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Pentagon 'knew Nato shells contained dangerous nuclear waste'
1/29/01   John Lichfield Independent Digital UK

The vigorous defence of DU weapons by the US and other Nato governments has been based on the argument that DU is a "natural" material of relatively low radioactivity. DU, in its classic form, is the heavy metal left behind, mostly uranium 238, when the most fissile part of raw uranium, mined from the earth, is removed for use as a nuclear fuel, so classic DU is obtained before the nuclear reaction process. The book produces evidence that at least some of the weapons used in the Gulf and Balkans contained another kind of uranium, obtained by recycling spent nuclear fuels after the reaction process. The danger is that this form of uranium, sometimes called "dirty depleted uranium", can contain traces of highly radioactive materials, such as plutonium. Mr Trilling said yesterday: "The whole debate should go back to square one. We are not saying that we know for sure that DU caused Gulf syndrome sicknesses, or the similar illnesses reported in the Balkans. Personally, I doubt that depleted uranium weapons are the cause, or sole cause, of the Gulf or Balkan syndromes, whatever these weapons may have actually contained.
"What we are saying is that the US government's defence of depleted uranium has been, to be charitable, extremely misleading. The book is a plea for more research, not research on abstract theories about classic depleted uranium, but on the actual contents of US and Nato weapons. Until then, everyone on all sides of the argument is talking in the dark and should shut the hell up." The book is based on two years of interviews and investigations originally done for a French television documentary, which was shown last year. Extra material has been discovered in the past few months. The writers allow both sides of the argument about classic DU to make their cases in great detail. But there are three important new pieces of information:

•   Independent research by Dr Asaf Durakovic, an American of Croatian origin, has found traces of uranium 236 in the urine or bodies of 42 American Gulf veterans. Uranium 236 is not present in the natural world and should not be present in "clean" depleted uranium.
•   An official report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute in 1995 acknowledged the possibility that "depleted uranium used by the Department of Defense contains traces of uranium 236". This implies that some of the DU used in US weapons was created from spent nuclear fuel, not from raw, mined uranium.
•   The nuclear plant at Paducah in Kentucky was accused of "waste, fraud, abuse and bad management" by the General Accounting Office, the official US government watchdog, in 1992. The accounting office report protested that the plant was recycling uranium from nuclear waste, without proper safeguards, endangering its own workers. Paducah is one of the three sites in America that produce the DU used by US and Nato weapons. It was the site named by the Pentagon spokesman last week as a source of contamination of some DU weapons with plutonium.
  Mr Trilling said yesterday that the "charitable" interpretation of the evidence was that clean and "dirty" forms of DU had been mixed up at Paducah, or in US Department of Defense stocks, some time in the 1980s. A decision had been taken to use up the stocks in the belief, or hope, that only small quantities of highly radioactive material were involved.

In addition to exposing the deadly duplicity of the Department of Defense, the book documents the genocide of Native Americans and Iraqis by military radiation, the connection between depleted uranium and Gulf War Syndrome, the underestimated dangers from low-level radiation, the legal ramifications of DU Production and Use, and the growing movement against DU. (Table of Contents below)
The Pentagon used DU weapons in Iraq in 1991, in Bosnia in 1995 and in Yugoslavia-especially in Kosovo-in 1999 in large enough amounts to have a significant impact on the environment. Besides endangering occupation troops it of course is a major environmental threat to the population of those regions. Of the 697,000 US troops who served in the Gulf, some 130,000 have reported medical problems ranging from respiratory, liver and kidney dysfunction, memory loss, headaches, fever, low blood pressure, and birth defects among their newborn children. During the Gulf War, munitions and armor made with Depleted Uranium were used for the first time in combat history. Over 940,000 30mm uranium tipped bullets and "more than 14,000 large caliber DU rounds were consumed during Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield." (U.S. AEPI Report 1994) These largely untested weapons were used indiscriminately throughout the siege of Iraq with no concern for the health and environmental consequences of their use. Between 300 and 800 tons of DU bullets are now scattered on the ground in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Pentagon now admits to having fired over 18,000 DU shells in Bosnia and over 31,000 such shells in Kosovo. Up to 70% of the depleted uranium within these weapons aerosolizes on impact and as radioactive dust it is easily ingested. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people, both victims of war and combat soldiers, have suffered the effects of exposure to these highly toxic, radioactive weapons.

WHAT IS DU?

