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

There is dust
COL. When DU does strike armor and that oxide is created, it falls to
the ground very quickly -- usually within about a 50-meter range.

There is not dust
COL. 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.

There is dust
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.

(Are these a pair of all-star wankers?)

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.

The Air Force was a principal user during the first Gulf War. They fired
the ammunition from their A-10 aircraft, 30 millimeter gun system.

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.

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.



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