(http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/FRONT/t000038109.html)

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia-- Even in the age of smart bombs guided to targets by laser beams, dumb weapons that fail to explode, or lie in wait to kill later, are turning parts of Yugoslavia into a no man's land.

Unexploded bombs litter more of Yugoslavia with each day that its war with NATO drags on. Adding to the concern is the possibility that armor-piercing shells, controversial weapons that some critics argue can release dangerous levels of radioactive waste, will be widely used by the alliance in Kosovo.

Also, both Yugoslav troops and guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army have been laying land mines since at least early March, when the threat of North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes loomed closer and the civil war escalated.

During five weeks of airstrikes, witnesses interviewed here say, NATO warplanes have dropped cluster bombs that scatter smaller munitions over wide areas.

In military jargon, the smaller munitions are bomblets. Dr. Rade Grbic, a surgeon and director of the main hospital in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, sees proof every day that the almost benign term masks a tragic impact.

Grbic, who saved the lives of two ethnic Albanian boys wounded when other boys played with a cluster bomb they found Saturday, said he has never done so many amputations as he has since victims of the weapon started coming in.

"I have been an orthopedist for 15 years now, working in a crisis region where we often have injuries, but neither I nor my colleagues have ever seen such horrific wounds as those caused by cluster bombs," he said through a translator Tuesday.

"They are wounds that lead to disabilities to a great extent. The limbs are so crushed that the only remaining option is amputation. It's awful, awful." Since cluster bombs lay down a carpet of explosions, they are often the weapon of choice against moving tanks and other military vehicles, which NATO says are at the top of its target list in Kosovo, a southern province of Yugoslavia's dominant republic of Serbia.

But in a civil war like Yugoslavia's, when civilians are never far from military targets, the risks of hurting noncombatants with cluster bombs are high.

Pristina's hospital alone has treated between 300 and 400 people wounded by cluster bombs since NATO's air war began March 24, Grbic said. Roughly half of those victims were civilians, he said.

Since this number doesn't include those killed by cluster bombs, and doesn't account for the wounded in other regions of Yugoslavia, the casualty toll probably is much higher, he said.

"Most people are victims of the time-activated cluster bombs that explode sometime after they fall," he said. "People think it's safe, and then they get hurt.

"There are villages here where large portions of the area cannot be accessed because of a large number of unexploded cluster bombs," he added. "Even when all of this is over, it will be a big problem because no one knows the exact number of unexploded bombs."

Although NATO and Pentagon spokespersons routinely refuse to say what types of weapons are dropped on Yugoslavia by their warplanes, evidence of cluster bombs isn't hard to find in Kosovo.

One of the most recent indications was the remains of a yellow canister found about 30 yards from where it exploded Saturday. The blast killed five ethnic Albanian children, ages 3 to 15, in the village of Doganovic, about 30 miles south of Pristina.

The boys found the small canister in a field while herding cattle. While two of the boys went to tell an adult, the others apparently tried to pry it open with a knife.

Hours after the blast, the knife lay covered in blood beside a shallow blast crater. The two boys who went for help were about 20 yards away when they were hit by flying shrapnel, Grbic said.

The yellow canister is the same size and color as one of 202 bomblets that fall when a 1,000-pound CBU-87--a low-tech mainstay of the U.S. Air Force's cluster bomb arsenal--releases them in midair.

Although the explosion tore several holes through the canister, the letters A/B and the numbers 20-30 and 104-012 were still legible on the outside.

A telltale metal ring, which is known as a spider and clips over a bomblet's top, also was near the small crater. The bomblets in a CBU-87, which stands for Cluster Bomb Unit-87, can be set to explode at a certain height or time. They also can be set off by the vibrations of a passing person or vehicle. The metal casing of each bomblet is scored so that it will break up into as many as 300 pieces of shrapnel when it explodes, according to descriptions in published guides to military munitions.

Inflatable triangles and small parachutes often are attached to cluster bomblets to slow their fall, and journalists have seen numerous types and sizes at bomb sites across Kosovo during the past five weeks.

After a NATO attack on an airfield outside the southern Kosovo town of Urosevac, a drum-shaped cluster bomb dispenser lay smashed in the middle of a road that was pocked with deep baseball-sized holes.

More worrying to some experts is NATO's potential use of depleted uranium shells that can pierce armor more than 2 inches thick. The shells are suspected by some scientists of causing cancer and birth defects.

Depleted uranium shells are standard-issue ammunition on A-10 "Warthog" ground attack fighters, which already are flying over Kosovo, and Apache helicopters, which soon are expected to be operating in the province.