DU is also considered at least a contributing cause to the 130,000 reported cases of "Gulf War Syndrome." The chronic symptoms of this ailment range from sharp increases in cancers to memory loss, chronic pain, fatigue and birth defects in veterans' children. Dr. Mona Kammas is a professor of pathology at Baghdad University and director of a study of the environmental impact of U.S. aggression against Iraq. At the Gijon symposium, she reported on a paper that showed an almost five-fold increase in cancers, a more than three-fold increase in spontaneous abortions, and a nearly three-fold increase in congenital anomalies in a study group of those exposed to combat. The paper also reported on environmental damage due to the Pentagon's destruction of the water-supply and sanitation systems and the destruction of oil refineries and factories that used toxic chemicals in the production process.
Iraqi researchers believe that the different relative frequency of various types of cancer now as compared with before 1990 in the Basra region was a significant indication of a major change, and that this pattern continuing long after the war indicated that DU's impact was long-lasting. Besides the contents listed below, the second edition of Metal of Dishonor has chapters reporting on a study from Iraq and from Bosnia, and a new chapter by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a physicist and medical doctor who examined U.S. troops hit by DU "friendly fire."

Greece steps up weapons row   per EUParliament pdf

Germany issues uranium 'all clear'

Roth's institute tested a sample of 121 German troops before, during and after their Kosovo deployments. Some had been involved in clearing the wrecks of vehicles destroyed by DU munitions. A control sample of a further 200 volunteers from Germany also took part. The WHO, the Geneva-based United Nations health agency, issued its first recommendation on the ammunition since the beginning of the current controversy over potential health risks. The body concluded it was "unlikely" that exposure to NATO weapons containing depleted uranium could have led to a higher risk of cancer among military personnel who served in the Balkan conflicts. But it said that it plans a study to "assess whether there has been an increased rate of cancer amongst military personnel who served in the Gulf War or Balkans, as well as amongst exposed populations."
It also called for the cordoning off and cleaning up of sites in Kosovo where DU ammunition landed during the NATO air campaign. A WHO spokesman told CNN their research showed there was no link between DU and leukaemia, but there might be links with other forms of cancer. "Until we know what is going on, it is better to be cautious," he said. The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called for a more extensive survey of sites in the Balkans that were hit by NATO shells containing depleted uranium. An IAEA spokesman said checks on at least 30 sites were required for a satisfactory survey to determine whether debris from the shells could cause cancer.

Portuguese officials said early results of an on-the-spot study of 50 depleted uranium sites closest to where that country's troops with NATO were based "showed overall natural levels or uranium are actually lower than in Portugal itself." "The idea of a general risk of contamination is false," a NATO statement quoted the official as telling a special meeting of some 60 representatives of NATO and non-NATO countries who have contributed troops to the peacekeeping missions. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said: "We have two personnel who had been affected at a benign level,". He did not elaborate on the exact nature of their health complaints. Ankara earlier said it had found no such cases but would study the subject and share information with NATO allies.

U.N. plays down ammunition risk

On Thursday, Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, and Pekka Haavisto, who leads its Balkans Task Force team which has collected samples at 11 sites in Kosovo, said all 112 Kosovo sites should be analysed for possible health risks. The top U.N. environmental officials, who await laboratory results on 340 samples taken at 11 Kosovo sites by early March, recommended that sites in Bosnia also be investigated. WHO spokesman Greg Hartl told a news briefing that three WHO officials would attend a January 16-17 conference in Basra, Iraq on the effects of depleted uranium and other environmental factors which could be the cause of "increased adverse health effects." Iraq has blamed western munitions containing depleted uranium used during the 1991 Gulf War for thousands of cancer deaths and deformed births.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called for a more extensive survey of sites in the Balkans that were hit by Nato shells containing depleted uranium. An IAEA spokesman said checks on at least 30 sites were required for a satisfactory survey to determine whether debris from the shells could cause cancer. Nato has informed the United Nations of more than 100 sites where the shells were used, and so far UN inspectors have seen 11 of them.

Danger signs to go up at uranium sites

NATO has identified 112 sites in Kosovo, but a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force said that finding all the sites, many of which are in large fields, "would take a lot of resources." The U.N. mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) said a voluntary testing programme is being set up at Pristina's main hospital and that the World Health Organisation will send three specialists to Kosovo at the request of U.N. administrator Bernard Kouchner. Several countries have issued calls for NATO to investigate the possible long-term effects of the ammunition. NATO has insisted there was only a minimal health risk. The U.N. Environmental Programme said the sites should be cordoned off to prevent children wandering onto them. "Some of these sites were near villages or in the middle of villages. Cows were there, children were there," said Pekka Haavisto, leader of a U.N. team that checked the sites for radiation.
A total of 340 samples taken during the two-week mission to Kosovo have been sent to five European laboratories for analysis. Results are expected in early March. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who was NATO Secretary General during the allied airstrikes in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995 and during the 1999 Yugoslavia campaign, said there was no link at the time of the bombings between the weapons and illnesses such as cancer.

But UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said precautions should be taken until it was clear there was no danger. However, he added: "I think this isn't the moment to blame anyone. UNMIK has been extremely busy with its mine-clearance program." Toepfer said all 112 sites should be visited, checked and clearly marked to protect the local population. Last month, Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukaemia. In France, five soldiers are being treated for leukaemia.
Several European countries have begun screening soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, while many civilian aid agencies are doing the same. NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson denied the issue threatened to split the 19-nation alliance. "I believe the way we have handled this issue shows that NATO remains strong, is still united and is still one of the most effective defensive alliances the world has ever known," Robertson said. And U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said NATO was taking seriously European concerns over the possible health risks.
"I hope this is not an issue that is being used by others for their personal agendas," said Albright, who has warned against letting hysteria dominate discussion of the so-called "Balkans syndrome." Her comments came as Britain rubbished a leaked report from its own defence ministry that warned exposure to the ammunition increased the risk of cancer. British media said the report warned that "uranium dust inhalation carries a long term risk...the (dust) has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers." A UK defence ministry spokesman told Reuters the report was scientifically incorrect. "It is flawed. It was done by a trainee. It was never endorsed by senior staff. It was not taken forward," he said. In a further sign of public anger over the issue, around 2,000 Greeks marched through central Athens to the U.S. embassy in a protest against the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans.

UK uranium warning fuels debate

"Inhalation of insoluble uranium dioxide dust will lead to accumulation in the lungs with very slow clearance, if any," the document said. "Although the chemical toxicity is low, there may be localised radiation damage of the lung leading to cancer." The British government has reiterated its position that medical evidence has so far failed to prove any link between the heavy metal, favoured because of its ability to penetrate armour, and soldiers being diagnosed with. But on Tuesday, Britain bowed to pressure and said it would offer screening to veterans of the Kosovo and Bosnian wars for signs of illness. The screening will not be offered to Gulf War veterans. Similar weapons were used there and many who fought in the 1991 war against Iraq complain of serious illness. Chairman of the National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association Shaun Rusling said his members had lost any faith in the government.
"They are now trying to rubbish their own medical documents and safety procedures," he said. "There should be a public inquiry. We have got 521 Gulf War veterans who have died since April 1991. Many of them have died of cancers." Last month, Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, seven of whom died of cancer, including five cases of leukaemia. In France, four soldiers are being treated for leukaemia. Several European countries have begun screening soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. Many civilian aid agencies are doing the same.

NATO statement on uranium concerns

The North Atlantic Council, at its regular meeting today, gave special consideration to the possible environmental health risks associated with the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans. Allies are committed to ensuring the health and safety of their servicemen and servicewomen and to avoiding any ill- effects for the civil population and personnel of non-governmental organizations as a result of NATO military operations. The Council noted in this context that there is no evidence currently available to suggest that exposure to expended depleted uranium munitions represents a significant health risk for NATO-led forces or the civil population in the Balkans. They noted recent statements by representatives of the World Health Organization and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which confirm that there is very little likelihood of troops becoming ill, such as by contracting leukaemia, from exposure to radiation from depleted uranium.
Allies agreed, however, that this should be kept under review and that NATO should continue to cooperate fully with investigations on the possible effects of exposure carried out by the nations involved or by responsible multinational organisations. Allies recalled that full information had already been provided to, and welcomed by, UNEP to assist its study on the environmental consequences of the use of depleted uranium munitions during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999, which is due to be issued in March. They agreed that similar information on the use of depleted uranium munitions during Operations Deny Flight and Deliberate Force in 1994 and 1995 will be produced as soon as possible.

The following immediate further steps were agreed:

• NATO will cooperate fully with any further investigations on this subject carried out by the nations involved or by responsible multinational organisations, including elsewhere in the region.
• The Council agreed to consult fully on this subject with all past and present SFOR and KFOR contributing countries. A first briefing for this purpose will be given at a regular meeting of troop contributors which will take place on 12 January.
• Allies will make available to each other and more widely, through arrangements to be established in NATO, all information available to them, now or in the future, on any health risks associated with the use of depleted uranium munitions. As a first step, Service Medical authorities will exchange views on the medical and scientific factual background at a meeting of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services Committee (COMEDS) to be held on 15 January.
• A NATO working group will be established to act as a clearing house for the exchange of information. This will involve participation by non-NATO contributors to KFOR and SFOR.

