------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Plutonium Pact With Russia Could Backfire, Critic Says
Poland Urges Russia Nuke Inspection
Russia Denies Moving Nuclear Arms
U.S. yet to query Moscow on nukes
Use NATO as a tool
Europe Worried about Balkans War Syndrome
Sweden Says EU Must Act on Balkan Syndrome
EC Pres. Demands Truth About 'Balkan Syndrome'
Dutch Probe if Deaths Related to 'Balkan Syndrome'
Pentagon Denies Balkan Uranium Worry
Italy asks NATO to explain ammo use
Alarm over NATO radiation deaths
Italy Asks NATO to Check Deaths Tied to Uranium
No Proof of Illness From Uranium Ammunition - U.S.
Poland Calls for Inspection Over Kaliningrad Nukes
Fears Grow About Depleted Uranium
EU Demands Truth From NATO Over Uranium Shells
Defense News
SFOR, IS THE U.S.GOVERNMENT;
Pentagon, Rand DU Cover-Up As Epidemic Spreads
Italy alarmed by 'Balkan syndrome'
Europe Worried about "Balkans War Syndrome"
EU presses Nato over uranium arms
Radiation tests for NATO troops
NATO arms illness claims denied
Iraq expects UN dialogue to start
A Russian Base in the Baltics Is Reported to Have Nuclear Arms
Russia Moving Warheads
Russia stirs concerns with nuclear arms shift
US fears over Russia 'missiles on move'
Russia's Neighbors Concerned Over Nuclear Report
Russia Dismisses Fear of Baltic Nuclear Buildup
Con Ed Restarts Indian Pt. Plant, Despite Protest
NRC probe targets TVA security clearances
Cabinet complete
Bush Chooses Campaign Manager to Head FEMA
Bush Chooses Campaign Manager to Head Crisis Agency

MILITARY
MITTERRAND ACCOUNTS TO BE FROZEN
Eleven Killed in Northwestern Colombia Town
McCaffrey advocates drug prevention
Malpractice Case Begins for Specialist in Addiction
From Addiction to Helping to Save Lives
Governor Pataki's Wish List
N.Y. gov. calls for drug law reform
ILLEGAL DRUG USE DOWN DRAMATICALLY IN U.S.
Governor George E. Pataki: State of the State Address
Two officers, suspect killed in shooting
States
Drug laws denounced
Missile explosion kills 1 in India
KASHMIR: FIGHTING FLARES
Myanmar marks independence day
LAYOFFS AT SPACE.COM
Domestic Worker Sues Former U.N. Official for Back Wages
SWITZERLAND: NEW REFUGEE CHIEF
To Put War Criminals on Notice
Sudan faces shortages of food, U.N. warns
Marines: Wallace hard on families
Ohio

OTHER
Adirondack Tract to Be Sold to Conservation Group
Cougar killed skier in Canadian park
Manatees rescued near power plant
Arkansas
Only EPA knows
Law firm requests look into EPA files
Downsized cars, downsized safety
Russia to skip debt payment
Rainbow stickers removed due to complaints
Jury Awards $2.25 Million in '95 Death
MANHATTAN: AWARD REDUCED IN POLICE CASE
N.H. lawmaker: 'Not a nut,' not quitting
Corruption Files Stolen From Baltimore Police
2 Cincinnati Officers Indicted in Man's Death
Stolen police files turn up in trash bin
2nd woman files suit against N.Y. cop
States
Embassy terrorism trial begins
Berenson retrial to go forward

ACTIVISTS
N.Y. police search for arsonists
Civil rights groups to protest election
Angola Priest a Soldier on the Human Rights Front
Gay advocates protest at Vatican
Protest supports striking Czech TV
50,000 Czechs Rally for Striking TV Journalists
ECUADOR: PROTESTS CONTINUE


-------- NUCLEAR

Plutonium Pact With Russia Could Backfire, Critic Says

New York Times
January 4, 2001
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/04/world/04NUKE.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - A Russian-American disarmament agreement to take 68 tons of plutonium out of nuclear weapons could have the unintended effect of increasing the chance of nuclear proliferation, according to a report by an independent researcher.

The researcher, Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist who has specialized in analyzing Energy Department weapons activities, also found that efforts around the world to make plutonium and use it as reactor fuel have cost about $100 billion, and make little economic sense.

But the Energy Department is defending the agreement, and its efforts to help the Russians sell the material in Europe as reactor fuel, as a major step toward nonproliferation. Once used in reactors, it is harder to use in weapons.

Plutonium is created when uranium is used in reactors, and when it is separated from used fuel it can be reused either for reactors or for making bombs. For decades engineers have sought to build "breeders" that in their atomic reactions actually produce more reactor fuel than they consume.

Because of proliferation fears, the United States, in the 1970's, banned the recovery of plutonium from civilian reactor fuel, called reprocessing.

But Japan, France and Britain have invested heavily in reprocessing, and Japan and France are also working on breeders.

The United States has been negotiating with Russia since the mid-90's, and signed an agreement last September saying each side would remove 34 tons of surplus plutonium from its weapons inventory. The Energy Department is planning to pay the Duke Power Company to burn some of it in civilian reactors, and will mix the rest with high-level radioactive wastes so it cannot be easily retrieved for weapons use.

The Russians have said they, too, want to use theirs in reactors, but they also say they want to then reprocess the spent fuel, recovering even more plutonium. Russia would like to build a breeder reactor, and a factory to turn the weapons surplus into plutonium fuel, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide called MOx, but needs Western money for the fuel plant, estimated to cost $1.7 billion to $2.5 billion.

The United States, while it has abandoned breeder reactors, plans a similar fuel plant in South Carolina.

The executive director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Dr. Makhijani is a frequent critic of the Energy Department but also works closely with them at times. He recently forced the department to reassess its estimate of the quantity of plutonium and other man-made elements spilled into the dirt during weapons-making; the department concluded it was too small by a factor of 10.

Another opponent of the agreement is Paul Leventhal, the president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonprofit organization based here. "What's at issue is do you turn the plutonium directly into a waste form, or turn to MOx, then end up with waste, in the form of spent fuel," Mr. Leventhal said. The MOx, he and others say, can be turned back into the plutonium metal used in reactors with relative ease. And if it is used in a reactor and reprocessed to make yet more plutonium, the purpose is defeated, he said.

Laura S. H. Holgate, the department's negotiator for plutonium, said that under the accord the Russians could not use the weapons plutonium a second time until all had been used once, and that that would be 2025 at the earliest. By then, she said, "our vision of how we treat spent fuel will be nothing like it is today."

---

Poland Urges Russia Nuke Inspection

Associated Press
January 4, 2001 Filed at 7:29 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Poland-Nuclear.html

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Poland on Thursday called for an ``international inspection'' to check reports that Russia has moved nuclear weapons into its Baltic military enclave of Kaliningrad.

``Poland needs to monitor the situation in Kaliningrad on a day-to-day basis, and it is doing that,'' Defense Minister Bronislaw Komorowski said on Polish television. ``Verification will include pushing for international inspection, which is a normal thing.''

Russia, whose Baltic Fleet is based in Kaliningrad, has denied moving nuclear weapons into the area and insists it is sticking to its commitment to keep the Baltic Sea a nuclear-free zone.

``It is a problem whether to regard Russian assurances as credible,'' Komorowski said, noting that Russia has in the past barred inspection of ``some places'' in the Kaliningrad region.

``When one does not let somebody in, it means he has something to hide,'' Komorowski said.

He did not specify how any inspections might be carried out, but said they would involve using contacts between Moscow and the West's NATO defense alliance.

Poland, a communist ally of Moscow during the Cold War, joined NATO in March 1998.

Kaliningrad is a Baltic Sea port located between Poland and Lithuania, a former Soviet Republic. It was left isolated from the rest of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

---

Russia Denies Moving Nuclear Arms

Associated Press
January 4, 2001 Filed at 5:57 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear.html
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=c6oj7ah1jglmg

MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian military on Thursday denied reports that it moved short-range nuclear weapons onto one of its military bases on the Baltic Sea, and Russian analysts said such a deployment would be senseless.

The alleged transfer of tactical nuclear weapons, first reported Wednesday in The Washington Times, ``doesn't correspond with reality,'' said Anatoly Lobsky, a spokesman for the Baltic Fleet. ``The Baltic Sea has been declared a nuclear-free zone, and the Baltic Fleet unfailingly fulfills its commitments.''

Two senior Clinton administration officials with access to intelligence reports on the subject told The Associated Press Wednesday on condition of anonymity that there have been recent indications of movement of Russian nuclear weapons to a naval base in the Kaliningrad enclave. Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania and provides Russia with access to the Baltic Sea.

They said some weapons may have been there a year or longer.

The bombs were designed for a new type of short-range missiles with a firing radius of about 44 miles, according to the Washington Times report -- enough to hit targets in Lithuania, one of the three former Soviet republics in the Baltics that aspire to membership in the NATO alliance.

They could also strike targets in Poland, which joined NATO in 1999 in the face of fierce Russian opposition.

Polish Defense Minister Bronislaw Komorowski on Thursday called for international inspectors to verify that Moscow had not deployed nuclear weapons.

``Poland needs to monitor the situation in Kaliningrad on a day-to-day basis and it is doing that,'' Komorowski said on Poland's Channel One public television.

Some U.S. officials believe the deployment of such weapons would be a tactic for increasing pressure on NATO to withdraw all tactical, or short-range, missiles and other nuclear weapons from Europe. Russia has long argued for their removal, but NATO continues to maintain some nuclear bombs for aircraft based in Europe.

The Washington Times report cited unnamed U.S. arms control officials as speculating that the deployment was Russia's way of testing the resolve of President-elect Bush.

But Russian military analysts questioned the logic of such a deployment, particularly the choice to station ground-based nuclear weapons at a naval base.

``If they did bring tactical nuclear weapons for training or some other purpose to Kaliningrad, they would most likely be naval, like torpedo warheads,'' said independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

``There's no need to bring air force or missile weapons to the enclave,'' he said, because their potential targets could just as easily be hit with missiles based on Russia's mainland. Kaliningrad is about 250 miles west of the rest of Russia.

Yuri Gladkevich, an analyst at the independent Military News Agency, said Russia would have nothing to gain politically from such a deployment. Ditching nonbinding arms agreements from the early 1990's, which were intended to limit tactical nuclear weapons deployment in Europe, would only invite the ire of European countries and the United States.

He contended that the news reports were based on misinformation, an intelligence leak intended to influence policy for the incoming Bush administration or to demonstrate to America's European allies that Russia remained a threat.

Also Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the United States of violating the START I arms-reduction treaty by failing to destroy all stages of its MX missiles. Under the 1991 treaty, the United States agreed to abandon the MX program.

There was no immediate response from Washington to the statement, which alleged that the United States is destroying only the first stages of the missiles.

---

U.S. yet to query Moscow on nukes

Washington Times
January 4, 2001
By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200114222348.htm

The State Department will question Moscow about the recent deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to a military base in a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea, a spokesman said yesterday.

"We will be raising it with the Russians," said Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman. He was commenting on reports of the transfer that first appeared in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times.

The weapons transfer was detected by U.S. spy agencies in June.

It is the first time battlefield nuclear arms have been moved into the region since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The spokesman's remarks are a sign the administration has not raised the matter with Moscow during arms control talks in the past six months, according to U.S. officials.

The failure to respond to intelligence reports of the transfers supports claims by some U.S. intelligence officials that the information was suppressed for political reasons.

The disclosure comes weeks after it was revealed that the administration concluded secret agreements with Russia on Moscow's arms and nuclear transfers to Iran.

Republicans in Congress have said they were kept in the dark about a 1995 agreement signed by Vice President Al Gore and Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russian prime minister, that helped Russia avoid U.S. sanctions required under proliferation laws.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Tuesday that if Moscow has placed tactical nuclear arms in Kaliningrad "it would violate their pledge that they were removing nuclear weapons from the Baltics, and that the Baltics should be nuclear-free."

