h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's difficult to imagine that news media could have made any mistakes in their reporting on the war in Iraq , but I was confused about their inconsistent use of the term "bunker busters."

Before the war started, there were articles saying that mini-nukes called "bunker busters" might be used in Iraq. Some leftists were concerned about this new policy being a "mini" step towards nuclear proliferation.

Then the war started, and they mentioned that "bunker busters" were used! I looked up a few articles at the time trying to confirm if these were "mini-nukes," and they gave specs for exactly what kinds of bombs were dropped. But those seemed to be just heavy standard bombs, nothing nuclear.

Does anyone else remember seeing anything about actual nukes used in Iraq? If you can remember an article on the web where I could read more about it, or even if you can remember when or where nukes were dropped, that would make it easier to look up more info on the topic.

Thanks,
Deidzoeb

I wondered the same since reporters *never saw anything like it* during some of the blasts. They did test that big one off the coast of Florida, so I would have thought they'd used it.

I believe the bunker busters were made up of mini bombs, more like gigantic cluster bombs.

There is depleted uranium being used, might has well be considered mini-nuclear weapon in longterm health and enviornment effects.

You're right about Depleted Uranium. An article I read the other day compared DU with the "dirty bomb" idea, and they really are similar. If you can't afford the pure radioactive material for a nuclear explosion, you can use cheaper material to contaminate a site and frighten everyone in the area. That's a "dirty bomb". If you can't afford the cost to your approval rating of using real nuclear explosives, you can use cheaper waste material from nuke plants, to contaminate the country you're invading and frighten everyone in the area. That's DU.

It's also similar to the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam in that it just barely misses being a weapon prohibited by international treaties. Although they claimed to use it as a defoliant on vegetation, Agent Orange was effectively the same as if they had used a chemical attack meant for humans. DU could be seen as intentional radioactive contamination, but they claim it's only purpose is to make shells heavier. Like Agent Orange, the full effects of DU probably won't be known to the public for 20-30 years, long after most people will stop caring, and after those responsible will probably be dead.

I tried a google news search for "mini-nukes" and all I found were articles from before the invasion of Iraq saying mini-nukes might be used, or articles after the invasion saying that the Bush administration is arguing with Congress about whether to ban them or build more of them.

This is about the use in Kosovo and the investigation into the damage. They are purposely NOT including civilian cancer rates.
It is quite depressing. According to World renowned radiologist Dr. Rosalie Bertell:

When used in war, the depleted uranium (DU) bursts into flame [and] releasing a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick.

http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/kosovo/chossudovsky_lowintensity.html

The bombing of Yugoslavia is best described as a "low intensity nuclear war" using toxic radioactive shells and missiles. Amply documented, the radioactive fall-out potentially puts millions of people at risk throughout the Balkans.

Ok, lets put a few facts back into this conversation...
(Note, this is not an ethical standpoint into whether these weapons should be used - just a straight list of facts as I know them.)


Bunker Busters

Ok, whilst a nuke could, theoretically, be used as a bunker buster (note lower case lettering), the bomb they actually used in Iraq was the GBU-28... basically 600lbs of high explosive in 5000lbs of hardened steel shell, designed to penetrate several metres of concrete before going off... Normal bombs have much more explosive but much weaker casings and explode on impact thus would have no effect on hardened targets.

If anyone had used nukes then you wouldn't be able to hide it... they tend to be noticable (ask a seismologist).

---

DU munitions

These are not used as 'dirty bombs'...

The reason the Airforces use Depleted Uranium in shells is for it's armour piercing capabilities...

Basically, given the size limitations of Aircraft canon shells (and some Infanty Anti-tank weapons), if you just fire a lump of high explosive at a modern main battle tank, all you'll do is scorch the paintwork... What you do is fire a lump of very, very dense metal at the tank, the sheer force of impact on the outer hull of a tank causes a shockwave to pass through the hull, breaking off lumps of metal from the inner surface of the metal and spraying them around the inside of the tank at very high speed (slightly messy if you happen to be in the tank at the time). The great thing about DU is that it's extremely dense, thus is extremely effective at this...

The down side is that DU is radioactive... although less so than naturally occuring Uranium, it does give off Alpha Particles... which normally wouldn't be much of a problem (you've actually got to eat alpha particles to do you any real harm), the problem is that as one of these shells hits a target it is basically vapourised and if you spend too much time in close vicinity to a tank that's been hit by DU you are going to end up breathing in radioactive particles

To actually use Depleted Uranium shells for 'area denial' (ie. the Agent Orange idea) would be soooo inefficient you wouldn't believe it) (and why do that when you can use cluster bombs).
For the time being DU is about the best thing on the market for killing a tank - and lets face it, when an army is in the middle of a war the environmental issues are are generally not one of their main concerns

Hi Whisky,

I meant to put some kind of caveat in that first post that I'm not trying to ask a rhetorical question just to get across my agenda. I'm honestly confused by the way news people used the term "bunker buster" before the war to talk about nuclear weapons, but they used the term for large conventional bombs when the wars was happening.

