uranium, but when you actually put it together and measure
it, it's a
cube about eight feet on the side. It isn't really a lot of material.
Depleted
uranium is very heavy. That's one of the things that makes it good
for use in
ammunition and armor, so it doesn't take up a lot of space.
Next chart. The Air Force was a principal user during the Gulf War.
They fired
the ammunition from their A-10 aircraft, 30 millimeter gun system.
Next chart, please. The Army was the second largest user. We fired most
of our
ammunition from the Abrams tank, approximately 50 tons, as indicated
on the
chart. And the remaining 11 tons of ammunition was fired by the Marine
Corps,
again principally from tanks and the Harrier aircraft, the AV-8.
Next chart, please. We have two military uses for depleted uranium.
The first
one is to make penetrators. Penetrators are what we use to penetrate
armored
vehicles, kinetic energy weapons like the MA-29 series, ammunition
for the
Abrams tank, use the energy that's created when the bullet is launched
from the
bore of the canon to breach the armor on the other end. So you want
something
that's very dense and very hard, so that when it reaches the other
end, instead
of splattering like you would expect a lead bullet to do, it actually
retains
its shape and drives through the target.
Next chart. This is why the U.S. Army prefers to use depleted uranium
over
tungsten ammunition. If you look on the chart you can see that the
depleted
uranium is a material that has a characteristic that allows it to sharpen
itself as it penetrates the target. The uranium shreds off the sides
of the
penetrator instead of squashing or mushrooming. If you look at the
lower
picture, which is what happens with tungsten, the tungsten mushrooms.
The
result is the depleted uranium will penetrate more armor of a given
character
and type at a given range than tungsten will, no matter how we design
the
penetrators.
Next chart. Proof is of course in the pudding. These are two high-speed
X-ray
pictures taken of penetrations actually going on, and you can see the
tungsten
penetrator deforming in the bottom picture, and you can see the DU
penetrator
maintaining its shape in the top picture.
Next chart. Why do we use it? This is the result. What we want to be
able to do
is strike the target from farther away than we can be hit back, and
we want the
target to be destroyed when we shoot at it. We don't want to see rounds
bouncing off. We don't want to put our soldiers in the position that
you see,
if you watch "Kelly's Heroes," where they load tank rounds with paint
in order
to blind the target. And I'm sure everybody in here has probably seen
"Kelly's
Heroes" once, because in World War II we faced a problem of not having
the
overreach we have today. We don't ever want to go back to that. And
we don't
want to fight even. Nobody goes into a war and wants to be even with
the enemy.
We want to be ahead, and DU gives us that advantage. We can hit, and
they can't
hit us. During the Gulf War we had tanks engaged in situations with
multiple
Iraqi tanks that were shot, hit -- not penetrated -- and proceeded
to destroy
all three of the targets that engaged them, including shooting through
a
sandbag and destroying one of the Iraqi tanks. It really happened.
That's how
much advantage it gives us. So we don't want to give that up, and that's
why we
use it.
I'll be followed by Dr. Kilpatrick.
MR. KILPATRICK: Good afternoon. It's certainly my pleasure to be able
to be
here this afternoon and talk with you about the medical health effects
of
depleted uranium.
I want to first start by talking a little bit about natural uranium,
because I
think we need to put it into that perspective. Natural uranium is in
the soil
around our world. It certainly is something that we eat and drink and
breathe
in every day, because it is in our environment. We all secrete natural
uranium
in our urine to a certain level. We know that in some areas of the
world
there's less and some areas there's more -- particularly say in Florida
there's
a lot of natural uranium in the soil. You get into Colorado, you'll
find the
same sort of thing. You get into other areas of the world there are
variations.
And yet we do not see natural uranium causing any recognized medical
complication or health problem in people. We have had a lot of studies
in
uranium miners. We know an awful lot about what uranium does as a heavy
metal
in people, and we certainly have a lot of studies on depleted uranium
in the
environment, and I'll talk a little bit later about from the Gulf War
some
individuals who were involved in friendly fire.