Russian government officials, meanwhile, dismissed the nuclear deployment reports as untrue.

"This report can only be a political provocation," said Anatoly Lobsky, a spokesman for Russia's Baltic Fleet. He insisted to reporters in Kaliningrad, where the fleet is based, that the Baltic Fleet has no nuclear weapons.

Mr. Lobsky, an assistant to the fleet commander, said the naval forces in the Kaliningrad enclave, a noncontiguous slice of Russia between Poland and Lithuania, are abiding by obligations to keep the Baltics a nuclear-free zone.

In Moscow, the defense ministry press office issued a statement saying "information on a transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to the Kaliningrad region has no basis in fact."

Governments of the former Soviet-occupied Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia reacted with concern over the reports.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Linas Linkevicius told the Associated Press in Vilnius: "This sounds alarming, but I see no reason Russia should try to escalate the situation in the Baltic region."

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis told reporters in Vilnius that "similar reports have been appearing several times a year, but after raising public concern they after some time are usually forgotten."

"To date none of these reports have been confirmed, so I would like not to comment on the recent reports, too," Mr. Valionis said.

"We don't know whether it's true or not," said a spokesman for Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Ilves. "But if it is true, it is regretful, because it decreases the stability of the region."

In Latvia, Liiga Bergmane, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said the government was seeking independent confirmation of the nuclear arms reports.

"We don't see any reason why Russia should want to change its policy of keeping these kinds of weapons out of the Baltic region," she said. "Russia pledged not to increase nuclear arms here and we can't imagine why it would reconsider."

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, outgoing chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said the transfers, if confirmed, are alarming.

"If Russia has in fact transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad, we would have to view that as an alarming development that threatens the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe," the New York Republican said. "These reports underscore the need to promptly enlarge the NATO alliance to include the previously captive nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia."

Mr. Boucher declined to comment directly on the report, citing the policy of avoiding comment on intelligence matters.

"That would get into confirming the specifics, which I can't do, but we believe there is something to discuss with the Russians, yes," he stated, noting, "That's about as far as I can go. We don't talk about questions that involve intelligence."

"This is a situation that we are following closely," Mr. Boucher told reporters. "It's something that we'll be talking about with the Russians, as we do on all arms-control issues."

The spokesman said the Russian government's unilateral pledges to keep nuclear weapons out of the region are not "any sort of legally binding commitment."

U.S. national security officials said they are uncertain as to why Russia decided to move tactical nuclear transfers to Kaliningrad.

Several U.S. officials told The Times that the weapons transfers could be a sign Moscow is following through on threats to "forward-deploy" nuclear arms in reaction to the 1999 addition of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to NATO over Moscow's opposition.

The deployment also is viewed as part of Moscow's recent nuclear policy decree that gives the military greater reliance on battlefield nuclear weapons because of the decline of its conventional forces.

Some officials said the weapons may be for use on a new short-range missile Russia calls Toka. The missile was tested in Kaliningrad on April 18 and has a range of about 44 miles.

One U.S. official told Reuters that "over the last six months there has been some movement of tactical nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad - we don't know how many, we don't know what type and we don't know why."

A second official said the transfer may represent Moscow's new doctrine that calls for relying more on battlefield nuclear weapons.

"Tactical nukes can be a cheaper way of maintaining your deterrence capabilities as opposed to the more expensive, larger conventional forces," this official said.

"If you are worried about deterrence and your forces are deteriorating, nukes do wonders for your self-confidence," the official said.

---

Use NATO as a tool

Washington Times
January 4, 2001
Jessica Fugate
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-200114191824.htm

A decade after the Cold War, America's business in Europe is far from finished. Will President-elect Bush stay the course, reaffirm the goal of a Europe "whole and free" and push forward with the historic process of NATO enlargement?

To be sure, one of the first issues to face the Bush administration will be our relationship to Europe. By seizing on the likelihood of European unification and addressing the question of the next round of NATO enlargement, the new administration will define America's interests in the new century as what we are for rather than what we are against - a politically and economically unified, secure Europe inclusive of Russia.

Telling the world what we want sends the signal that the United States is engaged, moving forward and not so riven by domestic debates that we have forgotten our global responsibilities. And it signals potential adversaries that the United States, even in a time of domestic uncertainty, remains engaged in the world scene.

The best contribution the United States and NATO could make to European security is to enhance NATO's military and political cohesion, support Europe's initiative to develop its own security apparatus and engage with Russia if its government is inclined to find a constructive role to play in Europe. To be sure, the structures are already in place through NATO to facilitate that relationship with Russia; but for the initiative to be successful, Russia must be genuinely willing to work with the West.

In the current political environment, where partisan politics threaten to dominate Mr. Bush's foreign policy agenda, the United States cannot afford to let world affairs drift. And it is the issue of NATO enlargement that cuts across party lines and has a proven history of bipartisan cooperation. Indeed in 1998, the American debate over the admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic culminated in an overwhelming 80-19 Senate vote to enlarge NATO. Yet there are new obstacles to restart the momentum. Some senators rightfully declare that NATO must first clarify its mission, and this time around no major European ally supports enlargement.

While murmurs in the Senate today suggest that the United States should rethink or cut back its engagement in Europe to concentrate on other priorities, our European allies are focused on developing their own defense policy and expanding the European Union (EU) to include former Cold War adversaries. Other enlargement skeptics on Capitol Hill believe the EU should assume a greater role in providing a more broadly, politically based security apparatus by building democracy and free markets. Congress must face the fact that it is far better to remain engaged during peacetime with like-minded democracies so that we are not alone when crises arise.

The Bush administration should initiate a measured policy of paced enlargement that is based on admitting aspirant members when they meet membership criteria for the purpose of ensuring the security of Europe. This option, consistent with NATO's "open door" policy, would keep the United States anchored in Europe and the alliance to focus on European security and the restructuring of NATO in parallel with the deepening of the EU. Rather than concentrating on who gets to join NATO on a strict timetable, the United States and our allies could make every effort to respond to the new post-Cold War challenges, such as ethnic and local conflicts, and nuclear proliferation. This alternative would also give the alliance time to absorb new members while continuing to help strengthen Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic from the last round. Russia, in the meantime, could decide whether it is willing to do some of the heavy lifting to secure relations with the West or drop the weights and look eastward for partnerships.

The decision to admit new members must reflect the fact that the security challenges and risks which NATO now faces are different in nature from those the alliance faced in the past. In 1991, NATO's strategic concept stated: "The threat of a simultaneous, full-scale attack on all of NATO's European fronts has effectively been removed." Since then, NATO has engaged in an air campaign over Yugoslavia that is considered a victory of allied unity, while the risk of a re-emergent, large-scale military threat - Russia - has further declined. Nevertheless, risks to European security remain, which are multifaceted and multidirectional, such as international criminal networks, and thus hard to grasp and assess. NATO must be capable of responding to new risks and new challenges as they develop if stability in Europe and the security of alliance members, old and new, are to be preserved.

Paced enlargement also sends an important message to Russia - that NATO is an organization of sovereign states that will protect its interests by building stability, regardless of Moscow's steadfast response that the alliance is a threat to Russia. The West should not pander to Russian threats or insecurities but proceed with the necessary goal to secure transatlantic relations. Russia's behavior, rather than its history, size or extent of democratic governance, should determine the extent of its distance from or proximity to NATO's decision-making.

The Bush administration and Congress, along with our NATO allies, concur that a working NATO is in the U.S. interest. NATO's success and America's leadership in Europe therefore depend on proving NATO's cohesion as an alliance of nations willing and able to share military and financial burdens. These issues matter for the United States because NATO's success in future rounds is a core element of managing European security.

Jessica Fugate is a research associate for European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

-------- depleted uranium

Europe Worried about "Balkans War Syndrome"

January 4, 2001
Radio Netherlands
http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/nato010104.html

European governments are expressing concern about a so-called Balkans War Syndrome, now that several soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Bosnia have died of leukaemia. The disease has killed six Italians who served in Bosnia - and Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has said the alarm over the situation is more than legitimate. To get to the bottom of it, he's requested information from NATO.

Following Italy's urgent request on Wednesday, NATO has agreed to look into the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans conflicts. A meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest decision-making body, and the alliance's political committee is slated for next Tuesday.

Italy called on NATO to investigate claims that six Italian soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to depleted uranium from spent ammunition fired by NATO forces. Prime Minister Giuliano Amato spoke of a "very delicate situation". He added that "we've always known that depleted uranium was used in Kosovo but not in Bosnia. We've always known it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all. But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

No Coincidence Mr Amato's remarks come amid widespread media coverage in Italy about the links between the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans and the recent deaths of six peacekeepers. All of them died of leukaemia. The latest casualty died in November. He had served twice in Bosnia, but never in Kosovo. Italian media suggest that the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

But NATO officials point to statements of medical experts in Italy, who claim that there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to armour-piercing uranium bullets. The alliance's chief spokesman, Mark Latey, says NATO will meet Italy's request to provide information on the exact location of munitions used in Bosnia. Asked how harmful the use of depleted uranium in combat really is, he told Radio Netherlands that when it comes to the potential hazards, there are two issues involved:

"First, there is the effect of radiation emitted from depleted uranium, which is very small indeed, because it's less than naturally occurring uranium. Besides, it's often used to protect people from the harmful effects of x-rays and the International Committee on Radiation protection doesn't list DU as a health hazard. The other potential harm comes from the heavy metal toxic poisoning, which could be compared to lead poisoning, but again, you would have to get very heavy exposure to that for a very long time to get for instance kidney problems. It's difficult to see how these high dosage could be administered"

Concern among other European countries Portugal and Belgium have joined Italy's call for answers, urging the creation of an international commission of inquiry. Earlier, Belgium already urged European Union defence ministers to discuss the health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the Balkans.

Five Belgian former peacekeepers have reportedly died from cancer after serving in the Balkans and one Portuguese soldier has also died in another case linked to uranium contamination. Portugal has reportedly ordered medical tests for 10,000 military and civilian personnel who served there. Concerns have also been raised by service members or civilian aid workers in Britain and the Netherlands. NATO, however, has no plans for its own inquiry into the matter. Its spokesman Mark Latey explains why.

"We're a military alliance, not a medical alliance: it's up to the member states to conduct an inquiry. There was similar concern over depleted uranium during the Gulf conflict, which prompted Britain and the United States to do extensive inquiries into the use of DU, but they incidentally didn't find anything. NATO, however, is aware of the concerns of its members and will do what its members ask it to do. Italy hasn't asked us to launch an inquiry, but to provide information and that's what we'll do."

Meanwhile, our Rome correspondent Marc Leijendekker adds that there is broad political support, cutting across party lines, for a parliamentary inquiry. "History shows that NATO hasn't always given full information, and this may be a starting point for a full inquiry into what happened and into the precise dangers to which soldiers were exposed both in Kosovo and in Bosnia. NATO should realise that withholding information may reduce Italy's willingness to participate in future peacekeeping operations."

--------

Sweden Says EU Must Act on Balkan Syndrome

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 1:05 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-balkans-swede.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010104/13/science-balkans-sweden-dc

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Defense Minister Bjorn von Sydow of Sweden, which holds the European Union presidency, said on Thursday action was needed on reports of deaths or illnesses among peacekeeping soldiers who had served in the Balkans.

``It is important that we act,'' von Sydow said in a statement.

The so-called ``Balkan syndrome'' has come under the spotlight over the past few days following reports that six Italian soldiers who served in the former Yugoslavia developed leukemia and died after exposure to the ammunition.

``I welcome a discussion about the Belgian proposal to set up a medical working group within the EU, von Sydow said, adding the proposal would be discussed at a January 9 meeting of the interim Political and Security Committee.

Sweden's ambassador to NATO had been instructed to consult with the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, he said. Sweden, which holds the EU presidency in the first half of 2001, is not a member of NATO.