Although the Pentagon insists that the rounds aren't radioactive enough to harm anyone's health, scientists haven't resolved the debate, said Jean Pascal Zanders, a weapons expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

"It's very much an open question," Zanders, head of the institute's chemical and biological weapons project, said in a telephone interview from Stockholm.

Some Persian Gulf War veterans and the Iraqi government claim that depleted uranium shells are at least partly to blame for a higher rate of leukemia, birth defects and other ailments suffered by soldiers and civilians who were in areas where the weapons were used.

But the Pentagon's own studies show that depleted uranium weapons have no link to the various symptoms now known as Gulf War Syndrome.

"Right now, the assessments vary to a degree, and of course the whole issue of the Gulf War illnesses is one that's so highly emotional, sensitive and politicized that it is very difficult to accept at face value what any of the reports say," Zanders said.

A depleted uranium round explodes into flames when it hits an armored vehicle. Radioactive dust particles that drift in the smoke after an attack may present health risks to people not killed or injured in the initial blast, Zanders said.

The A-10s, which also carry Rockeye II cluster bombs, are armed with a 30-millimeter revolving cannon that can fire 3,900 rounds a minute. The rounds most often are made out of depleted uranium, Zanders said.

Apache helicopters are armed with a similar cannon that can fire up to 650 armor-piercing rounds a minute.

NATO'S "ASTONISHING" RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
13 April 1999

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
130 W. 25th Street New York, NY 10001

(http://www.fair.org/activism/depleted-uranium.html)

On April 1st, ABC's Nightline did a segment that criticized the one-sided coverage of the war--on Serbian TV. Reviewing supposedly absurd claims, ABC aired what it described as "this astonishing claim" from a Belgrade news account:

"They even use radioactive weapons...which are forbidden by the Geneva Convention."

Astonishing, perhaps--but is it true? The fact is, the United States is using radioactive weapons against Yugoslavia--and this threatens to have health consequences in Kosovo for decades to come.

The weapons in question are anti-tank shells and bullets made of depleted uranium (DU), a toxic, radioactive byproduct of the uranium refining process. Favored for their ability to destroy tanks, this ammunition is carried by such U.S. forces as A-10 Warthogs and Apache helicopters, both of which received substantial media attention when introduced into the war.

Ironically, only the day before Nightline's broadcast (3/30/99), ABC World News Tonight had reported the same "astonishing" news that Serbian TV had: Describing the A-10, ABC's John Martin noted that "it could pierce any armor by firing depleted uranium bullets at 3,900 rounds a minute."

But depleted uranium has received almost no sustained media attention. One of the few reporters to discuss the substance, Kathleen Sullivan of the San Francisco Examiner (4/1/99 [see below]), reported that Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon refused to answer questions about its use by A-10s, saying operational details were "verboten from this podium."

Nonetheless, the health risks posed by inhaling the dust from depleted uranium, as well as the contamination of the physical environment, have raised the concerns of numerous public health and veterans rights groups.

The World Health Organization is still studying the high cancer rates that plague southern Iraq, where much of the fighting during the Gulf War took place. Likewise, DU's possible role in causing or exacerbating Gulf War Syndrome is still a topic of fierce debate.

CBS's Mark Phillips recently presented in-depth reporting on the possible health effects of DU in Iraq (12/1/98, 12/10/98). Since the U.S. began using DU in Yugoslavia, however, no network has returned to the subject.

ACTION: Please contact national and local media and urge them to investigate the use of depleted uranium as a weapon in Yugoslavia. During the Gulf War, activists raised questions about the potential consequences of DU, but these issues were not explored until inexplicable illnesses began showing up in U.S. veterans and Iraqi children. This pattern should not be repeated in Kosovo.

For more media contacts, go to htpp://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html

---

NATO using depleted uranium weapons
4 April 1999

Sunday Herald Glasgow, Scotland
By Felicity Arbuthnot and Darran Gardner

(A HREF="http://207.12.87.1/nucwaste/news/scother1.htm" target="_top">http://207.12.87.1/nucwaste/news/scother1.htm)

Deadly depleted uranium weapons, blamed for spiralling numbers of cancers and birth defects in Iraq, are being used by NATO forces in Yugoslavia.

Both Tomahawk Cruise missiles and munition rounds used by American Warthog bombers contain the radioactive waste material. While British forces launched their first cruise missiles from the submarine HMS Splendid this weekend, American forces have already fired more than 100 at targets across Yugoslavia.

The weapons, first used in the Gulf War in 1991, require depleted uranium (DU) for their armour piercing coating. The DU is imported under licence from America and manufactured into tank-busting shells by Royal Ordnance in the English Midlands, before being shipped to storage in South Wales and at Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire.