Next slide, please. Our major concern, as I said, is the chemical nature,
because uranium, depleted uranium are both heavy metals -- like lead
and
tungsten and nickel. The kidney, when the depleted uranium is internalized,
becomes a target organ, and there are collecting tubules that essentially
concentrate the urine that are most severely affected, the first to
be affected
if there is a dose of natural uranium or depleted uranium above a threshold
in
the body.
We looked at some 90 Gulf War veterans who were in or on an armored
vehicle
when it was struck by depleted uranium in friendly fire. And those
individuals
have been followed on an annual basis now we are talking 12 years post-
incident. And we do not see any kidney damage in those individuals
-- and this
is using very sophisticated medical evaluation of kidneys. They were
also
followed for other medical problems, and they have had no -- and I'll
talk
about this a little bit later, but while I'm here, they've had no other
medical
consequences of that depleted uranium exposure. Now, some of these
individuals
had amputations, were burned, had deep wounds, so that these individuals,
some
of them of course do have medical problems. But as far as a consequence
of the
depleted uranium exposure, we are not seeing anything related to that
either
from a chemical or radiological effect.
Next slide, please. We've looked at them for cancers. There has been
no cancer
of bone or lungs, where you would expect them -- to see that. We have
seen no
leukemias. As I said, there's been about 90 individuals we've followed
up, and
about 20 of these individuals still have small fragments of depleted
uranium in
their body. To try to remove that totally from their body would mean
amputation
or removal of muscles. And our belief is it's better to follow them
than to go
through any further traumatic type of surgery for the individuals.
And, as I've
said, we have not seen any untoward medical consequence in these individuals.
As we take a look at transuranics, and that's been brought up -- you
may have
heard about that -- these are trace elements of like Americium, plutonium,
neptunium that has been found in depleted uranium in the process of
making it.
It goes through the same processing plant where nuclear fuel is reprocessed
after it is spent. And there trace amounts of transuranics in the depleted
uranium. It has been looked at, measured by several different countries
and
scientists outside of DOD. The amount of radiation that contributes
is less
than one percent, and that is believed not to have any medical significance
as
far as adding to the radiation.
Depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium
around us.
And so when it's outside the body it's just not an issue. It's only
when it's
internalized -- either by inhaling the dust, the oxide, as Colonel
Naughton
said when there is penetration of armor, it does self-sharpen and it
does
create an oxide dust. And there are people who were in or on the vehicles
that
were struck in friendly fire, who did inhale that oxide, and we have
not seen
any medical consequence from that. They certainly had the highest dose
exposure
of anybody in the Gulf War.
Next slide, please. We talked about not seeing any cancers in the kidney
or
certainly in the lungs or the bone in these individuals. Leukemia became
an
issue a couple of years ago when the Italians were concerned about
peacekeepers
in the Kosovo area coming back and having leukemia. We took a look
at what are
the causes of leukemia. The rates in the United States are usually
about two
per 100,000 people per year. Cause of leukemia is often unknown. We
took a look
at data, medical data, from the exposures, atomic bomb blasts in Japan
in World
War II, people getting chemotherapy. We see an increased rate in leukemia
in
these individuals, some two to four to six years after that exposure.
And we
certainly know people exposed to toxic solvents like benzene can have
an
increased rate of leukemia. But the Italians did the epidemiological
study and
found basically the rate of leukemia in their military personnel was
no greater
than their civilian population. And so what was triggered as a cause-effect
relationship being in Kosovo where depleted uranium in was fired was
not a
causal relationship. It was just the natural rate of leukemia in the
people who
had been peacekeepers in that area.
Next slide, please. There have been over 40 tests done on what happens
to
depleted uranium from an environmental standpoint, both with shooting
munitions
through armor, looking at burning of depleted uranium. We had some
fires in
tanks. We had some fires in depleted uranium. It was in storage capacities.
And
we have recently done a capstone study where we again have shot depleted
uranium through uranium armored tanks to look at what is the amount
of oxide
created, how long does it stay suspended, what is the particle size.
That study
has just been completed, but it is not yet written to be published.
When it is
written it will be published. All of the environmental information
about
depleted uranium is in our Department of Defense environmental exposure
report,
and I'll have a website that will show you that at the end of the talk.
We continue to do testing in animals. Some people ask why do you continue
to
test if you say it's not an issue. I think if there are questions we
need to
continue to bore down on the science and make sure that those continued
experimental evidence from animals validate what we know in people.