How Depleted Uranium Eroded U.S.-European Defense Cooperation
01.11.01   Tomas Valasek, sr analyst CDI: Weekly Defense Monitor vol.5 #2

As an emerging actor on the international scene, the EU naturally demands a say in defense and security policies. Hence the recent effort to establish a 60,000-strong EU Rapid Reaction Force and the necessary political and military bodies to guide it. What is not clear yet, however, is the relation between the emerging European superstate and the United States. In the defense realm, this translates into uncertainty about the European defense identity's relation to NATO. Some in Europe, most notably France, have sought to keep the EU completely separate from NATO. Although Europe and the United States see eye-to-eye on most defense issues, creation of a separate EU force carries the seeds of a conflict. The EU and NATO may find themselves unable to conduct joint operations as they used to for the past five decades. Moreover, should Brussels and Washington disagree on a security issue, there will be less incentive to seek common ground as Europe will have the ability to act independently. All decisions in NATO have to be made unanimously, thus forcing the allies to hear each other out and compromise.
Making a virtue out of necessity, the United States has publicly endorsed the European defense efforts. At the same time, Washington has sought to steer the EU's defense institution closer to NATO. The alliance's involvement in EU defense decisions would guarantee that Washington is at least consulted on, if not actually asked to approve, EU's military plans. To this end, U.S. officials have successfully worked with their close allies in Europe, Great Britain and Germany, to make sure that EU any defense agreements provided for close NATO involvement.

But proving once again that it is the little details that usually derail grand plans, the depleted uranium (DU) controversy is destroying much of the will in Europe to trust and work with the Americans. U.S. planes fired all of the controversial DU-coated rounds, which Italy, Spain, Portugal and other states now suspect of causing cancer in members of their peacekeeping forces. The European press has been merciless. "What kind of military alliance do we have where [we] must beg for information from the superpower?," wrote the Frankfurter Rundschau. "Confidence in the alliance has been shaken," wrote the respected French daily, Le Figaro. "It looks likely that a clash between the Americans and the Europeans cannot be avoided," wrote Italian daily La Repubblica. Never mind that Washington maintains that it informed its allies of the DU hazard back in 1999, that a link between DU and cancer has not been convincingly proven, and that the number of cases of cancer among peacekeepers may be well within the statistical average for the population at large. "The controversy about an alleged Balkan syndrome carries the traits of a panic," wrote the Suddeutsche Zeitung. Next time the European leaders discuss how closely to anchor the EU defense institution to NATO, the public will no doubt ask whether they want to be linked to an alliance which many Europeans are now convinced is killing its own soldiers.
But something positive may come out of the controversy. Washington has indeed at times treated its European allies with a cavalier attitude. Until recently, nobody has bothered to ask the allies what they think of the proposed U.S. national missile defense system, even though the program will not work without installations on the territory of European countries. U.S. pundits and officials routinely accuse Europe of not pulling its weight in the Balkans even though the EU pays 80% of non-military aid to Bosnia and Kosovo, and contributes two thirds of the peacekeeping troops (the U.S. share is 15%). One way to ensure continued European defense cooperation with the United States is to make NATO a more palatable choice for the Europeans. This need not be complicated. Washington needs to be more forthright with its allies, more willing to hear their views on issues of common interest, and more careful to check the facts before accusing Europe of not pulling its weight.

… Russia warned NATO that the furor over depleted uranium was only just beginning and said international experts should meet to discuss the dangers. "We will make a proposal to Russia's president on holding an international conference of specialists on this problem within the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) or the U.N.," Interfax news agency quoted Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev as saying. He said the conference would allow experts to "objectively work out the degree of danger the use of these weapons presents to human life." &@133;

