After all she's just trying to expose how eeeeeeevil America is.

Actually, you guys seem to be doing a darn fine job of it all on your own...

That reminds me, where's chucky been hiding out lately... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

More than 1,820 tons of radio active nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshima’s. The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and can wipe out more than a third of life on earth.

What? 14,000 Hiroshima's? Is this figure reached by dividing the weight of depleted uranium used in Iraq by that of the enriched uranium used for the Hiroshima bomb? You might notice two words in that previous sentence that might undermine such a calculation. There are a few different isotopes of uranium, the most common has an atomic weight of 238 (U-238). This isotope has a half life in the billions of years, making it a low level radioactive source. When uranium is mined, it's predominantly as U-238, yes I did say mined, it exists in nature and has been around on Earth for much longer than humans.

There's another isotope with atomic weight 235 (U-235), this is more radioactive (its half life is about 700 million years), but it has another characteristic, it is fissile (i.e. a self perpetuating fission reaction can be maintained by a sufficiently high concentration of this isotope). Weapons grade uranium is at least 85% U-235. When uranium is mined it's about 99.3% U-238, and 0.7% U-235, that means to get 62kg of weapons grade uranium you need to start with about 7.5 tonnes of naturally occurring uranium. As 1 ton is approximately the same as 1 tonne, it means if the 1,850 tons of uranium used in Iraq had the same level of U-235 as is found in nature, there's enough for about 250 Hiroshima type bombs.

1 tonne = 1,000 kg

85% * 62 = 52.7 kg U-235 (Hiroshima bomb)
0.7% * 7500 = 52.5 kg U-235 (naturally occurring uranium)

1850 / 7.5 = 246.67

In reality depleted uranium has less U-235 than naturally occurring uranium, about 1/3, but then one only needs about 7kg of U-235 to make a bomb. Using these figures 1850 tons of depleted uranium represents about 600 uranium bombs, provided you have access to the technology to concentrate the U-235 (remove the excess U-238).

1,850,000 * 0.7% * 1/3 = 4316.67 kg U-235
4316.67/7 = 616.67 bombs

600 vs. 14,000 I guess it's not much of a difference at the end of the day ;)

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

600 vs. 14,000 I guess it's not much of a difference at the end of the day

Well written, Bobby.

But I can guarantee you, that amount of detail is utterly wasted here.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Detail is only wasted when the reader doesn't want to be informed or the content is on tv. If someone wants to skip the detail then can press page up or down.

Good post Bobby, you did at least keep it to one screen. That is good.

You father Hank :}, just kidding.

btw, Bush wants another 100,000 for the Army so he can keep us at war. Will some terrorist please take out the White House. They missed the target badly when they hit the trade center instead of the Bush palace.

600 vs. 14,000 I guess it's not much of a difference at the end of the day

Well written, Bobby.

But I can guarantee you, that amount of detail is utterly wasted here.

Why do you say that Rush?

"Detail is only wasted when the reader doesn't want to be informed...."

Exactly.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

But I can guarantee you, that amount of detail is utterly wasted here.

Why do you say that Rush?

I thought this was the DU thread, and facts and figures never made a bit of difference there.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

But I can guarantee you, that amount of detail is utterly wasted here.

Why do you say that Rush?

I thought this was the DU thread, and facts and figures never made a bit of difference there.

Thank you for the clarification Rush, now I can agree with you.