And I think
that it's extremely important to say that we are doing all the tests
that need
to be done to understand the physiology of exposure to depleted uranium.
Next slide. Recent environmental assessments done outside the Department
of
Defense. The United Nations Environmental Programme has put out this
book,
called "Depleted Uranium in Kosovo," where they went and did soil samples.
They
went and looked for the penetrators. Again, these are the A-10 airplanes
shooting. They found some seven penetrators or the sabot, what you
saw coming
off the round on the ground. These had either hit rocks, cement, and
ricocheted. Normally when an A-10 fires if it hits ground it buries
anywhere
from one to ten meters deep. But they found seven on the ground, some
13 tons
of depleted uranium had been shot from the airplane in the Kosovo area.
And
they have not been able to find any environmental effect of depleted
uranium --
not residual other than finding those penetrators lying on the ground.
They've
checked water. There have been other countries -- the Belgians came
in and
looked at food, water, milk, fruits, vegetables, meat, and essentially
were not
able to find any evidence of any increased uranium or depleted uranium
in any
of those samples.
The World Health Organization has done a similar study in the Balkans.
The
European Commission, the European Parliament and the United Kingdom
Society for
World Society has also published a report on looking at all that data.
So we
have outside of DOD, outside the United States, organizations taking
a look at
what are the environmental effects, and they are consistent in their
finding
that there is no environmental effect in an area where depleted uranium
has
been shot.
Next slide, please. These again are a couple more meetings where they
got
experts from around the world -- and the last one, depleted uranium
in Kosovo,
and that has been published at a meeting in Germany. Again the scientists
are
in concurrence that it does not pose an environmental hazard.
Next slide. When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it
falls to
the ground very quickly -- usually within about a 50-meter range. As
Colonel
Naughton said, it's heavy. It's 1.7 times as heavy as lead. So even
if it's a
small dust particle, it's still very heavy. And it stays on the ground.
They've
looked on the battlefield in multiple locations. We looked in Kuwait
where we
knew that there were tank battles. We looked in the boneyard in Kuwait
where
all of the Iraqi armored vehicle that was hit with depleted uranium
was
dragged, and we were not able to find anything on the ground around
those
vehicles that's above background in radiation.
If you look at hole where the depleted uranium round went in and out,
there is
an increased radiation where that metal was essentially welded onto
the armor.
But that's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to fall off. It's
welded
onto that armor. And the boneyard is out in the desert were eventually
the sand
will cover it over. And, again, it does not pose an environmental hazard.
I think the Kosovo report focuses on picking up lose particles that
are on the
ground. They need to be appropriately disposed of and that would be
buried at a
documented site.
They recommended continuing to look at groundwater. They don't believe
that
there's a likelihood that that would be the case. Our studies in the
United
States over 15 years have not shown depleted uranium going from the
soil into
groundwater. It just does not move from the round that is in the soil.
And the
bottom line is there is going to be no impact on the health of the
people in
the environment, or people who were there at the time it was shot.
Next round. We have a lot of information and history medically on uranium
which
applies directly to depleted uranium. The Agency for Toxic Substances
and
Diseases Registry says there has been no documented case of any cancer
of any
type related to exposure to uranium or depleted uranium.
Looking at those individuals whom we know were most highly exposed to
depleted
uranium in the Gulf War are some 90 individuals who are being in the
medical
follow-up program. They have shown no adverse effect from their exposure
to
depleted uranium. And, again, the multiple other organizations reviewing
this
data are consistent with our understanding of depleted uranium. It
is a
superior weapon, superior armor. It is a munition that we will continue
to use,
if the need is there to attack armor.
I am going to stop here and see if you have questions. Colonel Naughton,
would
you join me here for questions?
Q: Well, you just said it but I would like to ask the colonel -- you've
implied
it, but you haven't said it. I assume that you fully intend -- if there
is a
war in Iraq, you fully intend to use depleted uranium.
COL. NAUGHTON: As a practical matter, if we use Abram tanks, we have
no choice.
We do not have an alternative for the Abram tank.
Q: And the A-10.
