2-16-05, 1:08 pm

Munitions used by US troops on a massive scale in the Iraq war may be injuring US soldiers. According to Veterans for Peace, a national organization of veterans who oppose the Iraq war, depleted uranium (DU), a substance used in bullets and artillery shells to increase penetrating ability, may be harmful to anyone exposed to spent DU munitions or areas in which DU materials have been heavily used.

DU is a by-product of uranium enrichment and is used in the manufacture of weapons. Weapon such as tanks, machine guns, artillery, armored vehicles, and aircraft use DU munitions.

DU munitions have some radioactivity, but their main strength, from the view of weapons manufacturers, is their density. DU is nearly 2 and 1/2 times denser than steel.

Some DU-tipped projectiles are powerful enough to penetrate tank armor. Others are used to penetrate body armor, trucks, and other defensive materials.

While DU munitions are slightly radioactive, the main cause of concern is the metal fragments that enter the environment after explosion. Soldiers and civilians who breath in the dust created by a burning DU weapon may intake radioactive deposits in their lungs. Lung cancer can result.

The potential dangers of DU munitions were revealed to the world during the first Gulf War. The Pentagon sent Major Doug Rokke to the Persian Gulf region to lead its depleted uranium assessment team. Rokke’s team spent several months there on DU-related projects: cleanup, research, and follow-up medical care for US personnel exposed to DU. Rokke has since become seriously ill, and many on his team have already died.

Rokke concluded that anyone who comes in contact with DU must get medical attention. The Pentagon ignored Rokke’s advice and refused to distribute the information to military personnel. DU weapons have been used in every major armed conflict since the first Gulf War: Somalia, Yugoslavia, and Iraq again.

'An increasing number of studies, says Veterans for Peace, 'have linked DU with Gulf War syndrome, and DU is strongly implicated in birth defects among veterans’ children.'

Disabled American Veterans, an 85-year old national organization that advocates for service members disabled during war or armed conflict, concurs. 'There is an ongoing debate as to whether a well-defined Gulf War Syndrome actually exists, but most experts agree that the health of as many as 80,000 of the 700,000 U.S. military personnel who began deploying to Saudi Arabia in late 1990 have been harmed. A variety of illnesses … may have been caused by exposure to chemical and biological weapons, depleted uranium, experimental drugs and vaccines, environmental toxins, and infectious diseases.' A study done in Germany in 2002 indicated that DU molecules can travel to different parts of the body, including to sperm and eggs damaging genes and increasing the risk of cancer. In the study, birth defects were also been blamed on the exposure of US soldiers to DU munitions during the first Gulf War.

Critics of this particular study argue that exposure to other chemical dangers in Kuwait and Iraq in that war may be the cause of health problems in returning soldiers, though no serious or sustained study of this question has been undertaken.

Soldiers aren’t the only people who are exposed to the risks, however. DU dust also can enter the environment, especially the ground, possibly contaminating anyone who may ingest through eating or breathing the material even decades later. Again, the possible health risks have not been fully studied.

Inconclusiveness about the full dangers and long-term impact of DU weapons has not stopped much of the world from trying to ban the substance. In 1999, the US blocked a United Nations subcommittee initiative calling for a ban on the use of DU worldwide. In 2003 the European Parliament called for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium. The Bush Pentagon continues to deny that DU is dangerous.

Some members of Congress have introduced bills calling for study of DU’s long-term impact and medical treatment for those who have been exposed. The Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act (H.R. 1483), proposed by Jim McDermott (D-WA) in 2003, which has yet to be reintroduced in the current Congress, would require a study of the effects of DU and report its findings. H.R. 202, a bill introduced recently by Jose Serrano (D-NY) on this matter, calls for identifying current and former service members exposed to DU and provision of medical testing and treatment.

Republican congressional leaders have safely tucked such proposals away in subcommittees to limit public discussion and debate. Supporters of more detailed studies of the dangers of DU munitions say broader public support is needed to pressure Congress to take up this matter seriously.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.

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