Belgrade: NATO contaminated our land

Morality questioned

Yugoslav army finds radioactive sites

A representative of the Vinca Nuclear Physics Institute, which carried out the tests, said the population was not in danger because the areas had been properly marked. "There is no realistic danger for the population," said the institute's Srpko Markovic. He said there was no proof as yet of the existence of the so-called "Balkan syndrome." "The statistical indicators of the (peacekeeping) soldiers who have been taken ill are not significant enough to state with certainty that uranium has caused the illness," Markovic added. … Serbian Health Minister Nada Kostic said a team would be set up to monitor effects of the radiation on the population, especially in the affected areas in southern Serbia. "It is important for our public that the experts are here, already giving relevant data, everything is being monitored, that there is no reason for panic and that nothing can slip out of control," she said.
Markovic said the institute had conducted tests at 250 other locations in Serbia proper shortly after they were bombed during the 11-month air campaign to halt Belgrade's repressive policies in Kosovo and had registered no presence of radiation. He said there was no danger any longer of uranium being dispersed by air, but warned that there was still some risk of it entering ground water. Doctors participating in the debate said they had not registered a higher incidence of malignant diseases since the conflict but warned that such illnesses usually took several years to develop. Miodrag Djordjevic, the head of the Bezanijska Kosa medical centre, was pessimistic and forecast a 30 percent increase of cancer illnesses over the next 15 years, blaming bombing-related radioactive as well as bacterial and chemical contamination.

Puerto Rico asks EU to include Vieques island in depleted uranium investigation

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted Monday there was "absolutely no proof" tying NATO forces dying or getting cancer to use of depleted uranium. Lord Robertson, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also said there was no scientific evidence that depleted uranium ammunition poses a significant health risk. The debate comes as Puerto Rico's newly installed governor has promised to press for the Navy to end its military exercises on Vieques, which has been used for training for every major conflict since World War II. Calderon supports islanders who reject an agreement between President Bill Clinton and former Gov. Pedro Rossello for a referendum on Vieques that would allow islanders to vote this year for the Navy to withdraw, but only in 2003.

NZ checks uranium weapons exposure

Portugal probes Kosovo uranium sites

The Truth About Depleted Uranium
1/8/01   Robt. Fisk The Independent / UK

At the time, The Independent was alone in publicising this sinister new weapon and its apparent effects. Government ministers laughed the reports off. One replied to Independent readers who drew the Ministry of Defence's attention to my articles that, despite my investigations, he had seen no "epidemiological data" proving them true. And of course there >was none. Because the World Health Organisation, invited by Iraq to start research into the cancers, was dissuaded from doing so even though it had sent an initial team to Baghdad to start work. And because a group of Royal Society scientists told by the British authorities to investigate the effects of DU declined to visit Iraq. Documents that proved the contrary were dismissed as "anecdotal". A US military report detailing the health risks of DU and urging suppression of this information was dutifully ignored. When two years ago I wrote about a British government report detailing the extraordinary lengths to which the authorities went at DU shell test-firing ranges in the UK, the shells are fired into a tunnel in Cumbria and the resulting dust sealed into concrete containers which are buried, I know for a fact that the first reaction from one civil servant was to ask whether I might be prosecuted for revealing this.
One ex-serviceman, sick since the Gulf War, actually had his house raided by the British police in an attempt to track down "secret" documents. More honourable policemen might have searched for papers that proved DU's dangers and which might form the basis of manslaughter charges against senior officers. But of course the police were trying to find the source of the leak, not the source of dying men's cancers. During the Kosovo war, I travelled from Belgrade to Brussels to ask about NATO's use of depleted uranium. Luftwaffe General Jerz informed me that it was "harmless" and was found in trees, earth and mountains. It was a lie. Only uranium, not the depleted variety that comes from nuclear waste, is found in the earth. James Shea, NATO's spokesman, quoted a Rand Corporation report that supposedly proved DU was not harmful, knowing full well since Mr Shea is a careful reader and not a stupid man, that the Rand report deals with dust in uranium mines, not the irradiated spray from DU weapons.

