The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

I heard on the radio this morning that background radiation levels in Baghdad were 1000 to 1900 times higher than they should be. The supposed culprit? Depleted uranium, of course. The nasty metal used by American forces in weapons like the GAU-8/A 30mm cannon on the A-10 'Warthog', and the M829A2 Abrams 120mm main gun round. (Note: I haven't found any on-line articles referring to this, so I don't know where the morning-guy got the story. For all I know he was reading from the National Enquirer. Regardless, the Depleted Uranium controversy is real and is wholly driven by the environmental left. Do a Google search.)

One problem: Depleted uranium is not all that radioactive. Plus, it produces only alpha particles (a neutron/proton pair, essentially a hydrogen ion) which can be stopped by a simple piece of paper or clothing or even air. It has a half-life of billions of years. It is a heavy metal and is thus poisonous to ingest, but it ain't that radioactive. Via Instapundit comes this excellent article on depleted uranium in heavily linked detail.

If Baghdad does have radiation levels 1000 to 1900 times normal, it suggests that we smacked the crap out of at least one of those WMD programs that didn't exist.

But far more likely that story was found between Elvis pumping gas in a Nevada ghost town and Nostradamus predicting Hillary winning the 2004 Presidential election.