"If anyone had used nukes then you wouldn't be able to hide it... they tend to be noticable (ask a seismologist)."

Given the subjects our media have ignored or misreported lately, it is not safe to assume that they would report something even as important as nuclear weapons being used, even if seismologists raised hubbub about it. I'm not implying that there's some conspiracy to hide nukes used in Iraq. I'm just trying to find out if other sources had confirmed that some had been used. Apparently they haven't.

"To actually use Depleted Uranium shells for 'area denial' (ie. the Agent Orange idea) would be soooo inefficient you wouldn't believe it) (and why do that when you can use cluster bombs)."

Not what I meant at all. Sorry if I was unclear. I did not mean that DU was a weapon used for similar effects to Agent Orange. I meant that at face value, DU and Agent Orange both appear to violate treaties on chemical weapons. The US has skirted the issue by claiming they're only using them as defoliants or as dense armor-piercing material, failing to acknowledge the side-effects caused by using them. And the debate over whether DU or Agent Orange has massive side-effects, similar to using chemical weapons, likely won't be answered or fully understood until long after the wars are over.

I'm not sure whether DU is as dangerous as some people say, but the government says it's not that bad, and meanwhile they send troops in full biohazard gear to clean it up and they warn their own people to stay clear of areas where it has been used. These denials about the hazards of DU are brought to us by the same government who says that global warming doesn't exist, that it's "bad science," and then when they admit it does exist, they advise us to simply "adapt." Also brought to you by the same people who made and used Agent Orange and told us it was not that dangerous.

The pattern is in their use of chemical weapons, and the thirty years of denials before we find out the truth. Especially ironic when they used WMDs in an invasion to stop someone else from developing WMDs. It's like Saddam could have developed anything he wanted if only he had the right PR team to put a proper spin on his chemical weapons, in the same way that the US has done with Agent Orange and DU.

"Ok, lets put a few facts back into this conversation..."

That sounds like an insult. I appreciate the details you brought into the conversation, but did we say anything untrue before that?

Firstly, apologies all round if anyone thought I was insulting or ranting with the last post...

Looks like I read more into the post than was there...

Having said that, I really do think it would have been utterly impossible to use nukes as bunkerbusters in Iraq without it becoming public knowledge... There would be just too many non-military witnesses for it to remain a secret. Scientists all over the world would be aware of the explosion. - The Russians would certainly have been aware and would have been screaming blue murder very shortly afterwards... Not to mention what the French would have done!

As for DU munitions - I wasn't really supporting their use, except that from a military point of view, they are one of the best ways of killing a tank there is - and I suppose from the point of view of a military commander, as long as the risk to your troops from enemy armour is greater than the potential risk of DU ammunition dust then they'll keep using them (remembering no-one seems to be that eager to carry out impartial in-depth studies into the stuff - simply because it's very good at killing tanks).

Unfortunately there are many such weapons (mines, cluster bombs, etc.) which make perfect military sense but are not very good for the politicians - but until political pressure against using them outgrows the political benefit of winning a war - then I guess they'll continue to be used.

"There would be just too many non-military witnesses for it to remain a secret. Scientists all over the world would be aware of the explosion. - The Russians would certainly have been aware and would have been screaming blue murder very shortly afterwards... Not to mention what the French would have done!"

That's what I would hope, but sometimes world opinion isn't as outraged on some issues as I would have expected. I wanted to check if this was another failure by US news media to report major events, or just a mix-up in their terminology (the way they made "bunker buster" seem synonymous with "mini-nukes").

It probably sounds like a naive question to ask whether nukes have been used. But to give you an example, I read on BBC news that the war in the Congo now has the second largest death-toll of any military conflict since WWII. If you surveyed Americans about which war comes in second after WWII, I'm sure that 97% would get it wrong. Most would assume it was a war we participated in, since we learn about few others. Surely they wouldn't guess the Congo, or that it's on-going. For another example I heard several months or a year ago that there were five wars happening in Africa at the time. I have no idea how many are happening now, but I would guess a few. Most Americans would probably guess there are no wars in Africa right now, and very few would get the number right.

So if it sounded like a silly question for me to ask, I blame US news media. At least I'm trying to find more reliable sources for my news, like independent websites and overseas news. If it's any consolation, more Americans are turning to BBC and the Guardian and sources like that for international news lately, because we know our own papers and tv news fail at it.

I've the perfect solution to all your problems... phone the whitehouse and tell them that Saddam is currently working as a reporter for a National Newspaper in the US... that should get rid of your media problems

The whole debate about "mini-nukes" stemmed from the desire to use them for bunker busting purposes (amongst other things).

The present bunker busting methods, using conventional explosives, has reached a limit, and that limit falls well short of breaking through many bunkers. So the US government decided to throw some money at research that considered using mini-nukes to bust bunkers. I believe the figure is about US$10million, which is quite small compared to the US$100 million spent *every year* on not-so-mini-nuke research.

Hmm, not sure whether you can really say that conventional explosives have reached their limits...

After a little research - The GBU-28/B is capable of penetrating 100 feet of soil or 20 feet of concrete...