And so it went on. Back in Kosovo, I was told privately by British officers that the Americans had used so much DU in the war against Serbia that they had no idea how many locations were contaminated. When I tracked down the survivors of the Albanian refugee convoy, one of them was suffering kidney pains. Despite a promise by Shea that the attack would be fully investigated, not a single NATO officer had bothered to talk to a survivor. Nor have they since. A year ago, I noted in The Independent that foreign secretary Robin Cook had admitted in the House of Commons that NATO was refusing to give DU locations to the UN. "Why?" I asked in the paper. "Why cannot we be told where these rounds were fired?"
During the war, defence correspondents, the BBC's Mark Laity prominent among them, bought the NATO line that DU was harmless. Laity was still peddling the same nonsense at an Edinburgh Festival journalists' conference some months later. Laity, who is now, of course, an official spokesman for NATO, was last week reduced to saying that "the overwhelming consensus of medical information" is that health risks from DU are "very low". But the growing consensus of medical information is quite the opposite. Which is why a British report to the UK embassy in Kuwait referred to the "sensitivity" of DU because of its health risks. And still the Americans and the British try to fool us. The Americans are now brazenly announcing that their troops in Kosovo have suffered no resultant leukemias, failing to mention that most of their soldiers are cooped up in a massive base (Fort Bondsteel) near the Macedonian border where no DU rounds were fired by NATO. Needless to say, there was also no mention of the tens of thousands of US troops, women as well as men - who believe they were contaminated by DU in the Gulf.
So it goes on. British veterans are dying of unexplained cancers from the Gulf. So are US veterans. NATO troops from Bosnia and now Kosovo, especially Italians, are dying from unexplained cancers. So are the children in the Basra hospitals, along with their parents and uncles and aunts. Cancers have now been found among Iraqi refugees in Iran who were caught in Allied fire on the roads north of Kuwait. Bosnian authorities investigating an increase in cancers can get no information from NATO. This is not a scandal. It is an outrage. Had we but known. On those very same Iraqi roads, I too prowled through the contaminated wreckage of Iraqi armour in 1991. And, I recall with growing unease, back in Kosovo in 1999, only a day after the original attack, I collected pieces of the air-fired rounds that hit the Albanian refugee convoy. Their computer codes proved NATO had bombed the convoy, not the Serbs, as NATO tried to claim. I also remember that I carried those bits of munition back to Belgrade in my pocket. There are times, I must admit, when I would like to believe NATO's lies.

DU & Bulgarian Soldiers in Kosovo
"24 Chasa", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, p. 2;   "SEGA", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, 01, p. 2;
"Monitor", Bulg. Daily, Jan. 5, p. 3;   TV Channel 1, TV "DEN"

• He gets tired very quickly
• He has incessant muscle pain in the waist and chest;
• He is losing hair;
• His skin is covered with rash;
• Lately his fingers are getting strangely twisted.

Defense Minister Boiko Noev (Bulgarian NATOist 2) declares that the Ministry of Defense is in contact with their German colleagues, and, eventually, they will send Sergeant Danailov to Germany. Ministry of Defense trust their doctors from the Bulgarian Army Medical Academy (yesterday evening, Jan. 5., one of their BAMA doctors, General Zlatev, on TV screen:
1/ Depleted Uranium is as innocent as mother's milk: it cannot cause any diseases God forbid!
2/ The Bulgarian soldiers in Kosovo are healthy and fit as a fiddle.
3/ Sergeant Danailov is healthy and fit as two fiddles!
The Ministry of Defense, Bulgarian NATOist Nr. 2, says they are waiting only for the German doctors' conclusion to send Danailov there.
TV channel "DEN" has broadcast a report from the town of Svistov. Danail looked almost transparent, young and vulnerable like a lost 15-year boy. The journalist asked him is he in contact with his colleagues in Kosovo and if they had some complaints too. He answered some of them have complaints but they do not dare to tell about them out of fear they will be kicked out of the army.

II ]   Emil Ivanov, Danailov's colleague in Kosovo with similar symptoms.
He has been sent for medical check-up but the results, apparently, have been classified: nobody has seen them till that moment. On the top of Danailov's and Ivanov's cases (plus 13 more soldiers with strange health problems) the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense insists that there are no health problems among the Bulgarian soldiers in Kosovo.

III ]   Alexander Vassilev (26)
(Bulgarian Volunteer in the Yugoslavian Army during the US-NATO War)
He had been in Kosovo during the bombing. Vassilev complaints of:

• general weakness;
• bad cough;
• pain in the eyes. He was told he had cataracta in both eyes very amazing at his age, the doctor had said. 80% of his Army friends both Bulgarian and Serbs have the same complaints.

Bulgarian media from Jan. 6, 2001: Novinar, Bulg. Daily, Jan. 6, p. 1

Radiation tests for NATO troops

Italy emphasizes troop safety in Kosovo

"After Kosovo war. Information on ammunition incomplete
Disinformation on Depleted Uranium The Netherlands/Germany