``The Swedish presidency will be in close contact with the (European Union) Commission regarding future developments of this issue,'' von Sydow said.

Romano Prodi, president of the Commission which is the EU's executive arm, said on Thursday he wanted light to be shed on claims linking depleted uranium from spent NATO ammunition to deaths and illnesses of NATO soldiers who had been stationed in the Balkans.

Prodi said ammunition with depleted uranium should not be used if there was even the slightest risk for soldiers or civilians.

Italian Defense Minister Sergio Mattarella said on Wednesday NATO had told Rome only last month that depleted uranium had been used in Serbia in 1999 and in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

Italy asked NATO on Wednesday to investigate the growing concerns over the use of depleted uranium. Similar requests have also been made by Portugal and Belgium, which have also reported deaths among soldiers who served in the Balkans. Five soldiers have died in Belgium and one in Portugal.

------

EC Pres. Demands Truth About 'Balkan Syndrome'

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 10:49 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-balkans.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010104/10/international-balkans-prodi-dc

ROME (Reuters) - European Commission President Romano Prodi said on Thursday he wanted light to be shed on claims linking depleted uranium from spent NATO ammunition to deaths or illnesses among alliance soldiers who served in the Balkans.

In an interview with Italian state radio, Prodi said ammunition with depleted uranium should not be used if there was even the slightest risk for soldiers or civilians.

``I want the truth to be ascertained, not only concerning the soldiers, but also for the people who lived near them, the population,'' Prodi told RAI.

``It is clear that if there is even a minimal risk, these arms must be abolished. And even if this risk was not there, I don't like the idea of using these particular weapons,'' he said.

Separately, Italian humanitarian groups working in the Balkans on Thursday demanded the truth be told about any health risk in using depleted uranium in ammunition.

An umbrella group called the Italian Consortium for Solidarity, comprising some 100 non-governmental organizations active in the Balkans since 1992, said it had asked the Italian government about the perils of depleted uranium, but its requests had remained unanswered for months.

The so-called ``Balkan syndrome'' has come under the spotlight over the past few days following claims that six Italian soldiers who served in the former Yugoslavia developed leukemia and died after exposure to the ammunition.

``It is an issue we have raised from the start (of NATO bombing in Kosovo)...We did not know then that (uranium) was also used in Bosnia, but now we know,'' the umbrella group's president, Giulio Marcon, told a news conference.

CIVILIANS SHOULD BE TOLD

Italian Defense Minister Sergio Mattarella said on Wednesday NATO had told Rome only last month that depleted uranium had been used in Serbia in 1999 and in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.

Citing a study conducted by British scientist Roger Coghill, the umbrella group said Coghill had estimated some possible 10,000 future deaths from cancer due to use of uranium in NATO strikes on Yugoslavia.

``I think the local people are in most danger, much more than the Italian army or humanitarian workers,'' said Martina Iannizzotto, the Belgrade-based coordinator of the umbrella group's activities in Yugoslavia.

``The population lives there, it breathes that air every day, eats vegetables coming from that ground -- it's not easy to avoid these bomb sites,'' she said.

Italy asked NATO on Wednesday to investigate the growing concerns over the use of depleted uranium. Similar requests have also been made by Portugal and Belgium, which have also reported deaths among soldiers who served in the Balkans. Five soldiers have died in Belgium and one in Portugal.

NATO fired some 10,800 rounds of armor-piercing uranium ammunition in Bosnia around Sarajevo between 1994 and 1995 and 31,500 in the Kosovo air campaign, the humanitarian group said.

---

Dutch Probe if Deaths Related to 'Balkan Syndrome'

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 10:40 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/science/science-balkans-dutch.html

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Netherlands said on Thursday it was investigating whether the health of its United Nations peacekeeping soldiers in the Balkans was at risk from radiation from depleted uranium following NATO attacks there.

``As far as we know two soldiers have died from leukemia. One was based in Kosovo and one in Bosnia,'' a spokesman for the Dutch Defense Ministry said.

``We're investigating whether more have died or whether there are others suffering from leukemia.''

Several NATO members have voiced concern over mysterious illnesses among alliance peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia -- the so-called ``Balkan Syndrome.''

Italy has urged the alliance to investigate claims that six Italian soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to depleted uranium from NATO attacks.

Findings would be published next week from the Dutch probe into whether there was a link between ``Balkan Syndrome'' and NATO air attacks in 1999 to oust Serbs from Kosovo, the Dutch ministry spokesman said.

U.S. attack jets fired some 31,000 rounds of armor-piercing uranium ammunition against Serbian tanks and armored cars during the Kosovo air campaign. Several European countries have taken part in various Balkan peacekeeping missions since 1992.

The Netherlands still has 1,600 soldiers in Bosnia and withdrew its 1,100 peacekeepers from Kosovo last summer, the spokesman said.

NATO ambassadors are expected to discuss the ``Balkan syndrome'' at a regular meeting on January 10.

---

Pentagon Denies Balkan Uranium Worry

Associated Press
January 4, 2001 Filed at 6:05 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Uranium.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid a rising chorus of European concern, the Pentagon on Thursday denied there is a health hazard to U.S. or allied peacekeepers in the Balkans from remnants of U.S. weapons containing depleted uranium.

``We have not found any link between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium,'' said Kenneth Bacon, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary William Cohen. ``We're pretty confident of what we've said, which is we have found no direct link.''

The Pentagon has been investigating the issue since the 1991 Gulf War, when such weapons were used in combat for the first time.

The United Nations last year sent a team of experts to Kosovo, where depleted uranium munitions were fired by U.S. Air Force A-10 aircraft in missions against Serb armored vehicles. Bacon said the team took soil and water samples that are now being evaluated by five laboratories. The results are expected this spring, he said.

In several European countries, questions are being raised about whether depleted uranium exposure may pose a cancer risk.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the European Union said the 15-nation group would conduct an inquiry, and Bacon said the issue is expected to be raised by European allies at a NATO meeting next week. Last week Italy began investigating possible links between depleted uranium munitions and about 30 cases of serious illness among soldiers who served in Kosovo and Bosnia.

Bacon said 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium munitions were fired by American aircraft during the 1999 war in Kosovo. In U.S.-led NATO air strikes against Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, about 10,800 rounds were fired around Sarajevo, he said.

Questions about possible health risks have persisted, particularly among some veterans groups, since shortly after the Gulf War.

Some in Europe have raised the possibility that exposure to depleted uranium could cause cancers such as leukemia.

Noting this, Bacon said ``a logical starting point'' for addressing that concern would be an epidemiological study that would determine if there is an unusually high incidence of leukemia among soldiers who have served in either Bosnia or Kosovo.

``That's something that could be done by European allies, it could be done by us, but it hasn't been done yet,'' Bacon said. ``And until people do that basic type of epidemiological work, which involves comparison groups, et cetera, I think it's premature to talk about any link between depleted uranium and leukemia. We have found nothing to link the two in our research.''

Uranium is best known in its enriched form, which is used for nuclear power plant fuel and in nuclear weapons. A byproduct of the enrichment process is depleted uranium which, as its name implies, is depleted of much of its radioactivity. Because depleted uranium is extremely dense, it is an unusually effective penetrator of conventional tank armor.

A 1999 Rand Corp. review of scientific literature on uranium found no studies indicating adverse health effects on humans from exposure to or ingestion of uranium compounds. Rand, which analyzes national security issues for the Pentagon, recommended more research on the subject because the use of depleted uranium munitions is expected to grow.

Of the two major health concerns associated with depleted uranium in military uses -- chemical toxicity and radiation effects -- the toxicity is generally considered to be greater, Rand said. When a depleted uranium round strikes armor or burns, it produces uranium dusts or aerosol particles, which can be inhaled. Once internalized, a fraction of the particles dissolve and enter the bloodstream, where most uranium is excreted from the body through the kidneys.

---

Italy asks NATO to explain ammo use

Infobeat
Thursday, January 04, 2001
By PETER W. MAYER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405659059

ROME (AP) - Italy, where at least six soldiers have died of cancer since serving in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, is demanding that NATO explain its use of armor-piercing ammunition containing depleted uranium.

Italy's Green and Communist parties, both opponents of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, have long claimed that the ammunition was sickening peacekeepers in the Balkans.

Last week, Italy announced it was investigating illnesses among soldiers deployed in Kosovo after airstrikes there in 1999. Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Finland followed suit by screening their Balkans veterans.

NATO scheduled top-level discussions on the ammunition Saturday, the Italian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

``The issue has taken a serious turn and the alarm caused is more than legitimate,'' Italian Premier Giuliano Amato said in an interview published Wednesday in La Repubblica newspaper.

Depleted uranium, a dense metal with low levels of radioactivity, is used in artillery because of its ability to penetrate armor. But some believe the dust created upon impact may be harmful.

The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, SFOR, acknowledged using depleted uranium ammunition in Bosnia in the fall of 1994 and in the fall of 1995. But SFOR rejected the theory that depleted uranium was making soldiers ill.

In Kosovo, U.S. warplanes used armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium mostly in the central, western and southwestern parts of the province _ areas where Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese peacekeepers later were deployed.

A U.N. team that went to Kosovo in November is doing a study and is expected to report its findings in February.

Amato suggested he did not believe NATO's assurances. ``Now we fear things may not be so simple,'' he said of the possible health risk.

He said Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini would press NATO to ``assume its responsibility.'' Amato also seemed to suggest that Italy was deceived about the use of depleted uranium ammunition in an earlier Balkan conflict, the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

NATO member Italy takes part in every military meeting and is entitled to whatever information it is seeking, a NATO spokesman said in Brussels, Belgium.

Italy's study will concentrate on the illnesses of 30 Balkans veterans, including the six who have died of cancer. About 60,000 Italian soldiers have served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia since 1995.

Defense Minister Sergio Matarella leaves Thursday to reassure Italian peacekeepers in Bosnia.

``This is not a subject for politicians or even the military,'' he told the Corriere della Serra newspaper in an interview published Wednesday. ``Science needs to tell us what really happened.''

Other European countries were checking their troops as well for radiation.

Portugal and Turkey were screening soldiers in Kosovo, and Spain said it would examine all 32,000 troops who have served in the Balkans since 1992. Initial tests have come back negative, Spain's Defense Ministry said last week.

Portugal's Parliament held an emergency session Wednesday after the father of one deceased Kosovo veteran demanded that his son be exhumed for a radiation exposure test. The head of the army, Gen. Antonio Martins Barrento, dismissed the father's concerns as a ``paranoid fantasy.''

Finland, which is not a member of NATO but contributed 2,000 soldiers to the peacekeeping force, said spot checks of urine samples from veterans so far have revealed no radiation exposure.

Greece said it was monitoring radiation levels in the parts of Kosovo where it has troops.

---

Alarm over NATO radiation deaths

Excite News
January 4
http://www.excite.com.au/news/story/abc/20010104/08/international/abc-4jan2001-14.inp

Italy has called on NATO to give a full account of its use of weapons, containing depleted uranium.

The call follows the death of a sixth Italian soldier from what is known as 'Balkans syndrome'.

Italy is just the latest European country to express concern about Balkans syndrome.

Finland, Spain, Portugal and France have all already begun their own investigations following a growing number of radiation-related cancer deaths among soldiers who served with NATO.

NATO has admitted that it did use weapons that contained depleted uranium in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

It was used in armour piercing weapons and is prized as a highly effective anti-tank weapon.

In its natural state, it is only mildly radioactive but on impact it turns into a burning vapour.

The Italian concern comes after the death from leukemia of a sixth Italian soldier who had served in Bosnia.

---

Italy Asks NATO to Check Deaths Tied to Uranium

New York Times
January 4, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/04/world/04ITAL.html

ROME, Jan. 3 - Italy said today that it had urged NATO to investigate reports that six Italian soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans had been killed by exposure to depleted uranium from spent ammunition fired by NATO forces.

Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said in a newspaper interview alarm over the so-called Balkan syndrome was "more than legitimate."

