Depleted (DU) uranium is one of the largest categories of radioactive waste produced for the nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor industry. It is highly toxic to humans, both chemically as a heavy metal and radiologically as an alpha particle emitter which is very dangerous when taken internally.

When used in war, the DU bursts into flame from the impact when it hits a target. It can pierce tanks and armoured cars, releasing inside of them a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen before.

Concentrated like this, it can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much lighter than uranium dust. It can disperse in air tens of kilometres from the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or fibrosis.

The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters into the blood stream. It can be stored in liver, kidney, bone or other tissues, again for years, irradiating all of the delicate tissues located near its storage place. It can effect the blood, which is the basis of our immune system, and do damage to the renal system as it is eventually excreted in the urine. It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers which have been initiated by other carcinogens. (See also: WISE (Netherlands) web site, April 1, 1999).

Dr. Bertell refers to a 1998 WHO study of increasing cancer rates, especially leukemia in young children, in southern Iraq where most of the war took place and notes that thousands of veterans of the Iraq War are recognized as seriously ill with an unknown syndrome, and, she says, we have been able to document DU in their urine as late as 7 or 8 years after the war. There is no natural source of DU to explain this phenomena!

It is imperative that we all denounce this radiation and toxic chemical warfare! It has now been used by the US and Britain against Iraq and in Bosnia. It is now being used in Kosovo (NATO announcement in Europe, 30 March 1999). It has been condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal (August 1996 Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities). The Human Rights Commission has requested that the Secretary General prepare a written report on DU and certain other weapons of mass destruction (Resolution 1997/36, which also established a UN Rapporteur to take over the study of DU and other weapons of mass destruction on behalf of the UN). The damage being done will not only cause incredible and unending suffering to today's victims, but the genetic damage it may cause can be passed on to their offspring. Such weapons and war itself need to be condemned as utter barbarianism!

This is certainly not to be interpreted as condoning so called ethnic cleansing or any of the nationalistic actions of the Yugoslav government. She concludes: "This Kosovo action is resulting from deep seated conflicting ideas of "World Order" - that proposed by NATO's vision of itself as a world police force, and that of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) which sees security rising out of honest cooperation and legal resolution of conflicting opinions."

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