There is one conventional bomb far more effective - in action it was seen to have broken through over 30 feet of reinforced concrete on several occasions... unfortunately, the only aircraft to have carried it into action is a little too valuable and rare to be used in a modern war zone... The bomb was the Grand Slam, the aircraft was the Avro Lancaster and the year was 1944... if we could do that 50 years ago, just what could you do with a B52 and modern high explosives if you really put your mind to it!

Ok, nukes are the easy way out, you engineer them downwards (decreasing their effectiveness) instead of trying to make them more effective - but it's far easier to use conventional explosives than nukes (and of course, the other problem with nukes exploded on the ground is you tend to cook your own people if the wind's in the wrong direction)

Not saying that the US government didn't spend 10 million on researching this... but I bet they spent far more money than that on even more unrealistic projects!

I doubt mini-nukes were used for the reasons Whiskey mentioned. There was simply no need to, and the political repercussions would have been disasterous.

Using mini-nukes in a politically sensitive war where victory is almost certainly guaranteed would have been hugely pointless and not a little stupid.

"Using mini-nukes in a politically sensitive war where victory is almost certainly guaranteed would have been hugely pointless and not a little stupid."

That's why I asked -- because many actions of the Coalition (sic) have seemed to me as "hugely pointless and not a little stupid." To me, it did not seem out of character for them to try something like this, if they could get away with it. For example:

"and the political repercussions would have been disasterous."

I would have thought the political repercussions for an invasion violating international law would have been disasterous, but unfortunately, it has not been.

Depleted uranium is not considered a biohazard by the US military. It's handled by bare hands all the time. Some guys even take home a round as a souvenir. Most of the time these are dummy rounds, though, and I'm really not sure if the dummy rounds are DU or not. But sometimes guys sneak a live round off the base.

Once it has been expended, however, it's a different story. If it hits something hard enough (and it's intended to be fired at something hard enough) it can be damaged at impact, and at least part of the DU can become dust, which is a hazard if inhaled. It can also become aerosolized if the round has an internal indendiary and is fused to explode after impact.

The good part about fused rounds is that they detonate after impact, so most of the aerosol is contained within the target. But it would be a highly concentrated aerosol inside the target, which is why cleanup crews need full protective gear. Outside the target, there would be a very slight concentration of radioactive dust. You'd need intense barrages of armor-piercing weapons over a very small area, and some unlikely weather conditions, to make it much of a danger to civilians. The real risk is being taken by the soldiers themselves, who might accumulate damage after being exposed to frequent doses of radioactive dust over the course of a war.

I don't know where the research came from regarding DU catching fire and burning when shot. If it did so, it would render it useless. It's purpose is to be a dense, hard material, for armor-piercing applications, as Whisky said. If it burned, it would soften, and defeat its own purpose.

Depleted uranium is not considered a biohazard by the US military. It's handled by bare hands all the time. Some guys even take home a round as a souvenir. Most of the time these are dummy rounds, though, and I'm really not sure if the dummy rounds are DU or not. But sometimes guys sneak a live round off the base.

Once it has been expended, however, it's a different story. If it hits something hard enough (and it's intended to be fired at something hard enough) it can be damaged at impact, and at least part of the DU can become dust, which is a hazard if inhaled. It can also become aerosolized if the round has an internal indendiary and is fused to explode after impact.

The good part about fused rounds is that they detonate after impact, so most of the aerosol is contained within the target. But it would be a highly concentrated aerosol inside the target, which is why cleanup crews need full protective gear. Outside the target, there would be a very slight concentration of radioactive dust. You'd need intense barrages of armor-piercing weapons over a very small area, and some unlikely weather conditions, to make it much of a danger to civilians. The real risk is being taken by the soldiers themselves, who might accumulate damage after being exposed to frequent doses of radioactive dust over the course of a war.

I don't know where the research came from regarding DU catching fire and burning when shot. If it did so, it would render it useless. It's purpose is to be a dense, hard material, for armor-piercing applications, as Whisky said. If it burned, it would soften, and defeat its own purpose.

"That's why I asked -- because many actions of the Coalition (sic) have seemed to me as "hugely pointless and not a little stupid." To me, it did not seem out of character for them to try something like this, if they could get away with it."

That's your impression of the US. The war with Iraq was certainly not "pointless". Saddam Hussein was a menace both to his 20 million subjects (and believe me, rumours of the murderous tactics of that regime have not been exaggrrated) and the Middle East generally. It was not fair that 20 million people should live with poverty and dictatorship because the international community would not remove a government they had not elected and had no power to remove. Therefore he had to be removed.

"I would have thought the political repercussions for an invasion violating international law would have been disasterous, but unfortunately, it has not been."

It's not, and the reason was that there was no one willing to defend Saddam Hussein and no body (not even those who opposed the war) is sad to see him go. At the end of the day, the Americans did what a lot of people wanted to be done, but were too fundamentally hostile to "American Imperialism" to support.

"It was not fair that 20 million people should live with poverty and dictatorship because the international community would not remove a government...."


LOL. Just in case you haven't noticed, life is not "fair".