DU shells have been linked to Gulf War Syndrome, which is thought to be responsible for the deaths of more than 400 UK war veterans. DU munitions are currently listed by the UN as weapons of mass destruction.

Dan Fahy of the US Military Toxics Projects, an American environmental pressure group, told the Sunday Herald: "The Tomahawk cruise missiles now being used in the Balkans, and those used during Desert Storm as well as those used against Iraq in 1996 and December 1998, contain depleted uranium in their tips to provide weight and stability.

"When they impact a target or other hard surface, the area can be contaminated by uranium."

Fahy warned that further contamination could occur if European and US forces launched a ground war against the Serbian forces of President Slobodan Milosevic. "If tanks go in, there will be further spread of DU."

According to Chris Helman, a senior analyst for the Centre of Defence Information in Washington, it would be "an aberration" for American Warthogs not to use DU munitions.

The lethal nature of exposure to DU has been well documented since the war in Iraq. A report sent by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to the British government in 1990, warned that if the 50 tonnes of residual uranium dust was left in the Gulf area there would be more than half a million extra cancers by the end of the century. Up to 900 tonnes was left throughout Iraq and Kuwait.

In Scotland, DU has already been linked to a leukaemia cluster around the MoD firing range at Dundrennan, near the Solway Firth. Communities close to the range, where 7,000 shells have been tested since 1983, show the highest rate of childhood leukaemia in the UK.

After the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) recently found radioactive contamination on the site, people living near the range have been increasingly anxious about the long-term health implications. Backed by their MP Alisdair Morgan, they have called for an independent health and environmental study to be carried out.

Despite the information provided by Fahy and Helman, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence dismissed as "nonsense" the claim that British and American Tomahawks contained DU.

Major Rick Jones, spokesman for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe, said: "We don't comment on any ordnance." Both Nato and the Pentagon refused to comment.

---

Radioactive weapons used by U.S. and NATO in Kosovo
1 April 1999

International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, #206, New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646 fax: 212-633-2889
web site: http://www.iacenter.org
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
Contact: Sara Flounders or John Catalinotto, 212-633-6646

The International Action Center, a group that opposes the use of depleted-uranium weapons, called the Pentagon's decision to use the A-10 "Warthog" jets against targets in Kosovo "a danger to the people and environment of the entire Balkans."

The A-10s were the anti-tank weapon of choice in the 1991 war against Iraq. It carries a GAU-8/A Avenger 30 millimeter seven-barrel cannon capable of firing 4,200 rounds per minute. During that war it fired 30 mm rounds reinforced with depleted uranium, a radioactive weapon.

There is solid scientific evidence that the depleted uranium residue left in Iraq is responsible for a large increase in stillbirths, children born with defects, and childhood leukemia and other cancers in the area of southern Iraq near Basra, where most of these shells were fired. Many U.S. veterans groups also say that DU residues contributed to the condition called "Gulf War Syndrome" that has affected close to 100,000 service people in the U.S. and Britain with chronic sickness.

John Catalinotto, a spokesperson from the Depleted Uranium Education Project of the International Action Center and an editor of the 1997 book Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, said the use of DU weapons in Yugoslavia "adds a new dimension to the crime NATO is perpetrating against the Yugoslav people--including those in Kosovo."

Catalinotto explained that the Pentagon uses DU, a waste product of the uranium enrichment process used for making atomic bombs and nuclear fuel, because it is extremely dense--1.7 times as dense as lead. "DU is used in alloy form in shells to make them penetrate targets better. As the shell hits its target, it burns and releases uranium oxide into the air. The poisonous and radioactive uranium is most dangerous when inhaled into the body, where it will release radiation during the life of the person who inhaled it," said Catalinotto.

Sara Flounders, a contributing author of Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium and the Co-Director of the International Action Center, said, "Warthogs fired roughly 940,000 rounds of DU shells during the Gulf War. More than 600,000 pounds of radioactive waste was left in the Gulf Region after the war. And DU weapons in smaller number were already used by NATO troops during the bombing of Serbian areas of Bosnia in 1995.

The use of Warthogs with DU shells threatens to make a nuclear wasteland of Kosovo," Flounders said. "The pentagon is laying waste to the very people_along with their children--they claim to be saving; this is another reason for fighting to end NATO's attack on Yugoslavia.

Worldwide protests against these bombings are growing. The U.S. use of radioactive weapons must be linked to all the protests and opposition that is taking place internationally to the bombing. These protests must be joined by environmental activists, veterans groups, anti-nuclear groups, and all those who know the long-term destruction to the environment and to whole civilian populations that this type of warfare will cause."

Flounders said that Metal of Dishonor: Depleted Uranium, which has been translated and published in Arabic and Japanese, will be coming out soon with a second edition.