Pentagon Silent on Uranium

Germany, from German TV teletext, 13 January

NATO and Yugoslavia also agreed to pool all available information concerning depleted uranium used during the Balkan conflicts. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, who held talks in Brussels with new Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, said the alliance had "nothing to hide and everything to share" in trying to reassure troops and civilians there was no lasting health hazard from the slightly radioactive materials. Svilanovic said Yugoslavia and NATO needed an open discussion on the consequences of depleted uranium munitions and to guarantee for the local population that they were safe. Ahead of the meeting, Russia had accused the West of ignoring its warnings about the hazards of using depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo. Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said the West should have heeded Kremlin warnings long ago.
"We are surprised that NATO countries are only now talking about the ecological damage wreaked by their aggression," Rogozin said. Russia fiercely opposed the 1999 NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. Senior NATO medical experts will meet on Monday to review the situation and report immediately, "NATO is committed to getting the facts on the table. The surgeons-general will meet in Brussels and their findings will be presented to the public," NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General Joseph W. Ralston said. Robertson urged patience while research was carried out but said Canadian, German and Russian troops serving in Bosnia and Kosovo had already been screened and no evidence of ill-effects had yet been found. "The existing medical consensus is clear: the hazard from depleted uranium is both very limited and limited to very specific circumstances. NATO is doing everything it can to ensure that relevant information is made publicly available," he said.

Wednesday's meeting followed the decision by several European states to step up health checks on veterans and set up national inquiries into the potential risks of exposure to radioactive dust. The Greek journalists' federation also said it would screen members who covered the wars in Kosovo and Bosnia. "We have been asked by the journalists' insurance plan to collect the names of journalists, cameramen and technicians who have worked in Bosnia and Kosovo so they immediately can undergo medical checks for radiation," George Savidis of the Panhellenic Federation of Journalists' Unions said. Despite the NATO assurances, Iraq maintains that cancer cases in the south of the country have risen since the 1991 Gulf War. Dr Jawad Ali, a doctor at a hospital in the southern city of Basra said the alleged increase was a result of radioactivity from depleted uranium shells used by U.S. and British forces. "In my opinion, the main factor which caused cancer is radiation from the use of depleted uranium, in the southern part, where the American and British forces delivered more than 300 tonnes of DU, he said.

Germany confirms weapons warning

… "If it is shown that depleted uranium causes an increase in cancers, then we have got to look at alternative weapon systems and at precautions which could be taken to protect our troops, as well as at how we can clean up the areas where the shells were used," Bruce George, chairman of a British parliamentary defence committee, said. Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. Environment Programme criticised NATO for not being more forthcoming about where it used the ammunition. Klaus Toepfer told the Berliner Zeitung in an article to be published on Monday that the alliance had taken the stance "that investigation at these locations wasn't necessary anymore. That is very clearly not correct." UNEP has visited 11 of 112 sites in Kosovo identified by NATO as having been targeted with ordnance containing depleted uranium, and found higher radiation levels in eight locations. Final results are expected in March. Toepfer said similar investigations should be done in Bosnia and Serbia, and that it was NATO's responsibility to dispose of the ammunition.

… Greece's military is planning to screen up to 4,000 current and former peacekeepers and has confirmed that a sergeant who served in Bosnia has leukaemia. Swiss authorities also said on Sunday they would screen 900 soldiers who served in the Balkans for signs of radiation poisoning. Polish and Bulgarian officials said on Sunday that tests so far on troops serving in Kosovo had shown no negative effects from the ammunition.

UK urged to probe "Balkans syndrome"

Conflicting research on radiation in Kosovo

The U.S. Defense Department said it had no plans to suspend use of the tank- piercing shells but would co-operate with any NATO study into mystery illnesses. The discovery of radioactivity at the sites tested by the U.N. was the first results of testing still underway at laboratories in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Britain and Austria by UNEP. "The final results will only be known when the UNEP report is published in 2001, but there is enough preliminary evidence to call for precautions when dealing with used depleted uranium or with sites where such ammunition might be present," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. A U.N. report in May had warned that much of Kosovo's water could be so contaminated as to be unfit to drink, and that a clean-up of the province could cost billions of dollars. It warned U.N. staff not to approach any target that might have been hit by a depleted uranium weapon.
The 11 sites tested by the UNEP team were among 112 in Kosovo hit by weapons containing depleted uranium according to a NATO map. The UNEP report also recommended that health checks be carried out on residents of the immediate area. Russia added its voice to a growing chorus of European concern over the weapons, which includes France, Italy, Norway, Germany, Portugal and Greece, saying it was in favour of international investigations into the issue. Moscow has sent 3,000 peacekeepers to Kosovo but fiercely opposed NATO's 1999 bombing campaign to drive Serb forces out of Kosovo. Russian peacekeepers are also deployed in Bosnia, where U.S. warplanes used depleted uranium weapons against Serbian armour in the mid-1990s.

