DU's ability to penetrate hard targets is desirable militarily, but alternatives such as Tungsten can achieve similar results without the radiation hazards. What then justifies the continued use of DU?
One answer might lie in a powerful corporate lobby: 99% of nuclear industry uranium waste is DU. In other words, by providing DU for weaponry, the nuclear industry not only makes a tidy profit but avoids the expensive hassle of disposing nuclear waste as well. Pretty sweet deal.
Bush has been a friend to the nuclear industry from the start, by opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and thumbing his nose at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With 2002's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), however, the Bush administration raised the nuclear ante to critical heights. Among other proposals, NPR says the U.S. could use nuclear weapons in the vaguely worded "event of surprising military developments," and lists such cases as a China-Taiwan conflict, an attack by Iraq on one of its neighbors, or an Arab-Israeli war.
In tandem with NPR, the Bush administration has publicly euphemized nuclear weapons as "low-yield," "tactical," and "user-friendly." (How significant that one of the brains behind current U.S. nuclear policy, Dr. Keith Payne, is best known for his 1980's essay "Victory is Possible," an optimistic approach to all-out nuclear war.)
One answer might lie in a powerful corporate lobby: 99% of nuclear industry uranium waste is DU. In other words, by providing DU for weaponry, the nuclear industry not only makes a tidy profit but avoids the expensive hassle of disposing nuclear waste as well. Pretty sweet deal.
Bush has been a friend to the nuclear industry from the start, by opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and thumbing his nose at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. With 2002's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), however, the Bush administration raised the nuclear ante to critical heights. Among other proposals, NPR says the U.S. could use nuclear weapons in the vaguely worded "event of surprising military developments," and lists such cases as a China-Taiwan conflict, an attack by Iraq on one of its neighbors, or an Arab-Israeli war.
In tandem with NPR, the Bush administration has publicly euphemized nuclear weapons as "low-yield," "tactical," and "user-friendly." (How significant that one of the brains behind current U.S. nuclear policy, Dr. Keith Payne, is best known for his 1980's essay "Victory is Possible," an optimistic approach to all-out nuclear war.)