{"id":5075,"date":"2015-01-30T19:41:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T00:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5075"},"modified":"2015-01-30T19:41:40","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T00:41:40","slug":"pentagon-silent-on-current-use-of-du-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5075","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon Silent on Current Use of DU in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/2015\/01\/pentagon-silent-current-use-du-iraq.html\" target=\"_blank\">Pentagon Silent on Current Use of DU in Iraq<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Back in October, I\u00a0<a title=\"reported\" href=\"http:\/\/davidswanson.org\/node\/4568\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that, \u201cA type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard\u2019s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). . . . Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told me, \u2018There is no prohibition against the use of Depleted Uranium rounds, and the [U.S. military] does make use of them. The use of DU in armor-piercing munitions allows enemy tanks to be more easily destroyed.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This week I have left an email message and a phone message for Mark Wright at the Pentagon. Here\u2019s what I emailed, after consulting with Wim Zwijnenburg of\u00a0<a title=\"PaxForPeace.nl\" href=\"http:\/\/PaxForPeace.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\">PaxForPeace.nl<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRecent reports by CENTCOM have noted that 11% of the U.S. sorties have been flown by A-10s , and that a wide range of attacks on tanks and armored vehicles have taken place.\u00a0 Can you confirm that\u00a0 PGU-14 30mm munitions with depleted uranium in the A-10s (and any other DU weapons) have not been used during these attacks. And if not, why not? Thanks!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I sent that email on January 28 and left a voice message January 30.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019d think there\u2019d be lots of reporters calling with the same question and reporting the answer. But then it\u2019s only Iraqis, I guess.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pentagon Silent on Current Use of DU in Iraq Back in October, I\u00a0reported\u00a0that, \u201cA type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard\u2019s 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3066,3065,442,620,844],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-depleted-uranium","tag-du","tag-iraq","tag-pentagon","tag-us-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5076,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions\/5076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}