France confirmed on Thursday that four of its soldiers had contracted leukaemia after working in the Balkans. In Athens, about 500 protesters marched to demand the return of Greek troops from Bosnia and Kosovo due to the health concerns. Britain said it had no evidence NATO's use of the munitions adversely affected British peacekeepers in the Balkans and had no plans to screen soldiers who served in Kosovo and Bosnia. Turkey and Yugoslavia found no cases of radiation exposure among their troops, and the International Committee of the Red Cross disclosed that tests on over 30 staff deployed during the 1999 Kosovo war showed no traces of depleted uranium. U.S. attack jets fired some 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition against Serbian targets during NATO's 1999 campaign to drive the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo. Some 10,000 rounds were also fired in neighbouring Bosnia in 1994-5.

NATO nations worry U.S. ammunition tied to cancer deaths
1/4/00   CNN Brussels Bureau Chief Patricia Kelly

KELLY: Reports that we're getting in are that there have been a high spate of cancer-related deaths among the military in Italy, Portugal and Belgium. Of 12,000 Belgian soldiers who served in Bosnia, 9,000 responded to a questionnaire that revealed 1,600 of them are suffering from illnesses that might be linked to their mission. Belgian Defense Minister Andre Flahaut says that a link cannot be established between the Bosnian mission and the development of certain cancers. But out of those 1,600, nine people became serious ill, and of those nine, four have died. He says the fact that they all participated in the Bosnian mission means they cannot ignore the possibilities of the link. Similarly suspicious deaths have been reported among Balkan war veterans in Italy and Portugal.

… NATO admits 10,800 depleted uranium shells were fired by its aircraft during the Bosnian war. A further 31,000 were fired by allied forces during the Kosovo war. So far, there are no reports of soldiers in Kosovo falling sick, but the scare is prompting them to test some soldiers currently serving in Kosovo. The Belgians have carried out 3,500 tests so far. They do urine analysis before the troops leave on mission, during the mission, and on their return. Since they started testing, none of the tests have revealed the presence of depleted uranium in the zone they are based. The Belgian military, 700 of them, are based in the north of Kosovo, where there is no record of depleted uranium bombs being dropped. According to information supplied by NATO, depleted uranium ammunition was dropped on 112 different sites. A United Nations Environmental Protection Agency team in Kosovo visited 11 of the sites identified by NATO. Their report is expected early this year, but they do say the radiation level is slightly higher than normal at some limited spots, and it would therefore be an unnecessary risk to the population to be in direct contact with remnants of depleted uranium ammunition.

… the Belgians are planning to publish their findings on the tests they've carried out on the Bosnian war veterans by the end of February. Depleted uranium is used in ammunition to penetrate armor or thick concrete. Soldiers may come into contact with fragments or dust after weapons have been fired, or if they are in the immediate vicinity of where the bombs have fallen, or if they are, afterwards, in the areas where bombs have fallen. The concern is about both the military forces that handled the weapons, loaded the weapons, and fired the weapons, or those who went into the bombed areas afterwards. But the authorities insist that it's by no means certain the depleted uranium is responsible for the illnesses and deaths. …

Q: Is there any evidence of increased cancer among civilians in the war zones?

KELLY: The United Nations Environmental Protection Agency came to the conclusion in Oct 1999, after examining the impact of the air strikes on the environment, that part of the environmental contamination clearly predates the Kosovo conflict because there was little to no investment in environmental protection. The U.N. says that the NATO air strikes, therefore, were not responsible for an environmental catastrophe in Kosovo. But we are only now hearing of illness and deaths among soldiers who served in Bosnia in the mid-90s, and it is probably too early for any kind of illness that might have been caused by the same circumstances in Kosovo to have started creating a pattern of appearance. But NATO governments are expressing concern about the health of civilians in the Balkans who took the full brunt of NATO bombings, and the investigations are likely to examine the prevalence of cancer rates among civilians as well as the military. The aim of their assessment is intended to determine whether the use of depleted uranium during the Kosovo conflict has resulted in any current or future health or environmental risks, and to publish a scientific report on the findings in February or March.

Peacekeepers' deaths linked to "Balkans syndrome"

3/17/00   PHILIP BERRIGAN

Guest:
Philip Berrigan, longtime anti-war activist and one of the founders of the Plowshares Movement and of Jonah House. He was a member of the "Catonsville Nine" who burned draft records during the Vietnam War, and has spent over 10 years in prison for his anti-war activities. From prison in Maryland. Call Jonah House: 410.233.6238.

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