"This is a very delicate situation," he said in La Repubblica. "We've always known that depleted uranium was used in Kosovo, but not in Bosnia. We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all. But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

NATO sources said today that the North Atlantic Council would discuss the issue at its regular meeting on Tuesday. In Lisbon, the Portuguese foreign minister, Jaime Gama, and his Belgian counterpart, Louis Michel, whose countries have also reported deaths among soldiers who served in the Balkans, told reporters that the truth had to be established.

The defense minister of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, said in an interview that NATO told Rome last month that uranium had been used in Bosnia, as well as Kosovo.

A spokeswoman at NATO headquarters in Brussels confirmed that the request from Italy "for more information on the geographic use of the depleted uranium."

"Italy is a member country, and if it requests something, the alliance will do its best to help," she said.

An association that represents the families of the six dead Italians released a copy of a document in English that it said was a list of NATO guidelines sent to commanders of Italian troops in the Balkans on dealing with depleted uranium. The head of the group, Falce Accame, said the document, dated Nov. 22, 1999, had not been given to troops before that date, although they had by then spent months in Kosovo.

The document warned, "Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated with long-term health effects, including cancers and birth defects."

All six Italians had leukemia. The latest, a 24-year-old from Sicily, died in November after having served in Bosnia but not Kosovo.

---

No Proof of Illness From Uranium Ammunition - U.S.

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 6:09 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/health/science-health-balkan.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010104/18/science-health-balkans-dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department said on Thursday there was no proof that depleted uranium bullets used by U.S. warplanes in Bosnia and Kosovo caused cancer or other ills among European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters that the United States would cooperate with any NATO study of possible deaths of troops from so-called ``Balkan Syndrome'', but had no plans to suspend future use of the tank-killing shells.

European Commission President Romano Prodi demanded on Thursday to know the truth behind a spate of recent claims that debris from depleted uranium used in NATO weapons had caused death or illness among peacekeepers.

``Based on our experience, we are pretty confident on what we have said -- there are no direct links'' between debris from extremely hard cannon shells fired by A-10 attack jets and cancer or other illnesses, Bacon told reporters, citing a number of American studies.

``We see no reason to consider a moratorium now,'' he added in response to questions about reports that troops from some European countries had died of cancer after serving in areas were U.S. warplanes were used against Yugoslav armor in Bosnia in the mid-1990s and in Kosovo in 1999.

Several European nations including the current holders of the European Union presidency, Sweden, echoed Prodi's concerns, intensifying pressure on NATO to investigate the Balkan Syndrome.

In Bosnia, the NATO-led Stabilization Forcedismissed the claims, saying ammunition with depleted uranium used during the 1992-95 war there posed only a ``negligible hazard.''

The syndrome came under the spotlight following reports that six Italian soldiers who served in the former Yugoslavia had developed leukemia and died after exposure to spent ammunition.

FRANCE ANNOUNCES INQUIRY

France became the latest country on Thursday to announce that it was conducting its own inquiry into the syndrome, after four of its Balkan veterans contracted leukemia. It noted that as yet no link to spent ammunition was apparent.

Depleted uranium is used in the tips of shells and bullets to increase their ability to penetrate armor and can be pulverized on impact into a toxic radioactive dust, according to defense experts.

Bacon noted that a number of U.S. studies, including by a White House panel and the Institute of Medicine, had shown no link between depleted uranium and illness. The studies included a long investigation of health complaints from thousands of U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.

``We are prepared to work through NATO on this issue and to make all of our research available,'' he told reporters. ``You never exhaust the need for studies. We will continue to study it.''

Depleted uranium and other so-called ``heavy metals'' do have toxic effects if they are handled improperly, especially for long periods of time. U.S. troops were warned after the Gulf War to wear masks if they were working around destroyed Iraqi tanks where dust from such shells might be present.

Bacon said, however, that studies had shown that depleted uranium was very low on any list of causes of leukemia. And he said there was no unusual indication of cancer or other illness among U.S. peacekeepers in the Balkans.

``If you were to hold a piece of depleted uranium in your hand for 250 straight hours, you might begin to get an overdose of radiation,'' he said. ``Nobody is doing that.''

But a scientist, who said he was intimately involved in the U.S. military effort to deal with the cleanup of uranium-238 contamination following the Gulf War, charged that the problem was massive.

Dr. Doug Rokke, an environmental physicist, said all but one member of his team of roughly 100 Gulf War personnel was sick and that 20 percent of them were dead after their work disposing of 24 tanks and other vehicles destroyed by U.S. uranium munitions.

``This is what you call an absolute denial of the health effects,'' Rokke told Reuters from his home in Rantoul, Illinois, of Defense Department statements on the subject.

---

Poland Calls for Inspection Over Kaliningrad Nukes

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 12:15 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-ru.html

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland called on Thursday for an international inspection of alleged Russian weapon stores in the Kaliningrad enclave after reports Moscow had moved short-range nuclear weapons to the Baltic region.

A U.S. official said on Wednesday there had been ``some movement of tactical nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad,'' which lies between Poland and Lithuania, raising security concerns in east European countries formerly dominated by Moscow.

Russia's Defense Ministry, quoted by Interfax news agency, said reports of such a build-up were ``absolutely untrue'' but the denial failed to overcome the doubts of some of its neighbors.

``In the name of good neighborly relations I believe we should have checks into this matter,'' said Marek Siwiec, security adviser to Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Polish government spokesman Krzysztof Luft said an international inspection would end speculation on the issue.

Luft declined to say under whose auspices such an inspection could be organized, but said Poland planned to consult its partners from the NATO military alliance on the issue.

In Brussels, diplomats said NATO was likely to press Russia on the Kaliningrad issue at the next formal meeting between the alliance and Moscow on January 24.

Politicians and analysts in the region said such a nuclear deployment, if confirmed, would be a setback in efforts to build regional security even though its military importance was limited. Some called it a return to Cold War policies.

In Sweden, which currently holds the rotating European Union presidency, a foreign ministry official said Stockholm believed Russian denials it had shifted nuclear weapons westwards.

``Deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the Kaliningrad region would be an extraordinarily serious and deplorable act which we hope will never be undertaken by the Russian side,'' Sven-Olof Petersson said.

COLD WAR FEARS

A Polish diplomat said the alleged deployment probably served to discourage NATO from further eastward expansion and preserve Moscow's image as a military superpower despite a decline in its conventional forces.

``It is a worrying sign that Moscow still treats Kaliningrad as a military bastion rather than a zone of economic cooperation with the Baltic region and the European Union,'' he said.

Poland has less to worry about since it gained a Western security guarantee by joining NATO in 1999 along with the Czech Republic and Hungary, two other former Soviet bloc states.

``But the installation of missiles is a bad sign for the Baltic countries, which want to join NATO, but which Moscow wants to keep in its sphere of influence,'' said Grzegorz Kostrzewa-Zorbas, analyst at the Polish Academy of Science.

``It is a step back toward Cold War realities.''

Officials in the three Baltic republics, who will soon mark the 10th anniversary of a bloody crackdown by Moscow that failed to snuff out their independence movements, gave a muted reaction, saying they hoped to consult NATO diplomats on the issue.

But the former chief of staff of Estonia's armed forces, General Ants Laaneots, linked the reports of missile movements to an apparent toughening of Russian foreign policy.

``This is a continuation ofPutin's new offensive foreign policy concept, which has been stated in Russia's military doctrine adopted last year where Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first.''

Russia strongly opposes the bids of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for NATO membership launched after they regained independence following 50 years of forced Soviet rule.

``From the military point of view, the deployment of the tactical weapons has limited significance. But the move may persuade public opinion internationally that NATO expansion would destabilize regional security,'' said Kostrzewa-Zorbas.

The conservative Polish daily Zycie printed a front-page map on Thursday that showed the 45-mile range of the alleged Kaliningrad-based tactical nuclear weapons threatening northern provinces of Poland and southern parts of Lithuania.

---

Fears Grow About Depleted Uranium

Associated Press
January 4, 2001 Filed at 3:17 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NATO-Uranium.html http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010104/15/int-nato-uranium

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- European governments are disturbed. Some of their soldiers are falling sick and dying, and they don't know why. Every day the question grows louder: Can the armor-piercing munitions made of depleted uranium that NATO used in Kosovo be causing cancer?

There is no answer. Nobody has made the connection scientifically. Certainly not NATO.

The United States, the only NATO ally to use depleted uranium weapons during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, insisted again Thursday that the munitions pose no health threat.

In Washington, the Pentagon said it is aware of the concerns being raised by some allies.

``We share those concerns,'' said Lt. Col. Paul Phillips. He said the United States has conducted many studies on depleted uranium, particularly since the 1991 Gulf War when the weapons were first used.

``In each study, we've come away convinced that the use of depleted uranium munitions does not present significant or residual environmental or health risks,'' Phillips said.

NATO spokeswoman Simone de Manso in Brussels, said: ``According to our knowledge from independent research ... there is no study that can prove a direct link between certain types of diseases of which people are now afraid and contact with depleted uranium.''

His remarks echoed those of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, SFOR. It said in a statement Wednesday that research has shown ``there is a negligible hazard'' from the ammunition.

``SFOR doesn't believe that either the troops serving within SFOR today or the civilian population in Bosnia are at risk,'' the statement said.

The reassurances haven't calmed jittery Europeans, and Thursday the 15-nation European Union added its voice.

``There will be an informal inquiry,'' said EU spokesman Jonathan Faull. He said it was too soon to say if soldiers who served in the Balkans under NATO were suffering from illnesses as a result of contact with depleted uranium. ``What we know is that community citizens have been affected.''

Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said the EU ``needs to know the truth.''

``If there exists the slightest risk, then these weapons should be abolished immediately,'' Prodi told Italian radio.

A year ago, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson confirmed that American jets had fired about 31,000 depleted uranium rounds at Yugoslav armored vehicles in Kosovo.

The U.N. Environment Program is expected to release a report on the subject next month. And the subject will be discussed at NATO's regular weekly political committee Tuesday.

Italy launched an investigation last week into a possible link between depleted uranium munitions and about 30 cases of serious illness involving soldiers who served in missions Kosovo and earlier in Bosnia, 12 of whom developed cancer. Five of the soldiers have died of leukemia.

And France said Thursday that four French soldiers who served in the Balkans during the 1999 bombing campaign are being treated for leukemia.

Spain, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Turkey announced plans to screen peacekeepers.

Some don't believe the screening is worth the effort.

Wendla Paile of the Finnish Center for Radiation and Nuclear Safety in Helsinki said such screening was ``pointless.''

``The radiation from uranium depleted ammunition is so little that it could not explain these extra cases (of leukemia),'' Paile said.

Paul Beaver, an analyst at Janes Defense Weekly, said the countries screening their troops have no idea what to look for.

``The problem is there hasn't been any really good work done on it,'' Beaver said. ``There is no concrete information. There has been research carried out by the U.S. Army, the British and the French as well, but it seems inconclusive. I've read all the literature I can find on it, but I have no straight answer.''

---

EU Demands Truth From NATO Over Uranium Shells

Reuters
January 4, 2001 Filed at 3:55 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-health-.html

LONDON (Reuters) - European Commission President Romano Prodi demanded on Thursday to know the truth behind claims that depleted uranium used in NATO weapons had caused death or illness among Balkan peacekeepers.

Several European nations including the current holders of the European Union presidency, Sweden, echoed Prodi's concerns, intensifying pressure on NATO to investigate the so-called ''Balkan Syndrome.''

In Bosnia, the NATO-led Stabilization Forcedismissed the claims, saying ammunition with depleted uranium used during the 1992-95 war there posed only a ``negligible hazard.''

The syndrome came under the spotlight following reports that six Italian soldiers who served in the former Yugoslavia had developed leukemia and died after exposure to spent ammunition.

France became the latest country on Thursday to announce that it was conducting its own inquiry into the syndrome, after four of its Balkan veterans contracted leukemia. It noted that as yet no link to spent ammunition was apparent.

