Forgive me if this has been posted but i just saw this...

[southernleftylady]

BBC NEWS: US used nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. Uranium levels up to 400 times normal.
by Uranium Med. Research Center, Washington DC Friday May 23, 2003 at 12:35 AM

Jalalabad: New reference levels based on recent samples show uranium levels 45 times normal. New bioassay studies identify uranium internal contamination in Spin Gar (Tora Bora) area and the City of Kabul are up to 200 times the level of the unexposed population. Surface water, rice fields and catch-basins adjacent to and surrounding the bombsites have high values of uranium, up to 27 times normal.

Afghans' uranium levels spark alert

By Alex Kirby 22nd May 2003
BBC News Online environment correspondent

A small sample of Afghan civilians have shown "astonishing" levels of uranium in their urine, an independent scientist says.

Critics suspect new weapons were used in Afghanistan

He said they had the same symptoms as some veterans of the 1991 Gulf war.

But he found no trace of the depleted uranium (DU) some scientists believe is implicated in Gulf War syndrome.

Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/1613322_comment.php

[Redleg]

1. Holy crap. Perhaps those "bunker busters" were low-yield tactical nukes.

I wouldn't put it past this bunch of fuckwads in the Whitehouse.

[DieboldMustDie]

7. If "low-yield tactical nukes" had been used...

I suspect we would have known a long time ago. Other countries -- e.g. China & Russia -- have ways of detecting such things just as we do . Also, the BBC article sited does not include the words "nuclear" or "nuke", that was add by the folks at sf.indymedia.org.

[Redleg]

9. The article does say "radioactive weapons."

Yes, I know radioactive weapons may be things other than tactical nukes but radiation is radiation.

[jimshoes]

2. Well now,

it seems we have created walking dirty bombs. Great work George.

[soothsayer]

3. Oh, man. We just do whatever the hell we please, don't we.

Nice going, US gov't.

[Bill Wade]

6. Yep. But its nothing new, we've been doing whatever the hell we please

since around WWII, I think.

[punpirate]

4. This was posted quite a while ago...

... but it reminds me that I don't recall hearing of a follow-up story. One researcher had done a relatively small sampling, found some genuine anomalies, and intended to go back for a much more serious study. Don't know if that study is underway, completed, or yet to start. No follow-up that I know of.

I'm not sure the BBC headline is helpful, though, because it suggests conventional nuclear weapons. That's likely not the case, because there would be other evidence (even small nuclear weapons have a very distinctive seismograph signature, and radioactivity levels would be very high, but due to fission daughter products, not uranium).

What's likely happened is that the stocks of depleted uranium have been exhausted and the arms manufacturers are using natural uranium, probably extracted from the large stocks of tailings available, which would explain the elevated levels and a radioactivity signature different from depleted uranium. They were probably using a very high percentage of uranium-based shells and bombs, too.

Edit sp.

[DieboldMustDie]

8. The BBC headline said nothing about nuclear weapons...

that's the sf.indiamedia.org headline.

[Redleg]

10. Yes, but it did say "radioactive."

EOM

[punpirate]

12. Pardon, but this appears to be the BBC headline:

"BBC NEWS: US used nuclear weapons in Afghanistan. Uranium levels up to 400 times normal."

That's to what I was referring.

Cheers.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Mightily they were smitten

Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.<<

They hate us for our freedom.... and our ability to indiscriminately anhilate (sp) many thousands of people with a single stroke. Radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are nothing to sneeze at either.

It's ok though... G_D speaks through GW... and he tole him to smite them one and all.

www.nuclearpolicy.org

[OneBlueSky]

11. of all the hideous things BushCo has done in the past three years . . .

their use of depleted uranium and other radioactive weapons may well be the most unforgiveable . . . and the most worthy of their prosecution as war criminals . . . opening the nuclear Pandora's box during war is a horrendous crime against humanity . . .

[Karenina]

13. Hey, don't get yer knickers in a twist...

Da boyz were just trying out some of their new toys. Nothing to see here, just move along.