America ! Protector of Human Rights. ; - (

Cattus and those interested,

I've read some reports of DU not being found in soil samples etc as you posted. But that is only for certain areas as I said. Here is one report in Kosovo, where DU has been found in the soil. There are mixed reports on this.

Depleted uranium particles in selected Kosovo samples.

Danesi PR, Markowicz A, Chinea-Cano E, Burkart W, Salbu B, Donohue D, Ruedenauer F, Hedberg M, Vogt S, Zahradnik P, Ciurapinski A.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), PCI, Seibersdorf Laboratories, IAEA, Wagramer Strasse 5, P.O. Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria. Danesi@iaea.org

Selected soil samples, collected in Kosovo locations where DU ammunition was expended during the 1999 Balkan conflict, have been investigated by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), X-ray fluorescence imaging using a micro-beam (micro-XRF) and scanning electron microscopy equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence detector (SEM-EDXRF), with the objective to test the suitability of these techniques to identify the presence of small DU particles and measure their size distribution and the 235U/238U isotopic ratio (SIMS). Although the results do not permit any legitimate extrapolation to all the sites hit by the DU rounds used during the conflict, they indicated that there can be "spots ' where hundreds of thousands of particles may be present in a few milligrams of DU contaminated soil. The particle size distribution showed that most of the DU particles were <5 microm in diameter and more than 50% of the particles had a diameter <1.5 microm. Knowledge on DU particles is needed as a basis for the assessment of the potential environmental and health impacts of military use of DU, since it provides information on possible re-suspension and inhalation.

J Environ Radioact. 2003;64(2-3):143-54.

http://www.pdhealth.mil/downloads/DU_particles.pdf 

Article referred to

Isotopic composition and origin of uranium and plutonium in selected soil samples collected in Kosovo.

Danesi PR, Bleise A, Burkart W, Cabianca T, Campbell MJ, Makarewicz M, Moreno J, Tuniz C, Hotchkis M.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Seibersdorf Laboratories, Wagramer Strasse 5, PO Box 100, A-1400 Vienna, Austria. P.R.Danesi@iaea.org

Soil samples collected from locations in Kosovo where depleted uranium (DU) ammunition was expended during the 1999 Balkan conflict were analysed for uranium and plutonium isotopes content (234U, 235U, 236U, 238U, 238Pu, (239 + 240)Pu). The analyses were conducted using gamma spectrometry (235U, 238U), alpha spectrometry (238Pu, (239 + 240)Pu), inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) (234U, 235U, 236U, 238U) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) (236U)). The results indicated that whenever the U concentration exceeded the normal environmental values (approximately 2 to 3 mg/kg) the increase was due to DU contamination. 236U was also present in the released DU at a constant ratio of 236U (mg/kg)/238U (mg/kg) = 2.6 x 10(-5), indicating that the DU used in the ammunition was from a batch that had been irradiated and then reprocessed. The plutonium concentration in the soil (undisturbed) was about 1 Bq/kg and, on the basis of the measured 238Pu/(239 + 240)Pu, could be entirely attributed to the fallout of the nuclear weapon tests of the 1960s (no appreciable contribution from DU).