Munitions Blamed for 'Balkan Syndrome'

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20010106/t000001474.html

Saturday, January 6, 2001

Munitions Blamed for 'Balkan Syndrome'

NATO: European officials fear U.S. shells containing depleted uranium have

caused cancer and pollution.

By JOHN-THOR DAHLBURG, Times Staff Writer

PARIS--Americans have heard much about Gulf War syndrome, the

still-mysterious complex of diseases and health problems that thousands of

veterans believe they contracted during Operation Desert Storm. Now, is a

Balkan syndrome emerging as well?

Specifically under suspicion are the depleted-uranium munitions used by

U.S. A-10 Warthog warplanes as armor-piercing rounds. During the 11-week

Kosovo air campaign in 1999, U.S. pilots fired more than 30,000 of the

superdense slugs at Serbian tanks--leaving an estimated 10 tons of depleted

uranium littering the landscape. And that doesn't include the 10,000-plus

rounds fired by NATO-led forces in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina during its

earlier war.

After the death from leukemia of a sixth Italian soldier who served with

North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping forces in the former

Yugoslav federation was made public this week--bringing the total European

deaths to 16--the Italian government demanded a full accounting from the

U.S.-led alliance.

" Let NATO tell the truth! " Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato

demanded.

In Belgium, according to news accounts, nine Balkans veterans have been

diagnosed with leukemia, and five of them have died. Two former peacekeepers

each in Spain and Portugal reportedly have succumbed to the blood cancer, as

has a Czech military pilot.

France on Thursday announced that four of its former Balkans

peacekeepers were under treatment in military hospitals for leukemia and,

through Defense Minister Alain , called on the Clinton administration

to be " open " about any and all health risks connected to the

depleted-uranium shells.

Depleted uranium reportedly is the heaviest metal known--1.7 times

heavier than lead--which gives it enormous punch when shot at high velocity

from a cannon.

The 2.2-pound shell fired by the A-10 is only mildly radioactive in its

natural state, but on impact with a solid object such as a tank, the metal

turns into a searingly hot dust as fine as baby powder.

Troops working in an area where atomized uranium is present--for

example, the hulk of a knocked-out tank--are supposed to wear masks to

prevent them from inhaling the particles, Pentagon spokesman H.

Bacon said Thursday.

Washington insists that no scientifically proven " direct link " exists

between cancer in humans and depleted uranium--which Bacon said is 40% less

radioactive than uranium ore found in nature. And he said regular health

checks have revealed no symptoms of leukemia and other illnesses among U.S.

troops who served in the Balkans.

But such assurances have done little to calm Europeans' jitters.

In a radio interview, the sister of one of the dead Italian soldiers,

Salvatore Carbonaro, accused her country's military of conducting a

cover-up. Lella Carbonaro said she was " certain " that one of " Salvatore's

superiors is partly responsible for his death, and they [the military] would

be more comfortable if the truth does not come out. "

Salvatore Carbonaro, 24, who served two tours in Bosnia's capital,

Sarajevo, in 1998-99, died Nov. 6 at a military hospital in Pavia. In a

diary he kept until his death, which was quoted posthumously in the media,

the young Sicilian chronicled his agony and puzzlement.

" I want to know why I'm dying, " Carbonaro wrote. " It's the benzene with

which I cleaned weapons, I'm sure of it. They, my superiors, knew it was a

dangerous substance, that I should have had gloves and a mask to use it, and

they told me nothing, and now I'm dying. "

Increasingly worried about health risks that their nationals might have

been exposed to, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Bulgaria, the

Czech Republic and Turkey have announced radiation screening programs for

former Balkans peacekeepers. In Portugal alone, that means testing 10,000

soldiers and civilians.

Haley, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Southwest

Medical Center who researches Gulf War syndrome, accused European

governments of planning the screenings for political reasons.

" Everybody has learned from the Gulf War and what happened with the

veterans and the accusations of a cover-up. They've learned that you better

take it seriously and act early, " Haley, who says he doubts that there is

enough radiation in depleted uranium to cause radiation-related diseases,

told the Associated Press.

The North Atlantic Council, NATO's permanent steering body, will take

up the controversy at its meeting Wednesday in Brussels. Spokesman Mark

Laity said the alliance was already conducting its own inquiry, and he

asserted that everything possible will be done to give the Italians the

information they seek.

" We're placing a 100% priority on it, " Laity said. " We are committed to

being absolutely as open as we can be. "

According to the Pentagon's Bacon, NATO's military command estimates

that 10,800 armor-piercing rounds were fired by tank-busting A-10s at

Bosnian Serb armor around Sarajevo in 1994-95.

NATO Secretary-General on said last year that about

31,000 of the shells were used during the Kosovo air war, but Yugoslav

authorities have accused NATO of using much more depleted uranium in

Operation Allied Force. Last year, a deputy defense minister claimed that

50,000 rounds were fired by NATO planes, and he said some areas of the

country had to be sealed off because radioactivity had exceeded safe levels.