---

Veterans rip plan for uranium bullets
1 April 1999

Kathleen Sullivan, San Francisco Examiner

(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1999/04/01/NEWS1003.dtl)

As the war against Yugoslavia escalates, NATO is expected to send U.S. Air Force attack jets to blast Yugoslav tanks with depleted uranium - a radioactive ammunition prized as a "tank killer" and deplored as a long-term threat to human health.

The use of depleted uranium in combat is a troubling prospect to some veterans groups, which worry that the Pentagon will fail - once again - to issue warnings about the danger posed by its hazardous dust and debris.

"With its behavior during the Gulf War, the United States has established a precedent: Don't protect your own troops from depleted uranium, don't warn civilian populations about it, and don't take any responsibility for cleanup or restoring the environment when you're done," said Dan Fahey, a staff member at Swords to Plowshares, a veterans' rights group in San Francisco.

"I would hope that wouldn't happen again," said Fahey, author of "Case Narrative: Depleted Uranium Exposures," a 1998 report on Gulf War health hazards.

According to Fahey's report, the Air Force fired depleted uranium ammunition in combat in Bosnia in 1994-95.

Depleted uranium ammunition is made from a radioactive and toxic metal that is twice as dense as lead. It rips through tanks, the Pentagon says, "like a hot knife through butter."

NATO officials have said that during the second phase of the war, planes would target Yugoslav tanks and armored vehicles. The Air Force A-10, nicknamed "Warthog," is a low-flying, slow-moving plane, often referred to as a "tank buster."

During the first phase of the attack on Yugoslavia, bombers hit targets with cruise missiles fired from a great distance.

"Unless there is a cease-fire in the immediate future, the likelihood of the imminent use of depleted uranium ammunition is high," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group for veterans.

NATO officials say Air Force A-10s have flown recently from Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, but have returned without attacking targets because of thick clouds and rain. They could not fly below the clouds because of the risk of exposure to anti-aircraft missiles.

In addition to depleted uranium bullets, which are fired from the plane's Gatling guns, Warthogs can also fire Maverick missiles at Yugoslav armored vehicles.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon declined Wednesday to answer questions about when or how A-10s will be used in Yugoslavia, saying such operational details were "verboten from this podium."

Planes' assignments secret

Piers Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank in Washington, said the movement of A-10s is an important tactical secret that must be guarded to protect pilots from enemy fire.

Wood, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, dismissed concerns about the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium, saying everything in life is a trade-off.

For a U.S. soldier facing a tank attack on the ground, an A-10 is a welcome sight, he said.

"Ask me whether I'd like to have an A-10 overhead with depleted uranium when tanks are going to kill me, or if I'd rather preserve the environment and have that pilot carry heavy explosives, and I'd say: I want them carrying depleted uranium," Wood said.

"I wouldn't say no, use the heavy explosives, because I'm worried about dying of cancer 30 years from now. I would risk the consequences of inhaling depleted uranium dust before I would consider facing tanks. Depleted uranium is wonderful stuff. It turns tanks into Swiss cheese."

However, radiation expert Rosalie Bertell said depleted uranium is highly toxic to humans. Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, called its use in Yugoslavia radiation and toxic chemical warfare that must be denounced.

Troops not told of dangers

The ammunition was used for the first time in combat in the gulf, but soldiers were not warned that inhaling, ingesting or absorbing its hazardous residue could cause cancer, or respiratory, kidney and skin disorders.

By the end of the Gulf War, 630,000 pounds of depleted uranium dust, fragments and penetrators - the ammunition's spear-shaped projectile - were scattered in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the Pentagon has said.

In 1998, the Pentagon said exposure to depleted uranium was not the cause of Gulf War illnesses, the undiagnosed ailments afflicting 100,000 veterans. However, in 1999, the Pentagon corrected that statement, saying its conclusion was premature.

Under a 1998 federal law, the National Academy of Sciences will investigate the causes of veterans' illnesses to determine if they are linked to battlefield exposure to depleted uranium and other toxic substances used in the gulf.

Sullivan, of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said he hopes the Pentagon will provide medical screenings to U.S. soldiers who may be exposed to Yugoslavian battlefields contaminated with depleted uranium - if it is used.

Army regulations required medical screenings for soldiers exposed to radioactive substances, but the military failed to provide them.

Sullivan also warned of the environmental hazards posed by depleted uranium, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

"In Yugoslavia, it's expected that depleted uranium will be fired in agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops are grown, thereby introducing the spectre of possible contamination of the food chain," he said.

Last year, Iraqi doctors said they feared a disturbing rise in leukemia and stomach cancer among civilians who live near the war zone may be linked to depleted uranium contamination of Iraqi farmland.

---

Home Page