COL. NAUGHTON: And the A-10. Well, the A-10 -- there is an HE [high
explosive]
round for the A-10.
Q: May I just follow up on that? Actually you had said it's an advantage
and we
do not want to give it up. Why would it even be considered that you
would give
it up? And why are you even saying that?
COL. NAUGHTON: Well, you need to look at the environment of the context
where
people are asking us questions -- who's asking the question? The Iraqis
tell us
terrible things happened to our people because you used it last time.
Why do
they want it to go away? They want it to go away because we kicked
the crap out
of them -- okay? I mean, there's no doubt that DU gave us a huge advantage
over
their tanks. They lost a lot of tanks. Their soldiers can't be really
amused at
the idea of going out in basically the same tanks with some slight
improvements
and taking on Abrams again. That has got to be a huge morale -- so
wouldn't it
be great if we could convince the world to make the U.S. give up DU?
Q: So it's basically you're saying the Iraqis are behind any sort of effort --
COL. NAUGHTON: And other countries that are not friendly to the United States.
Q: Well, is it a concern of some in the military that they are afraid
to use
the ammunition because of the -- I mean, I'm trying to get a sense
--
COL. NAUGHTON: I've never met anyone that was afraid to use the ammunition.
MR. KILPATRICK: We have an extensive training program on depleted uranium
for
military members. The soldiers' common task manual explains that depleted
uranium, if it is used on the battlefield, and you see a tank that
has been
taken out by depleted uranium, the first rule is don't go into damaged
equipment on the battlefield. That poses a hazard. There may be unexploded
ordnances, there may be other chemicals that were in there from a fire
that
burned. And if it was taken out by depleted uranium, there may be oxide
that
you don't want to inhale. We want to minimize any exposure, at least
to the
lowest level as possible. If somebody needs to go into a tank that's
been hit
with depleted uranium, a dust mask, a handkerchief is adequate to protect
them -
- washing their hands afterwards. So the colonel is right, nobody here
has fear
of it. But there are people who want to ban nuclear weapons, and they
try to
link depleted uranium to nuclear weapons. It's not a nuclear weapon.
It is a
heavy metal that just happens to be radioactive. It's lower than natural
uranium. It's used in a lot of industrial settings. It's used as ballast
in
rudders on ships, in airplanes. It's used as essentially the protective
mechanism, if you will, for radioactive medical materials that are
used in
hospitals for diagnostic procedures -- kind of a shielding for that
high
radioactivity, so that it has a lot of commercial use. And it again
is not a
hazardous substance.
Q: You mentioned of the 90 Gulf War veterans you are tracking there
have been
no adverse health effects. Does that include neurological disorders
as well?
MR. KILPATRICK: Yes. And I think Dr. McDiarmid has published on this.
What she
found in an early test about three years into her study -- she was
using a new
neurological test that is computer based, and she found some abnormalities
in
some of the individuals that had the highest level of depleted uranium
in their
urine. When she repeated that test the next year, the next annual evaluation,
she did not find that same effect. So it happened one testing. There
was a
great deal made about it at that time, but when she followed these
individuals
up the next year there was no difference in those who had the fragments
in them
with high levels or low levels of depleted uranium in their urine or
their
counterparts who did not have fragments and had normal levels of uranium
in
their urine, with no depleted uranium.
Q: Doctor, you mentioned natural uranium and uranium miners. The federal
government is compensating former uranium miners for health problems
that are
linked to their exposure to natural uranium. What makes that different
than DU?
MR. KILPATRICK: I think the health problems, if you look at that closely,
as
they are looking at in the mines, the uranium mines they had exposure
to radon.
And we know that radon is certainly an agent that can cause cancer.
And as
they've taken a look at uranium miners with that radon exposure, that's
what
that compensation is directed to. The scientists have tried to say,
How can you
parse out the natural uranium exposure versus the radon exposure? And
they've
done that in looking at radon levels and looking at people handling
natural
uranium in the milling process essentially. So that is an area.
Now, recently at Paducah we know that some people working with radioactive
materials did handle high-level radioactive material without knowing
what they
were doing, and there's a compensation issue related to that. Again,
that's not
depleted uranium or natural uranium; that's the highly-radioactive
materials
that were brought back to be reprocessed.