Depleted uranium is used in the tips of missiles, shells and bullets to increase their ability to penetrate armor and can be pulverized on impact into a toxic radioactive dust, defense experts say.

NATO SAYS NO PLANS TO CHANGE

Prodi said that even if there were the slightest risk from the munitions, they should be abolished.

``I want the truth to be ascertained, not only concerning the soldiers, but also for the people who lived near them, the population,'' Prodi told Italian state radio.

U.S. attack jets fired some 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition against Serbian tanks and armored vehicles during NATO's 1999 Kosovo campaign, according to a United Nations expert. Some 10,000 were fired in neighboring Bosnia in 1994-95, NATO officials reported only last month.

NATO spokesman Mark Laity ruled out any immediate plans to destroy stocks of depleted uranium munitions.

``The onus is on those who call ill health to prove it, rather than on us, who don't,'' he told CNN.

``If things change, NATO will change.''

In a bid to establish the facts, Belgium has urged EU defense ministers to analyze and debate peacekeepers' health problems for the first time at EU level.

Sweden welcomed the proposal and said it would be discussed at a meeting next Tuesday of the interim Political and Security Committee. ``It is important that we act,'' Swedish Defense Minister Bjorn von Sydow said in a statement on Thursday.

He said that Sweden's ambassador to NATO would consult with the alliance, although the country is not itself a NATO member.

NATO ambassadors are expected to discuss the issue at their regular meeting next Wednesday, NATO sources said.

MYSTERY AILMENTS

Belgium has reported that five peacekeepers who were in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia have died from cancer.

It said that other soldiers who had been on Balkan peacekeeping missions during the 1990s reported a variety of unexplained ailments, including headaches and insomnia.

The Netherlands reported that two soldiers who served in Kosovo and Bosnia had died from leukemia and Portugal has raised concerns over the death of one of its Balkans veterans.

Both countries, along with Bulgaria, Finland and Greece, said tests were being conducted among troops who served in the Balkans and who are still in Kosovo.

Germany and Spain said tests among their peacekeeping troops had so far turned up no evidence of ``Balkan Syndrome.''

CONCERNS GROW FOR CIVILIANS

Concerns over the risks of depleted uranium shells during the Kosovo campaign have been voiced by civilian aid workers in Britain, the Netherlands and Italy.

An umbrella group called the Italian Consortium for Solidarity, comprising some 100 non-governmental organizations active in the Balkans since 1992, cited a study by British scientist Roger Coghill which estimated some 10,000 possible future deaths from cancer due to use of uranium in the Balkans.

``I think the local people are in most danger,'' said Martina Iannizzotto, the Belgrade-based coordinator of the group's activities in Yugoslavia.

Italian fishermen urged their government to investigate whether any of the bombs dumped by planes during the Kosovo campaign and dredged up in nets contained depleted uranium.

A U.N. report in May 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 which might have been hit by a depleted uranium weapon.

Prodi proposed setting up immediate contact with the governments of Bosnia and Serbia to discuss pollution and problems linked to depleted uranium.

SFOR said a U.N. Environmental Program was due to report early in 2001 on any possible risks after measuring radiation levels in soil samples.

--------

Defense News
Thursday, January 4, 2001 - 3:00 p.m. EST

United States Department of Defense
NEWS TRANSCRIPT
Media contact: newsdesk@osd.pentagon.mil or +1 (703) 697-5131
Public contact: defenselink@osd.pentagon.mil or +1 (703) 697-5737
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2001/t01042001_t0104asd.html

Presenter: Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
DoD News Briefing - Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA

Bacon: Good afternoon. What are you looking at your watch for? Huh? (Laughter.)

Q: Good evening.

Bacon: Good evening?! (Laughter.)

I'm going to make my briefings maybe just progressively later until my last briefing will begin at 21:30 or something like that. You say you work for a worldwide wire service, you know; any time you file, people will be reading it, right?

Okay, let me start with a couple of -- I do apologize, actually, for being late. Let me start withtwo brief announcements.

First, Secretary Cohen and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will host an honors ceremony for President and Mrs. Clinton, who is now Senator Clinton, tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. at Conmy Hall, Fort Myer. And if you plan to cover that, you should go to the Media Center located in Building 405 at Fort Myer between 1:30 and 3:00. There will be a shuttle bus to take media from the Media Center to the ceremony location. And we can give you more information on that, if you need it. [See http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/01-001.html]

Q: What exactly is it?

Bacon: This is a -- the secretary and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are going to give an award tomorrow to President Clinton and to Senator Clinton for their support of the military over the last eight years. And that ceremony will be open to the press, if you want to go. It's at 4:00 tomorrow afternoon.

Second, the National Collegiate Athletic Association will present Secretary Cohen its highest award, which is called the Theodore Roosevelt Award, on Sunday, January 7th, at their annual convention in Orlando, Florida. And this award, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, is presented each year to a public official of outstanding accomplishment who has earned a varsity letter in college and has supported the ideals of collegiate athletic programs. [See http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2001/p01042001_p002-01.html]

As you know, Secretary Cohen was a basketball player of some repute in New England as a college student at Bowdoin. Other public recipients -- public officials who have received this award are Presidents Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan and Bush; Senator Robert Dole, Justice Byron White, General Omar Bradley, and Jack Kemp received the award, as well as Bill Cosby.

With that, I'll take your questions.

Charlie.

Q: Ken, depleted uranium is raising its ugly head again. The Spaniards and Italians are claiming that some of their troops may have died peacekeeping in the Balkans. Have any American troops suffered difficulties from that, and what's the U.S. got to say about this?

Bacon: Well, first, we have studied depleted uranium at considerable length over the years because of assertions that it might contribute to Gulf War Illness. And, as you know, we have found -- we have not been able to find any connection between exposure to depleted uranium on the one hand and the constellation of illnesses or symptoms included in Gulf War Illness on the other hand. Just before Christmas, as a matter of fact, we released a review of medical literature that reached that conclusion and it sustained a similar conclusion reached by us alone in 1998 -- by us the Defense Department alone in 1998. So we have not found any link between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium. [See http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2000/b12192000_bt753-00.html]

We are aware of the European concerns and we are working closely with our allies. This has been brought up in the NATO context and it's also been brought up in the UN. The UN, last year, sent a team to Kosovo to take soil samples, water samples, milk samples and other tests, and they are currently in the process of evaluating those samples, I believe, at five laboratories. And that work will be done, I believe, some time in the Spring.

NATO, I understand, is going to discuss this issue next week at a meeting in Brussels. It will be brought up by the Europeans, we expect. We have been working with them; we have made a lot of information available to our European allies on this. Over quite a period of time we have worked with KFOR to put out information packets on depleted uranium which was used in Kosovo during Operation Allied Force.

On it's potential health impacts, now --

Q: Does that include how to -- what not -- what to avoid and how to handle, you know, items that have been struck by ammunitions -- that kind of thing? Or is it --

Bacon: It does. It does include what to do if you find a part of a depleted uranium round. We use depleted uranium in two ways. We use it in projectiles for anti-armor -- for use against tanks and other armored vehicles. We use it in projectiles used by the A-10 and the GAU-8 gun and we use it in projectiles used in our tank -- our main battle tank, the Abrams tank.

We also use depleted uranium in armor for the tank, and depleted uranium -- it's worth noting -- is exactly what its name implies. It is uranium that is depleted of radiation. Therefore it is uranium that is less radioactive by some 40 percent than naturally occurring uranium. Uranium is in the ground, it's in the water, it's in the air, but depleted uranium is uranium from which isotopes have been taken away in order to enrich other pieces of uranium to make it into enriched uranium, which is used in nuclear power plants, for instance.

So, the depleted uranium has less radioactivity than normal uranium. It is a heavy metal; extremely dense, and that's why it's useful in armor as well as in projectiles.

Q: Okay, thank you.

Q: Has there been any --

Bacon: Just let me finish.

Q: Oh, sorry.

Bacon: And heavy metals such as lead do have some natural chemical toxicity to it. But, having said that, we do not believe that our troops, who have been using depleted uranium rounds and been sitting in tanks armored by depleted uranium or including armor -- armored by armor that includes depleted uranium -- we do not believe that it has led to adverse health consequences.

We do not believe that it has led to adverse health consequences.

Q: So there's no indication that any U.S. peacekeeping troops in the region might have been affected by depleted uranium around the --

Bacon: No. No.

Yes?

Q: Would you just back up on the --

Q: Can I ask a follow-up to that, please?

Bacon: I'll get to you, Ivan.

Q: -- depleted uranium that was used? You said that it was used by A-10s and by tanks --

Bacon: We didn't use tanks -- we did not use tanks in Bosnia. We used tanks in the Gulf War.

Q: So from a logistic -- (inaudible) -- then, the A-10s were the only platforms firing depleted uranium?

Bacon: That's my understanding, yes.

Q: And these were just the cannon on the A-10?

Bacon: NATO reported to the UN in a letter last year that DU rounds were used when the A-10s engaged armor during Operation Allied Force. It was used throughout Kosovo in approximately 100 missions. A total of approximately 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition were used during Operation Allied Force.

Q: So that's a 20-caliber -- or actually, whatever it --

(Cross talk.)

Bacon: It's the -- (inaudible). Whatever the caliber is, that's what the gun is called, as I understand it. Depleted uranium is used also in the ballast of ships and as a stabilizing material in airplanes. It's used commercially in transportation products, as well as in weaponry.

Yes?

Q: I thought the allegations were about Bosnia more than Kosovo, or am I mistaken about that? And why would there have been much depleted uranium, if any, used in Bosnia?

Bacon: Yes. There was some used in Bosnia, but a much smaller amount.

Q: Same type of armament, though, that --

Bacon: Well, SHAPE estimates that 10,800 rounds of armor- piercing rounds were used in -- around Sarajevo in '94 and '95.

Q: That would be tank rounds, or what would that be?

Bacon: Yeah, it would have been -- well, these were not -- we did not have tanks on the ground in Bosnia in '94, and we actually didn't have any tanks around Sarajevo ever because our tanks had gone to Tuzla. These would have been used by aircraft.

Q: Also A-10s or --

Bacon: I believe so. Yes, I believe so.

Yes?

Q: (Off mike) -- also uses DU, I believe. But has the U.S. taken any particular safeguards against troops and others handling DU ammunition? Do they wear radiation badges? Do they wear protective clothing at all? Even with a 40 percent reduction, as you know, radiation is cumulative, and it would seem that there may be some kind of danger there.

Bacon: Troops are instructed to wear masks, if they're around what they consider to be atomized or particle-ized depleted uranium; that is if rounds have struck tanks, there could be depleted uranium dust around. So if they were working around an Iraqi tank that had been disabled by a depleted uranium round, they would be instructed to wear some sort of mask to prevent breathing in particles.

Q: I'm referring more to the loading of the ammunition or aircraft or whatever.

Bacon: No. No. In fact, the ammunition, I believe, is -- the depleted uranium is shielded by a very thin layer of steel, so there's no direct exposure to it. And the depleted uranium in the armor is part of a sandwich of blocking materials, so it's included in layers and it's not the outside layer.

Yes?

Q: Two questions. One is, the information package of material that you said was distributed, can we get a copy of those, or are they available on the DefenseLINK?

Bacon: We can certainly get a copy of the U.S. ones. I don't know whether we have the KFOR ones around, but we can certainly get you the type of information that the Army puts out, for instance.

Q: And my second question is, how confident can you be, and how conclusive is the evidence that there is no health effects associated with any exposure to depleted uranium?

Bacon: Well, I think that based on our experience, we're pretty confident of what we've said, which is we have found no direct link.

Q: I mean, is the science very solid? Is the medical -- or is this another case, as we've seen with many of the things relating to Gulf War illnesses, for instance, where we look at the research and we're told that it can't be ruled out, no evidence, but more study is needed. Is this an area where more study is needed?