At a news briefing in Washington on Thursday, Bacon said: " We have

studied depleted uranium at considerable length over the years because of

assertions it might contribute to Gulf War illness. We have not found any

link between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium. "

The U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said Friday that more

than 50,000 American troops had been cycled in and out of the Balkans since

the autumn of 1995, as well as thousands of civilians acting in support

roles.

Asked if the United States would consider a halt to the use of

depleted-uranium munitions, which are also used in antitank rounds carried

by the Abrams main battle tank, Bacon said, " We don't see any reasons to

consider a moratorium at this stage. "

He downplayed the health risks, but a former U.S. Army colonel who is

now a professor of medicine said the threat is very real.

According to the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Web site,

http://news.bbc.co.uk, Asaf Durakovic reported last year that he had

detected a " significant presence " of depleted uranium in two-thirds of the

17 Persian Gulf War veterans he had examined.

" Some of those particles were inhaled, and if they were too big to be

absorbed, they stayed in the lungs, and there they can present a risk of

cancer, " Durakovic was quoted as saying.

Pekka Haavisto, a Finn who heads a team from the U.N. Environment

Program that is trying to assess the impact of depleted-uranium munitions on

the people and environment of Kosovo, also called the vaporized metal a

health menace.

" Everybody agrees that inhaling alpha radiation can be dangerous, "

Haavisto said in a telephone interview. " The dust remains two hours after

the attack. Then it settles step by step to the ground. "

If a Balkan syndrome does exist, its cause or causes might never be

established with certainty, as has been the case with Gulf War syndrome.

From Western Europe to the United States, some veterans of the allied

campaign against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's army nearly 10 years ago

blame exposure to depleted uranium for a host of ills, from cancers and

chronic fatigue to birth defects in their children. The Iraqi government has

made similar claims about its civilians.

But millions of dollars' worth of studies have been unable to pinpoint

whether uranium, Iraqi nerve gas or germ weapons, battlefield stress,

pollution from burning oil wells set ablaze by the retreating Iraqis or some

other factor is the cause, or indeed whether there is a Gulf War syndrome at

all.

According to Bacon, " The lesson of the Gulf War illness studies is that

you never exhaust the need for studies. "

* * *

Times staff writer Richter in Washington and De Cristofaro

of The Times' Rome Bureau contributed to this report.

* * *

Inside the Shells

What Depleted Uranium Is

It is a byproduct of the processing of mined uranium ore. The most

radioactive isotopes of uranium are extracted for use in nuclear weapons and

civilian reactors. Left behind is the less radioactive isotope 238: depleted

uranium.

Why It Is Used

Weapons scientists began in the 1970s to incorporate depleted uranium

into the casings and tips of conventional, nonnuclear missiles, shells and

bullets. Its great density adds penetrative power to munitions used against

tanks or other armored vehicles, and it can burn on impact. Use of depleted

uranium in armor plating increases its strength.

Who Has the Weapons

The U.S. military, several other NATO countries and Russia are known to

possess depleted-uranium weapons, while Israel, some Arab states and some

Asian armies are assumed to have them.

Where They Have Been Used

Never used in warfare before the 1990s, depleted-uranium munitions are

known to have been fired only by Western forces. By far their greatest use

was during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Declassified U.S. documents show that

American forces fired about 944,000 cigar-size rounds in Iraq and Kuwait.

The Pentagon, under pressure from critics who accused it of covering up

the issue, said last year that NATO-led forces fired many

fewer--31,000--rounds against Serbian armored vehicles in the 1999 Kosovo

conflict. About 10,800 were fired in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina in

1994-95, NATO officials reported last month.

U.S. forces also have been accused of firing depleted-uranium munitions

during training exercises in other parts of the world.

The Allegations

* The scale of the threat posed by depleted uranium is hotly disputed.

But experts agree that the toxic and radiological hazard is heightened by

the tendency of depleted uranium to be pulverized on impact into a fine

radioactive and toxic dust that stays in the environment, or the body, for

many years.

* Iraqi authorities blame thousands of civilian cancer deaths and

deformities in babies on contamination by Western depleted-uranium weapons.

Critics counter that the casualties might in fact be victims of Iraq's own

chemical arms.

* U.S. veterans groups say depleted-uranium weapons are partly to blame

for a vast range of health problems among thousands of veterans who fought

in the Gulf War. A Pentagon report last month called such a link " unlikely. "

* A U.N. report last May warned that much of Kosovo's water could be so

contaminated that it is unfit to drink, and that a cleanup of the Serbian

province could cost billions of dollars. It warned U.N. staff in the

province not to approach any target that might have been hit by a

depleted-uranium weapon.

* Italy has demanded that NATO investigate allegations that the deaths

of six of its soldiers from leukemia after tours of duty in Kosovo and

Bosnia--the so-called Balkan syndrome--may be linked to depleted-uranium

weapons.

* Belgium, five of whose soldiers are alleged to have died of

suspicious illnesses after Balkans duty, and Portugal, with two alleged

victims, joined the Italian appeal.

Source: Reuters