Q: Just for the average person following up on that, though, could you
explain
why the soldier wouldn't face radon? I mean, just for someone who is
not
following you scientifically?
MR. KILPATRICK: Radon comes out of the ground, and that's why when you
buy a
house you have got to have [a] radon [detector] in the basement studied
to say
is it safe. Depleted uranium is a chunk of heavy metal. It doesn't
have any off-
gassing. It doesn't have any gas in it. The radon is not part of the
uranium.
It's in the same locale, same location, because it's around the world,
natural
uranium. So it's a different exposure. It's not connected scientifically
to
uranium or depleted uranium.
Q: Colonel, is the U.S. the only country that's developed depleted uranium
projectiles?
COL. NAUGHTON: It's not the only country that's developed it. It's not
the only
country that uses it. But the United States and Britain are as a practical
matter the only people that have manufactured that ammunition that
I'm aware of.
Q: There's no chance that Iraq might get their hands on some?
COL. NAUGHTON: Well, they would have to get their hands on some that
fit their
tanks. And I don't believe they have any tanks that use 105 or 120
millimeter
tank guns.
Q: Could you explain for the layman the process of depleting uranium?
COL. NAUGHTON: Yes, what -- the commonest or best known method is the
centrifuge. And what happens is you take naturally-occurring uranium
and you
combine it with fluorine to make a gaseous substance called uranium
hexoflouride. And you take the uranium hexoflouride and spin it in
a centrifuge
at a very high speed. And the U-235, which is slightly lighter than
U-238,
separates out. And you do this in a series of centrifuges one right
after the
other, passing the most -- more steadily enriched uranium through the
process
and out one end comes what's called enriched uranium, which consists
predominantly of U-235. It does contain some U-238. And what's left
over is
uranium hexoflouride gas consisting primarily of the U-238 isotope.
You then
extract the fluorine through a series of steps, and what you have left
is
depleted uranium metal, which goes by the name of Derby. If you ever
read some
technical manuals and you see somebody talking about Derby, that's
what they're
referring to, and that's because the way we manufacture the metal has
a
distinctive shape that looks like a hat.
Q: So it's a by-product of making highly-enriched uranium?
COL. NAUGHTON: And that's why --
Q: -- used for weapons and or anything else?
COL. NAUGHTON: Correct. It will work for reactor material -- primarily
for
reactor material in this point in time.
MR. KILPATRICK: And just to follow up, you used I think a very appropriate
word, as a by-product -- depleted uranium is a by-product for that
process. It
is not nuclear waste.
Q: Colonel Naughton, you said a few minutes ago that there were no alternatives
to depleted uranium. But are the Army labs possibly looking at other
materials?
COL. NAUGHTON: We will always look for other materials. I want to have
the best
sword I can get if I am a medieval warrior. That's why there's the
legend of
Excalibur or Prince Valiant's Singing Sword. And in today's world we
want to
have the best weapon we can get. So we will continue to research and
look for
alternatives. So far we have come up empty. But that doesn't mean that
10 years
from now there won't be an alternative and we'll switch to it -- not
because we
dislike depleted uranium but because we found something better.
Q: What about steel?
COL. NAUGHTON: Steel doesn't work. Steel is not dense enough to do this.
If you
follow the history of anti-armor weaponry, the first anti-armor weapons
of this
type used a steel rod, and then they very quickly switched to tungsten
to form
the penetrators, and that happened during the early and middle parts
of World
War II. By the end of World War II, armor-piercing ammunition was predominantly
made with tungsten. But some of our 50-caliber machine gun ammunition
that's
labeled armor-piercing, which is for shooting obviously much lighter
targets
than tanks, does use steel rod still.
Q: Can you tell me what is the likelihood that depleted uranium weaponry
would
be used in an urban environment? And the reason I'm wondering is what
the
likelihood might be that children could be exposed to this after the
fact, no
matter how much care you take in the targeting, a child being exposed
to this.
And are the levels of exposure for children, the danger levels of exposure
for
children the same as for adults?
COL. NAUGHTON: That's a two-part question. Why don't I take the first
part,
which is likelihood. You use this kind of ammunition against tanks.