Bacon: We've done several studies, and -- in the Gulf War context, including reviews of medical literature. There are 33 soldiers who were involved in friendly fire accidents where they were hit by depleted uranium rounds during the Gulf War. They were in vehicles that were hit. Some of them -- about 15 of them have particles of depleted uranium in their bodies -- shrapnel. They are being monitored very carefully. We have not seen any unusual health impact from the radiation from the depleted uranium in their bodies. I mean, obviously, if they were hit with shrapnel, they could have some health consequences from that. But we haven't seen any from the fact that the shrapnel is depleted uranium.

Now this is what's been laid out in -- by the Gulf War people over the years in their studies, and you can get them; they're all on the web site [ http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_index.htm]. The --

Q: Well, could I just repeat my question? I guess what I meant to ask was, is more study needed on this question, or is the scientific verdict in on depleted --

Bacon: No, I think the lesson of the Gulf War illness studies, starting in 1996, when we changed direction on dealing with Gulf War illness, is that you never exhaust the need for studies. And we are constantly studying these. We have studied depleted uranium for the last 10 years, and we'll continue to study it.

The -- some of the news stories that I have read out of Europe recently link leukemia with depleted uranium. Now the largest external cause of leukemia is cigarette smoke.

So there's a 20 percent contribution from cigarette smoke to leukemia. Radiation has a very, very low contribution to causes of leukemia. Leukemia frequently does not develop quickly. So I think that the first thing that's necessary, if we're dealing with allegations that there is a connection between leukemia and depleted uranium, is an epidemiological study that would determine first if there's an unusually high incidence of leukemia among soldiers who have served in either Bosnia or Kosovo. It could take a long time to produce that study.

But that would be a logical starting point to find out if there is any reason for proceeding further. First of all, a basic epidemiological study. That's something that could be done by European allies, it could be done by us. But it hasn't been done yet. And until people do that basic type of epidemiological work, which involves comparison groups, et cetera, I think it's premature to talk about any link between depleted uranium and leukemia. We have found nothing to link the two in our research.

Q: Ken, if there is no health effect, why would American soldiers handling some of this material be urged to wear masks?

Bacon: Well, what we're talking about is a material that, if you -- like most things in our lives -- if you were to hold a piece of depleted uranium in your hand for 250 straight hours, you might begin to get an overdose of radiation. Nobody is doing that. So we have given people standards and training for the people who deal with depleted uranium for protecting themselves from anything that might occur, but we have not found any connection between depleted uranium -- I mean, if you drank too much water, you could theoretically get into trouble, but we don't go around worrying about water.

Q: But you aren't asking your soldiers to wear masks when they're handling water.

Bacon: No. All we're --

Q: You're asking them to wear masks when they're handling depleted uranium.

Bacon: In a small number of cases where a depleted uranium round has hit an armored vehicle and where there may be dust -- now, all our studies show that in cases where there is dust, it is washed away and nullified by the first heavy rain. But there aren't a lot of heavy rains in the desert, so obviously, when we were advising our soldiers how to deal with depleted uranium damage, or damaged vehicles in the desert, we were careful to point out that they should wear masks.

Q: And it is the radioactivity, not necessarily the other toxicities contained in this --

Bacon: Well, I'm not enough of a scientist to be able to differentiate between the two. The radioactivity -- as I pointed out, the radioactivity is 40 percent less than in natural occurring uranium; hence the name "depleted uranium." There is a certain amount of toxicity in heavy metals. Mercury is a heavy metal; it's highly toxic. But we're not talking about mercury, we're talking about something entirely different.

Q: Right, that's what I'm trying to figure out is, is it the substance itself or the radioactive of the substance itself that could be a potential health factor?

Bacon: I can't answer that question. I mean, if you'd like, we can get a depleted uranium expert down here to run you through not only what we've learned during our Gulf War studies -- we could have Bernie Rostker come down and talk about those. And we'd be glad to bring down a scientist to talk about other aspects of depleted uranium. If there is a vote for this, we will definitely do it. In fact, I may do it anyway. (Laughter.)

Q: In monitoring the health of troops in the Balkans, which was instituted as a result of the Persian Gulf stuff, wouldn't a spike or a higher incidence of leukemia than normal, isn't that something that would be readily apparent?

Bacon: We have not found that in American troops. And there was depleted uranium used in several areas, at several sites in the American sector; one is Urosevac -- during Operation Allied Force. We have not found any unusual health effects at all from our soldiers in the Balkans, and we do give them very extensive health audits on the way in and on the way out. And we have certainly found nothing linked to depleted uranium. So we have found nothing that would make us suspicious, and certainly nothing that would make us -- that would make us think that there was any link -- nothing to link depleted uranium to leukemia.

Q: Has any attempt been made to track the health, specifically, of troops who work with depleted uranium, whether in the states or in deployments -- that kind of thing?

Bacon: Well, I don't know the answer to that, but probably as a group in the United States, people in the uniform of the military have more ready access to health care and better chances of being tracked, year to year, than almost any other group in the United States because they all participate in a health care plan and they are vaccinated and examined fairly regularly, not only when they deploy and when they return from deployments, but they have to take physicals and that type of thing.

Q: But if you don't do that, I mean, how can you know whether there's a problem -- whether any problems are arising associated with exposure to depleted uranium on the part of troops?

Bacon: If we saw unusual health patterns within the military we would work very hard to correlate those patterns to particular duty. We have not seen such unusual patterns and therefore we have not seen any -- we have not seen anything that would correlate it or lead us to try to correlate it to duty in armored corps, for instance.

Q: One more question. The Italians have called for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium munitions. Is that something that the United States would consider doing?

Bacon: We don't see any health reasons to consider a moratorium at this stage. We will work with our allies, as I said, in health studies, but we see no reason to consider a moratorium now.

From our standpoint, depleted uranium saves lives of soldiers in two ways. One, it increases the kinetic potential and destructive potential of both tank rounds and A-10 rounds in use against armor. And two, it provides better armor protection to our tanks.

Not one tank, not one American tank protected by armor containing depleted uranium was killed, so to speak, by an Iraqi tank during Desert Storm.

Yes?

Q: Related to that question, has the Pentagon made any assessment as to why it seems there's suddenly this huge outcry in Europe about the issue? And do you think it could be aimed at forcing the U.S. and NATO to give up depleted uranium projectiles and armor?

Bacon: Well, you know, there has been a very concerted campaign against depleted uranium by our enemies, first Saddam Hussein, and second, Slobodan Milosevic. And if you log on to Serb web sites, particularly the Serb web sites that were put up by the Milosevic (inaudible) during the war, Operation Allied Force, you will see a lot of ranting about depleted uranium. We don't think that it reflects the science at all, but it's there. And I don't know whether this type of emotionalism has infected other countries or not.

I also think that whenever a soldier is sick, there is an understandable effort to find out why and to try to figure out if some terms of his service or her service contributed to the illness. And there may be some of that going on there.

We have been cooperating with our allies on this. We have given them a substantial amount of information. All our studies are available on the Web [ http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_index.htm]. You can look at them; anybody else can look at them. They aren't in Italian, but Italians can read them in English. And we are prepared to work, through NATO, on this issue and to make all our research available. What we're asking people to do is to look at the science.

Yes?

Q: This one might have to wait for your uranium expert, but you've explained the difference in levels of radiation between uranium and depleted uranium, but what's the difference between depleted uranium and ambient radiation in a normal tank?

Bacon: Well, I mean, there is ambient radiation, and I don't know the -- I mean, I've seen figures on that.

I don't have them at my fingertips, but we could give you something that answers that.

Q: Would that tell us how many more -- how much -- many more times radiant -- you know what I'm saying -- depleted uranium is than --

Bacon: We're not talking -- depleted uranium, as I said, is used in commercial airliners, it's used in cargo ships. For all I know, it may be used in private yachts in their keels, because that's the type of place that it's used. So it is around us in our life and, as I say, uranium, which is naturally more radioactive than depleted uranium, is around us in our lives as well. I'll get you some analysis of that.

Yes --

Q: Can I ask -- is the subject exhausted?

Bacon: I don't know. (Laughter.)

Q: It's depleted!

Bacon: It has a long half-life, I can see.

Q: I have a related question.

Bacon: Sure.

Q: Is this Defense Department at all concerned about the Russians moving their tactical nuclear weapons --

Q: Radiation! Radiation! (Laughter.)

Q: -- and if so, have they determined the reason why they're being moved?

Bacon: Well, I can't answer that question directly because I can't comment on intelligence reports, and I won't. I will refer you back to what my colleague at the State Department, Richard Boucher, said yesterday on this. We do not think there has been a dramatic change in the military balance in Europe recently, certainly, and we are aware that the Russians have made statements saying that as their conventional forces get weaker that they will look more and more to their nuclear forces. But beyond that, I can't comment on any specific reports.

Yes, Tony?

Q: The Russian foreign minister yesterday accused the U.S. of repeatedly violating the START I Treaty in terms of not properly destroying MX ballistic missiles. Do you have any reaction to that?

Bacon: Well, I would say it's a classic case of old wine in old bottles. They've made this charge repeatedly. We and the Russians have a disagreement about this. We contend that if we -- I think their latest charges dealt with Peacekeepers missiles, as I understand it. First of all, if we did nothing to our Peacekeepers missiles, we still wouldn't be in violation of START II, but we are destroying Peacekeeper missiles. We regard a Peacekeeper missile destroyed if we destroy the top stage; the upper stage. They regard it destroyed if the whole missile is destroyed.

We argue that if we destroy the upper stage, the missile is destroyed, and we can use the rest as a launch vehicle for satellites or other things. That's basically the argument.

But this is something they've said repeatedly, and therefore I call it old wine in old bottles.

Q: I don't think you've destroyed Peacekeepers missiles -- (off mike) --

Bacon: We have destroyed two of them.

Q: Two of them?

Bacon: Yeah.

Q: Can I ask you a Cole follow-up? We've had a lot of stories in the last --

Q: Before we -- before you go on to that new thing --

Bacon: Oh, yeah --

Q: Oh, excuse me.

Q: -- I've got a Kaliningrad thing. Back in -- I think it was the Bush administration, the U.S. Navy took tactical nukes off its ships, and I don't think there was ever a treaty or agreement with the Russians on this. But I think they did something similar, perhaps, or perhaps it just applied to the Baltic fleet. I'm not sure. But at that time, might they have taken Navy tactical nuclear weapons off of their ships and put them into headquarters of the Baltic fleet, which is Kaliningrad? Or does this -- might this be something that's been around for a few years?

Bacon: It's highly possible that they took tactical nuclear weapons off their ships and stored them in Kaliningrad.

Q: How about Army weapons?

Bacon: It's highly possible they stored Army and Air Force weapons at storage sites in Kaliningrad.

Q: And they might have done this several years ago?

Bacon: Yes, they might have.

Yes?

Q: On another issue --

Q: No, I have a question with that --

Bacon: Yeah?

Q: Can you comment on the security of Kaliningrad? And is there any risk of those weapons falling into the wrong hands?

Bacon: Our experience has been that generally the Russians have been quite diligent in securing their weapons.

Yes?

Q: Ken, some, I guess, office business: There are a number of reports and studies hanging fire that the SecDef has ordered. Is he going to try to clean up everything before he leaves office?

For instance, is the V-22 study going to be completed and released before --

Bacon: No.

Q: -- you know, this in-depth study out of the program at -- sorry. And the F-22 -- is there going to be a decision on whether or not to go ahead on an initial full-rate production of the F-22, or --

Bacon: In terms of the V-22, Secretary Cohen ordered a broad review of the program. That will not be complete before he leaves. It'll probably take at least several months to complete that.

Q: So he's going to leave that for the next --

Bacon: The terms of reference, I think, were just published yesterday. And it will take some time for the team of three to complete that.

The F-22 Defense Acquisition Board was supposed to have -- was originally scheduled to have taken place on January 3rd. It had to be delayed for a number of reasons, and it has not been rescheduled. So it's unclear when that will in fact happen. The Air Force is working to meet all the criteria necessary in order to allow the board to take place, but we don't have a date on that yet.

