A Treatise on Military Weapons Containing the Radioactive Material: Depleted Uranium

Abstract

A look at the historical, legal, health and political issues surrounding the use of radioactive waste in military weapon. The United States (U.S.) and many other countries use the radioactive metal uranium-238, so-called “depleted uranium,” or DU, in military weapons systems, such as armor-piercing bullets, casings for bombs, shielding on tanks, counterweights and penetrators on missiles, and in cluster bombs, anti-personnel mines, and other anti-personnel weapons called dirty bombs. Beside uranium-238, DU also contains reprocessed nuclear reactor waste which is itself highly toxic and radioactive.