So the only
reason we would be using it in an urban environment is if our opponents
take
their tanks into an urban environment and we have to kill them. So
that's the
scenario. So is it likely? That depends upon how the enemy reacts.
Tanks are
open-country vehicles. They don't do well generally in built-up areas.
But they
can be used in built-up areas. That's a tactical choice, and if our
opponents
take that tactical choice you could see that activity. And I think
the rest of
it is --
MR. KILPATRICK: I think as far as health effects on children we do know
that,
as I said before, if the depleted uranium is external to the body there
is no
health effect. What we worry about like lead in paint in housing areas
--
children picking it up and eating it or licking it -- getting it on
their hands
and ingesting it. And there really is no data on how much it takes
to cause an
issue or a problem in children. If you are taking it in orally, most
of that is
going to go right through the gut. I mean, they've done studies of
this -- of
all heavy metals -- and there's very little absorption of that. And
you'd
really have to have a very large internalized dose.
Dr. Naomi Harley, when she took a look at inhalation of oxide, said
with a
concentration that's created even while the DU is penetrating armor
you would
have to inhale enough to almost suffocate to get an effective dose.
So it's --
Q: -- issue in the past -- children being exposed.
MR. KILPATRICK: It has not been an issue in the past. We really have
no data.
When we take a look at how much you would have to internalize, you
are not
going to get that with casual exposure.
Q: Which depleted uranium armor -- what vehicles use that, and how effective
is
it against --
COL. NAUGHTON: It's used principally on the Abrams tank. You will find
it in
other uses. You'll see things called applique armor people talk about,
and it
can be used in applique armor for just about any vehicle you want that
you want
to hang an armor box on. But our principal use for it is -- our principal
use
is in the Abrams.
Q: How effective is it?
COL. NAUGHTON: I'd say it's very effective. But to get into how effective
with
numbers, we start to get to classified very, very quickly. The fact
is that
Iraqi tanks -- and this is the way you can judge --
Q: (Off mike)?
COL. NAUGHTON: If you're close enough and live long enough to shoot,
yes. But
you have got to be real close.
Q: The fact is that Iraqi tanks -- you started to say something about
Iraqi
tanks.
COL. NAUGHTON: I was going to say the fact is that in the desert in
the last
war, Iraqi tanks at fairly close ranges -- not nose to nose -- fired
at our
tanks and the shot bounced off the heavy armor. So -- and our shot
did not
bounce off their armor. So the result was Iraqi tanks destroyed --
U.S. tanks
with scrape marks.
Q: Colonel, just to go back to what you were saying earlier, the reason
you
were saying the Iraqis are making a claim that there were all these
adverse
health effects is because this is a posture on their part not to be
used
because --
COL. NAUGHTON: That's Jim Naughton's personal opinion, yes. That's why
you'll
find people making -- in other governments making noise about us using
it. It's
interesting to note that we have sold depleted uranium ammunition to
some of
our allies in Southwest Asia, and I don't hear any of them complaining
about it.
MR. KILPATRICK: Let me just address the ill people in Basra. It's been
in the
media a great deal, and reporters have gone and seen children with
birth
defects, children with cancer, adults with cancer, with other ills.
The World
Health Organization went into that area and took a look at what it
would take
to do the appropriate epidemiological medical studies to understand
why are
people ill in this area of the world. They laid out that requirement
of that
kind of study and said the World Health Organization is capable and
willing to
do this. And the government of Iraq said no. Unless that study is done,
it is
going to be very difficult to try to understand what is behind the
large number
of people being ill. If you go to the MD Anderson Hospital in Houston
and say
are people in Houston ill with cancers based on people coming into
a cancer
treatment center, you would get a skewed impression of the rates of
cancer in
Houston. And so I think when you take a look at Basra it is the kind
of medical
center in that part of Iraq that anybody who is ill would gravitate
toward that
area.
When we take a look at where were the tank battles in the Gulf War,
there were
no tank battles near population areas. And, as we said before, this
oxide
doesn't blow around. It is very heavy, and when it falls to ground
it stays
there, and the fact that it moves on down into the sand. So from a
perspective
of could depleted uranium be playing a role from a medical standpoint,
no. But
there clearly are ill people there.
MODERATOR: All right, thank you, all.
ENDS
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