Q: Isn't Ganzler -- sorry. Is it this weekend he's leaving?

Bacon: Yes, he is leaving on -- tomorrow is his last day. We will miss him. He's, as you know, the under secretary for acquisitions, technology and logistics. And he is leaving for academia tomorrow.

Q: Well, wouldn't you have to --

Bacon: Well, he has a deputy and he has a whole organization of people who would review this. But one of the issues, of course, is whether this decision will be ready to be made before the 20th, and if it is, whether we should make it or leave it for the next administration.

Q: I guess what I'm asking is, is it likely that you will? Is it likely that it will be ready, number one. And if you -- is the secretary inclined to leave this until the next --

Bacon: I cannot answer that question because, so far, it's just not -- the decision is not ready to be made. The Air Force hasn't met all the criteria. One of the reasons is that weather -- the crippling weather in the Southeast over the last couple of weeks has delayed their flight program. They are working diligently to try to get everything done; I don't know whether they will.

Q: But again -- again, I'm sorry to --

Bacon: Charlie, I can't answer the question. There are two elements. One, I can't answer the question because I don't know whether the Air Force will in fact complete all its work that's necessary for the review to take place, and even if they do, then we have to make a decision whether we're going to decide it now or leave it to the next administration. I thought I was clear about that. But in other words, we haven't made a decision.

Q: Speaking of the next administration, what's the latest on the transition effort here?

Bacon: The transition effort has been greatly accelerated by the fact that they chose as secretary of Defense one who has already been secretary of defense and knows a lot and has been following this issue very closely. His team has been meeting with people. Secretary-designate Rumsfeld will meet with Secretary Cohen tomorrow for breakfast. And they have had at least one phone conversation, maybe more.

And we have provided a lot of information to their transition team and made all officials they've requested available to them.

Q: They're meeting here -- here at the Pentagon?

Bacon: Here, right.

Q: And there is a photo-op at breakfast. Is that right?

Bacon: We are in the process of trying to arrange that now and we'll let you know.

Q: And what time will that be?

Bacon: It's in the morning. I don't know exactly when.

Yes.

Q: On the Cole report, can you give us a state of play, in terms of when it may be released and publicly briefed?

Bacon: It may be released early next week.

Q: Can you comment on any of the press reports in terms of their accuracy and the thrust of the report that there were security violations, and --

Bacon: No, I think we'll just wait for the report to come out.

Q: Can I ask you an F-22 follow-up?

Bacon: Sure.

Q: Does the Pentagon have any reaction to Philip Coyle's December 20th, five-page report suggesting that they not make the production decision because testing has not progressed as much as it should have?

Bacon: Well, I said earlier that one of the reasons the Defense Acquisition Board was delayed from January 3rd was because the Air Force had not completed all of the tests. It's striving to do that as quickly as possible. Whether it does so or not in time for a new Defense Acquisition Board to be held quickly remains to be seen.

And they may -- the Air Force may have more up-to-date information on it, but as of this morning they had not completed all of those tests.

Q: Coyle's report suggests that just even if they don't do all the ten criteria this program is so far behind schedule it's going to take another year to complete full-scale development, therefore you don't really need to buy these next 10 airplanes. Has this --

Bacon: That's exactly the type of decision that would be looked at when they sit down to review the program. And since we haven't had that review, we haven't considered all the points raised by Phil Coyle.

Q: But they will be taken into consideration, is that --

Bacon: This is exactly the type of thing we take into consideration, right.

Yeah.

Q: Well, getting back to that, do you know, or can you comment on if flying aircraft 4006 will have -- they'll have some sort of clemency with that that they actually won't have to get that aircraft off the ground to consider all criteria met?

Bacon: No, I can't answer that question.

Q: And back to the V-22, will the V-22's continue to remain grounded until that report is in -- the several-month-long study?

Bacon: I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know if any decision has been made on it. The V-22 could depend more on the Marine crash investigation than the overall review of the program. Q: Do you have any update on that crash investigation?

Bacon: I do not. I do not, no. I mean, the Marines have been very forthcoming about reporting information when they have it. And I'm sure that when they learn more and they have some confidence in it, they'll report that as well.

Yes, Dale.

Q: Ken, the Senators Warner and Stevens were in the building earlier and I understand they met with Secretary Cohen. Can you give us any kind of readout on that, and specifically whether there was discussion of the Crouch-Gehman report and the other reports pending on the Cole, and any steps that the Congress might be asked to take regards enhancing force protection?

Bacon: Secretary Cohen gave a lunch this afternoon for the so-called "Big Eight." These are the chairman and the ranking minority members of the Senate and House Armed Services committees and the Senate and House Appropriations Committees and the Defense Appropriations subcommittees to those committees.

And that's why Senators Stevens and Warner and Levin and Inouye were here, as well as all of their congressional counterparts except Congressman Murtha, who wasn't able to come. So the discussion, it was really an event talking about the overall relations, good relations between the Pentagon and the committees that supervise us, and not about specifics.

Q: So it was in the nature of a farewell kind of luncheon, is that --

Bacon: Yes, that would be a good way to describe it.

Yes, Ivan?

Q: A new topic, if I may?

Bacon: Sure.

Q: Vieques. Has this department made a decision on what it's going to do if the new governor of Puerto Rico abridges the existing agreement/treaty?

Bacon: Well, Governor Calderon, who was sworn in early this week, has made some very clear statements about Vieques. We are waiting to sit down and talk with her about the way ahead on Vieques. The Navy's view and the department's view on this is very clear, that we have an agreement that calls for a referendum to decide the future of the Navy range on -- the Navy use of Vieques. We have set a date for that referendum. I believe it's in November of this year, November 6th or 7th, as I recall, of this year. And we are prepared to move ahead with that. And there are some land transfers and other actions to take place before that. We did not make any land transfers at the end of December as originally planned because we wanted to be able to sort out with the governor-elect, now Governor Calderon, exactly what her plans are for Vieques. And I hope we'll be able to do that relatively soon.

Q: I have a business regulation question. About three weeks ago, the Office of Management and Budget put out a regulation that would allow contracting officers to essentially blackball or debar companies accused of federal crimes. The Pentagon, according to business leaders, was opposed to that regulation. The Pentagon, however, declined to release its comments publicly while the process was pending. Can you check with Diedre Lee's office -- she's the director of procurement -- to see if that document can now be released? It is still a hot issue in the business community.

Bacon: Yeah. See Captain Taylor about that. This one has escaped me.

Q: I know.

Bacon: But it -- we'll -- yeah?

Q: Any information yet on where Secretary Cohen is going to go next?

Bacon: Well, I think when he is prepared to announce his future plans, he will. And he is not prepared to make an announcement yet.

Initially when he leaves he'll move over into some offices in Crystal City, as Secretary Perry did after he left as secretary, to organize his papers and complete various loose ends, and he'll be over there for a while. And then he'll make his announcement at the appropriate time.

Yes?

Q: Yes, back to Vieques. Now the governor has been sworn in, has said as recently as yesterday that she's going to withdraw the SWAT team at the entrance of the gate which provides protection to the range. She still vows that she's going to have her own independent referendum. She still has called once again on President Clinton to use his powers as commander-in-chief to order the withdrawal of the Navy now. When does the department finally decide that the agreement is null and void, or is there any hope that she can get what she wants?

Bacon: I can't answer those questions. As I said, there has to be a meeting between the governor or her team and either the Navy or the administration. As you know, the current agreement was hammered out over a number of months during a number of meetings at the White House and here and elsewhere, in San Juan, and we'll continue the process.

We believe this agreement gives us, gives the Navy, the right to use Vieques as a training range until the referendum is held, under the terms that were set in the agreement -- no live fire but inert ordnance -- and our plans are to continue to do that. But we will attempt to sit down and talk with the governor about this.

Thank you.

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SFOR, IS THE U.S.GOVERNMENT;
SFOR says depleted uranium "a negligible hazard"

By Nedim Dervisbegovic
Thu, 4 Jan 2001 18:25:46 -0500 (EST)

All americans must see it take 15 years for cancers to develop in the human. It only been 10 years from the GULF WAR, 35,000 U.S. Troops have died since the war from exposures to the 1991 gulf war.

EDWARD J. BRYAN HEALTH CARE LIAISON FOR GULF WAR VETERANS DISABLED GULF VETERAN BLUE RIBBON PANEL 1/24/2001

--

SARAJEVO, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia said on Thursday the ammunition with depleted uranium it had used during the 1992-95 war there posed only a "negligible hazard."

"SFOR does not believe that either the troops serving with SFOR today, or civilian population are at risk from DU (depleted uranium) ammunition," SFOR said in a statement, issued as a row erupted over alleged "Balkans syndrome" among peacekeepers.

NATO ambassadors are expected to discuss the mysterious illness next week following claims that six Italian peacekeepers died after being exposed to depleted uranium from spent ammunition, NATO sources said earlier on Thursday.

The six Italian soldiers, who all served in the Balkans, died of leukaemia. Several other NATO member states have also voiced concern about the problem.

Italian Defence Minister Sergio Mattarella told Italian troops in Sarajevo during a visit on Thursday that a commission he has set up to investigate the problem would establish whether the causes of the Italian soldiers' deaths were inter-linked.

SFOR said the alliance had conducted research to establish whether the ammunition with depleted uranium -- used by NATO troops in 1994-95 -- posed any medical risk.

"The result of that research showed that there is a negligible hazard, and that there is no significant risk to deployed troops or to the local population," SFOR said.

"Negligible hazard means that no threat or medical hazard exists that is any different from what is experienced in normal day-to-day life," the peace force said.

It added that a U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP) assessment team had been tasked in November last year with investigating any possible risks by collecting and analysing soil samples and measuring radiation levels.

"We will be informed of their results early this year," SFOR said, noting that the International Commission on Radiation Protection did not list depleted uranium as a health hazard.

SFOR said depleted uranium is 40 percent less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium. Armour-piercing rounds tipped with DU have the ability to "self-sharpen" as they penetrate, whereas other types tend to mushroom, blunting their impact.

According to the Pentagon in Washington, the major health concerns about DU relate to its chemical properties as a heavy metal rather than its low radioactivity.

Since 1993, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been monitoring 33 American victims of "friendly fire" in the Gulf, half of whom still have DU fragments embedded in their bodies and show higher than normal levels of uranium in urine.

Their reproductive health has been normal and babies have shown no birth defects, according to a Pentagon fact-file.

NATO officials outlined the Alliance's use of depleted uranium during the Bosnian conflict only last month, when they said some 10,000 rounds were fired in 1994-95.

The Pentagon, under pressure from critics who accused it of covering up the issue, said NATO forces fired 31,000 rounds against Yugoslav armoured vehicles in the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

An Italian spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo said Italians carried out checks two weeks after their troops first deployed in the Yugoslav province in June 1999 and found that levels of radioactivity did not pose a health risk.

He said the troops had nevertheless been warned from the start to avoid bomb-damaged vehicles and not to pick up anything from the ground and had also warned civilians via local radio.

Luljeta Krasniqi, a 30-year-old Albanian woman living near a former Yugoslav army barracks in the western town of Pec, confirmed there had been warnings.

"We were regularly warned not to touch anything at the bombed barracks because it might be dangerous for our children and for us. We haven't had any problems so far," she said.

(additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Kosovo)

---

Pentagon, Rand DU Cover-Up As Epidemic Spreads
Pentagon rejects moratorium on depleted uranium use

From: kevcross@webtv.net
Thu, 4 Jan 2001 22:11:22 -0800 (PST)
Pentagon, Rand DU Cover-Up As Epidemic Spreads [STOPNATO.ORG.UK]

WASHINGTON, January 4 (AFP) - The Pentagon rejected Italian calls for a moratorium on the use of radioactive depleted uranium (DU) munitions, saying it had found no link to leukemia or any other health problems among troops who served in the Balkans.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the US military had detected no adverse health effects either among US troops who have served in the Balkans or those who handle DU rounds or work in tanks protected by DU armor.

