DU

‘I only discovered indirectly in September 1991 that depleted uranium had been used on the battlefield. I was horrified. When scientists conduct experiments using this material, we dress like astronauts. Our soldiers had no protection. And this attack could have potentially exposed the entire population of the Gulf region. Soil samples from Iraq show radiation levels more than 17 times the acceptable level.’ [Asaf Durakovic, Clinical Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington]

Bristow and Purcell Lee arrived home ‘to find we had been called traitors by a senior Cabinet Minister [for going to an international conference on depleted uranium in Baghdad]’ and that their homes had been raided by Ministry of Defence Police. All computers, discs and files had been removed in search of a document which showed that the Medical Director of MAP was liaising with Porton Down Chemical Weapons Establishment over concern that DU was a contributory cause of the veterans’ plight. For eight years MAP refused to countenance such a scenario and were still denying it to the veterans themselves. In June this year, when the plight of Australian Gulf veterans was commanding extensive media coverage, all computer discs and files relating to Gulf War illnesses were stolen from the home of campaigner Philip Steele. Nothing else was missing.

Professor Asaf Durakovic... is one of the world’s leading experts on radiation, and sees a familiar pattern. ‘Any doctor who becomes involved in this [depleted uranium] is pressurized, fired; records and samples go missing...’

Ray Bristow, of the British Gulf Veterans and Families’ Association, echoes Durakovic: ‘Dosimeters (which read radiation levels) issued to troops were at first denied as being issued at all, then we were told the records were lost, then that the readings were all normal – but no-one was allowed to see them. Medical records of Gulf War vets regularly go missing.’

Depleted uranium was used in Bosnia in 1995 and cancers had risen threefold by 1997. DU weapons were extensively used in the recent war in the Balkans. Radiation readings in Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece have recorded air samples exceeding by 40 times the recommended safety limit of radiation associated with DU. The British Ministry of Defence points out that Armed Forces Minister Douglas Henderson had given strict instructions that no troops were to approach any target which might have been hit by DU unless they were wearing protective clothing against radiation. Asked about the problem of the people living in and returning to the region, the Ministry of Defence said that was for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to resolve. DU weapons have now been sold to 17 countries.

In Jefferson County, Indiana, the Pentagon has closed the 200-acre (80-hectare) proving ground where it used to test-fire DU rounds. The lowest estimate for cleaning up the site comes to $7.8bn, not including permanent storage of the earth to a depth of six metres and of all the vegetation. Considering the cost too high, the military finally decided to give the tract to the National Park Service for a nature preserve — an offer that was promptly refused. Now there is talk of turning it into a National Sacrifice Zone and closing it forever. This gives an idea of the fate awaiting those regions of the planet where the US has used and will use depleted uranium.