"We don't see any health reason to consider a moratorium now," he said at a briefing here.

Italy's defense ministry called on NATO to discuss its proposal for a moratorium on the use DU munitions, while acknowledging it had found no direct link between the armor-piercing munitions and the deaths from leukemia of six Italians who served in the Balkans.

NATO has agreed to take up the DU concerns at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels that had been requested by Italy, Belgium and Portugal. France joined the others Thursday in urging NATO to provide more information on the use of depleted uranium.

The concerns have been fanned by a number of reported leukemia cases among Balkans veterans in a number of European countries whose families believe resulted from exposure to depleted uranium.

Bacon said the Pentagon was aware of the concerns and would work closely with NATO.

"We have not found any unusual health effects at all," Bacon said of the US troops who have served in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Bacon said that US A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets fired 31,000 depleted uranium rounds during 100 missions carried out during the 1999 NATO air war in Kosovo.

Another 10,800 DU rounds were fired in Bosnia in 1994-95, according to NATO's military headquarters.

Last year, NATO provided UN inspectors with possible coordinates of 112 sites in Kosovo that were targeted with DU rounds.

UN experts who visited 11 of the sites in November found remnants of DU ammunition and low levels of radiation at impact points at eight sites, but did not detect "any wider area of contamination," according to the UN Environment Programme.

A US survey in March of nine DU target areas in the US sector of Kosovo found no trace of DU, Pentagon officials said.

DU was first used in combat during the 1991 Gulf War both as munitions and in armor on US heavy tanks and fighting vehicles.

Twice as dense as lead and with low levels of radioactivity, depleted uranium is prized by the US military because it can slice through enemy armor while protecting US tanks against attack.

Bacon credited DU armor for the fact that not a single US tank was destroyed by the Iraqis during the Gulf War.

After the war, DU exposure was suspected by some as a possible source of the mysterious illnesses experienced by Gulf War veterans. But a Pentagon investigation concluded last month that depleted uranium was unlikely to have been the cause.

A study by the Rand Corporation said that "cancer is the only radiation-associated disease that has been shown to be related to inhalation of radioactive particulates in humans, but there is no evidence documented in the literature of cancer or any other adverse health effect related to radiation received from exposure even to natural uranium, which is more radioactive than DU."

The US Veterans Administration has been tracking 33 veterans of the Gulf War who were wounded in "friendly fire" incidents involving depleted uranium rounds, at least 15 of whom still have DU fragments embedded in them.

Uranium has been found in their urine, but so far they have manifested no kidney disease or other symptoms attributable to radiation effects, the Rand study said.

A separate review by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, however, concluded there was not enough evidence to determine whether uranium exposure is associated with adverse health outcomes.

"While the studies did not suggest that uranium has adverse health effects, the studies were of insufficient quality, consistency or statistical power to permit a conclusion regarding the presence or absence of an association in humans," it said.


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Italy alarmed by 'Balkan syndrome'

The Guardian Special report: Kosovo
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday January 4, 2001http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Distribution/Redirect_Artifact/0,4678,0-417492,00.html

Concern about the use of depleted uranium shells by US forces intensified yesterday when Italy asked Nato to investigate claims that six of its soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to the munitions.

The request came after an official investigations by France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland into the effect of DU weapons.

The Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato, told the newspaper La Repubblica that alarm about the "Balkan syndrome" was "more than legitimate".

"We've always known that [depleted uranium] was used in Kosovo, but not in Bosnia. We've always known that it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all.

But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

His defence minister, Sergio Mattarella, said Nato had told Rome only last month that DU had also been used in Bosnia.

US A10 aircraft fired more than 31,000 rounds of DU ammunition in Kosovo. More than 14,000 rounds fell in the area of Kosovo now controlled by Italian troops, according to Italian the deputy ecology minister, Valerio Calzolaio.

DU is a by-product of converting natural uranium into the enriched form used in nuclear weapons and reactors. It is about 40% less radioactive than natural uranium.

The US fired more than 850,000 rounds during the 1991 Gulf war. This as been linked to birth defects in Iraq.

The six Italians who have died since returning from the Balkans all had leukaemia. The latest was Salvatore Carbonaro, 24, from Sicily, who died in November after serving twice in Bosnia but never in Kosovo.

Doctors have said there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to DU shells but the Italian media say the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

A group representing their families has released a copy of a document in English which it said was a list of Nato guidelines for dealing with DU. It said the document, dated November 22 1999, was not distributed to troops before that date, although soldiers had by then spent months peacekeeping in Kosovo.

Last month the British armed forces minister, John Spellar, admitted that advice on the potential danger of DU shells failed to reach British troops in the Gulf war.

The Ministry of Defence said yesterday it was not planning to review the effect of DU weapons in the Balkans. It said the radioactivity from the shells was no higher than from household appliances.

The US agency for toxic substances and disease registry had said that no human cancer of any type has ever been seen as a result of exposure to natural or depleted uranium".

Nato sources said yesterday that the North Atlantic Council would discuss the issue at its regular meeting next week.

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Europe Worried about "Balkans War Syndrome"

Radio Netherlands
by our Internet Desk, 4 January 2001
http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/nato010104.html

European governments are expressing concern about a so-called Balkans War Syndrome, now that several soldiers who served as peacekeepers in Bosnia have died of leukaemia. The disease has killed six Italians who served in Bosnia - and Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has said the alarm over the situation is more than legitimate. To get to the bottom of it, he's requested information from NATO.

Following Italy's urgent request on Wednesday, NATO has agreed to look into the use of depleted uranium munitions in the Balkans conflicts. A meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest decision-making body, and the alliance's political committee is slated for next Tuesday.

Italy called on NATO to investigate claims that six Italian soldiers who died after serving in the Balkans were killed by exposure to depleted uranium from spent ammunition fired by NATO forces. Prime Minister Giuliano Amato spoke of a "very delicate situation". He added that "we've always known that depleted uranium was used in Kosovo but not in Bosnia. We've always known it was a danger only in absolutely exceptional circumstances like, for example, picking up a fragment with a hand on which there was an open wound, while in normal circumstances it isn't dangerous at all. But now we're starting to have a justified fear that things aren't that simple."

No Coincidence Mr Amato's remarks come amid widespread media coverage in Italy about the links between the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans and the recent deaths of six peacekeepers. All of them died of leukaemia. The latest casualty died in November. He had served twice in Bosnia, but never in Kosovo. Italian media suggest that the number of deaths is too high to be coincidental.

But NATO officials point to statements of medical experts in Italy, who claim that there is insufficient evidence to link the deaths to exposure to armour-piercing uranium bullets. The alliance's chief spokesman, Mark Latey, says NATO will meet Italy's request to provide information on the exact location of munitions used in Bosnia. Asked how harmful the use of depleted uranium in combat really is, he told Radio Netherlands that when it comes to the potential hazards, there are two issues involved:

"First, there is the effect of radiation emitted from depleted uranium, which is very small indeed, because it's less than naturally occurring uranium. Besides, it's often used to protect people from the harmful effects of x-rays and the International Committee on Radiation protection doesn't list DU as a health hazard. The other potential harm comes from the heavy metal toxic poisoning, which could be compared to lead poisoning, but again, you would have to get very heavy exposure to that for a very long time to get for instance kidney problems. It's difficult to see how these high dosage could be administered"

Concern among other European countries Portugal and Belgium have joined Italy's call for answers, urging the creation of an international commission of inquiry. Earlier, Belgium already urged European Union defence ministers to discuss the health problems suffered by peacekeepers in the Balkans.

Five Belgian former peacekeepers have reportedly died from cancer after serving in the Balkans and one Portuguese soldier has also died in another case linked to uranium contamination. Portugal has reportedly ordered medical tests for 10,000 military and civilian personnel who served there. Concerns have also been raised by service members or civilian aid workers in Britain and the Netherlands. NATO, however, has no plans for its own inquiry into the matter. Its spokesman Mark Latey explains why.

"We're a military alliance, not a medical alliance: it's up to the member states to conduct an inquiry. There was similar concern over depleted uranium during the Gulf conflict, which prompted Britain and the United States to do extensive inquiries into the use of DU, but they incidentally didn't find anything. NATO, however, is aware of the concerns of its members and will do what its members ask it to do. Italy hasn't asked us to launch an inquiry, but to provide information and that's what we'll do."

Meanwhile, our Rome correspondent Marc Leijendekker adds that there is broad political support, cutting across party lines, for a parliamentary inquiry. "History shows that NATO hasn't always given full information, and this may be a starting point for a full inquiry into what happened and into the precise dangers to which soldiers were exposed both in Kosovo and in Bosnia. NATO should realise that withholding information may reduce Italy's willingness to participate in future peacekeeping operations."

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EU presses Nato over uranium arms

BBC News
Thursday, 4 January, 2001, 16:44 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1100000/1100332.stm

European Commission President Romano Prodi has said he wants to know the truth about the effect of Nato weapons on soldiers who served in the Balkans, and on the civilian population.

In an interview with Italian state radio, he said that weapons using depleted uranium (DU) should be abolished, if they posed any risk to human health.

Italy on Wednesday became the latest European country to ask Nato to investigate the so-called Balkan syndrome, after a sixth Italian soldier died of leukaemia.

France, which has revealed that four soldiers are being treated for leukaemia, has also added its voice to requests from Portugal and Belgium for an inquiry.

Five soldiers have died in Belgium and one in Portugal.

Nato help

The Czech army health service also said on Thursday that it was investigating the death of a helicopter pilot from a blood disorder.

Mr Prodi said the commission must establish the truth not only about European soldiers, but also about the civilians living in affected areas.

He said: "I will propose immediate contacts be made with the governments of Bosnia and Serbia, to discuss with them the pollution and the problems linked to the depleted uranium."

The Italian defence ministry has acknowledged that no link had so far been found between depleted uranium munitions and the deaths of the six Italians, but said it had nevertheless urged Nato to stop using the projectiles.

Nato spokesman Mark Laity told the BBC on Thursday that the alliance would not launch an investigation itself, but would provide any information requested.

"Nato's position is that we are going to help the Italians in every way we can," he said.

"They have asked for information and we are now trying to find it."

No guidelines

Italian politicians have claimed that US troops went to the Balkans fully briefed on how to protect themselves in areas where DU weapons had been used, whereas Italian soldiers did not.

"Guidelines were issued to some people, but when they were issued, who they were issued to, and what they were is I think one of the things that is going to be sorted out," Mr Laity said.

He said Nato was also co-operating with studies by the United Nations Environment Programme into possible environmental contamination, but would be surprised if it they suggested there was a major environmental hazard.

The alliance's North Atlantic Council and its political committee are going to discuss the problem in the next few days.

Last week, Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut called on all European Union defence ministers to examine the issue.

Gulf War syndrome

Finland and Spain have already begun looking into the matter.

The French defence minister, Alain Richard, on Thursday called on the United States to be more open about the matter, but said that there was no reason at the moment for the weapons to be withdrawn.

Nato has acknowledged that it did use some DU weapons in the Kosovo conflict, though little more than half the quantity the Belgrade authorities say were fired.

Depleted uranium is a heavy substance, 1.7 times as dense as lead, and used in armour-piercing munitions.

Many Gulf War veterans believe it is implicated in a range of medical problems they are suffering from, known collectively as Gulf War Syndrome.

Because of its ability to punch through armour, DU is prized as a highly effective anti-tank weapon.

In its natural state, it is only mildly radioactive, but on impact with a solid object it turns into a burning vapour.

The US Defence Department and the UK Ministry of Defence accept that the resulting dust can be dangerous, and say troops entering vehicles hit by DU weapons need to take precautions.

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Radiation tests for NATO troops

CNN
January 4, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/01/04/kosovo.troops.03/index.html

ROME, Italy -- Six