Killer in the long run?
Coalition forces used between 1000 and 2000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the war on Iraq. Dr Robert Younes* paints a bleak picture of the devastating damage to humans and the environment
During the last decade, Iraq, Kuwait, the Balkans and Afghanistan were used as a vast testing ground for depleted uranium (DU) munitions, the newest weapon of choice in the arsenals of 15 armies around the world. DU weapons have also been used on practice ranges on Vieques, Puerto Rico, Okinawa, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the US. It may be in use on a training range in Lancelin, in Western Australia.
Internal documents show that the US Department of Defence has known about the harmful environmental and health consequences of radioactive weapons since 1943. Despite this knowledge, the department has denied medical care to people exposed to DU, refused to clean up the environmental mess left behind and has continued to lie about the adverse effects on people exposed to it.
In 1991, an internal US Army memo recognised how effective DU munitions were against Iraqi armour, but warned that if the environmental and health impact of these weapons became widely known, their use might become politically unacceptable and they would have to be removed from the arsenal. The UN Commission on Human Rights has categorised DU weapons alongside nuclear, chemical, biological, napalm, and cluster bombs as a "weapon of indiscriminate effect". The US has 1.5 billion pounds of DU in its stockpiles.
Approximately 350 metric tons of DU were used by Coalition Forces in the 1991 Gulf War. Although DU was touted to be the anti-tank munition of choice, of the 3700 Iraqi tanks destroyed by coalition forces in the war, only 500 were destroyed by DU ammunition. Of these, 400 tanks were destroyed by American tanks using DU rounds. The Maverick missile and other munitions were far more efficient in destroying the vast majority of Iraqi tanks.
Well over 80 per cent of the DU ammunition used in the 1991 Gulf War did not hit a hard target. This means that 280 metric tons of DU remains in the soil of southern Iraq. Because DU has a half-life of 4.4 billion years, these toxic and radioactive projectiles will forever remain in the soil of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and southern Iraq and eventually will contaminate ground water and the food chain.
It is estimated that coalition forces used between 1000 and 2000 tons of DU bombs during the three-week Iraq War in 2003. A substantial number of DU bombs were dropped on Baghdad thus contaminating vast areas of a densely populated urban centre.
DU is thought to be relatively harmless unless it enters the body by inhalation, ingestion or by contamination of wounds. Once inside the body, DU decays into thorium 234, protactinium and other uranium isotopes and at the same time emits alpha, beta and gamma radiation. This radioactivity causes cell death and genetic mutations that may result in cancer and other diseases as well as genetic abnormalities in the contaminated person's descendants. Heavy exposure to DU causes acute toxicity that damages the exposed individual's kidneys. Heavily contaminated individuals have DU deposited in their bones and liver.
DU contaminated with plutonium makes DU even more hazardous since plutonium is 100,000 times more radioactive than DU. UN officials reported in January 2001 that in Kosovo traces of elements were found indicating the presence of plutonium, the source of which could only have been the uranium processing plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.
After a battle, scavenging civilians and children playing in or around DU contaminated equipment ingest or inhale significant amounts of DU. Children play with the uncombusted and radioactive uranium rods left over from tank fire. Military medical personnel engaged in battlefield rescue and first aid activities have also become contaminated with DU. The 4.4 billion year half-life of DU means that the DU used in the first and second Gulf Wars will forever remain a threat to the local Iraqi population.
Of the 697,000 US troops stationed in the Gulf during the first war, over 200,000 veterans are now chronically ill with complaints of respiratory, liver and kidney dysfunction, memory loss, depression, headaches, fever, and low blood pressure -- the same set of symptoms found in sick uranium processing workers. Many claim that the Gulf War Syndrome is caused by soldiers ingesting or inhaling small particles of DU. Claims have been made that soldiers returning from the battlefield father children with congenital defects. In the years following the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi doctors have reported observing a five-fold increase in cancers in the population heavily exposed to DU in southern Iraq.
The US Veterans Administration now officially recognises 159,238 veterans as being disabled as a result of participating in the 1991 Gulf War. Of this number, 8000 have died. Of the soldiers who occupied the toxic wasteland of Iraq after the 1991 war, 60,000 veterans have become disabled and 2000 have died. About 110,000 veterans have 10 per cent or more disability. Contrast these figures with the 800 killed and wounded in the 1991 Gulf War reported by the US military obsessed with a short war and low casualties. The military wanted a quick victory with minimal casualties but what it got was just the opposite result.
A highly decorated US army officer and an expert on DU, and 100 men and woman in his decontamination unit were ordered to clean up battlefield DU contamination resulting from friendly fire after the 1991 Gulf War. They did not wear protective gear and as a result suffered DU induced illness. Within 72 hours they became sick with respiratory symptoms and bleeding. Thirty people in his unit have already died and all but one is sick. The officer was fired after he warned the army about the liability connected with the radioactive contamination of a US base in Alabama. He is now on 40 per cent disability and has had 15 operations on his liver.
In the 2003 Gulf War, reports that US troops exposed to DU are becoming sick have already surfaced. On 17 July, the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper reported that US soldiers deployed around Baghdad Airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars, and dark brown spots on the skin. Three soldiers were flown back to Washington for treatment. It was also reported that 100 soldiers in Iraq developed pneumonia of unknown cause; 15 were sick enough to evacuate for intensive care and two of these have died.
Was DU involved in causing this illness? NATO experts tend to believe that the illness was a result of direct exposure to nuclear radiation from bombs armoured with DU used on Iraqi Republican Guard forces deployed to defend the vicinity of Baghdad Airport. American officials have imposed secrecy about the illness. NATO experts confirmed that there were levels of radioactive pollution in the area that had destructive impact on man and the environment that may lead to risks of illness in future generations.
Any conclusions about the risk of DU exposure are problematic since there are few systematic population investigations of the health consequences of exposure to this substance. The Department of Defence has overplayed the safety of DU and, at the same time, has stonewalled attempts to study Gulf War veterans and their exposure to it. The department claims that a soldier's boots and uniform provide protection against external sources of alpha and beta radiation while gamma radiation is too low to be of any danger. The department admits that inhaled and ingested DU or DU contaminated wounds may pose a long-term health hazard.
Despite its pubic pronouncements to the contrary, the actions of the Department of Defence following the 1991 Gulf War indicate that it believes that environmental DU is also hazardous. The department has recommended that any area contaminated with DU should be cordoned off to prevent contamination of civilian and military populations. Further, protective gear and respirators must be used by soldiers when investigating military equipment contaminated with DU. The department has also recommended that heavily exposed soldiers require long term follow-up, and has ordered that troops undergo training to orient them to the hazards of DU weapons.
The British government is more proactive and has ordered that British soldiers returning this year from Iraq must be offered urine testing for DU. The Royal Society has also recommended that the Iraqi civilian population should be monitored by checking milk and water samples for DU contamination over a prolonged period of time.
For its part, the US government announced in April 2003 that it had no intention of cleaning up the Iraqi battlefields since it believes that DU poses no danger to the Iraqi population.
* The writer is a retired physician living in Maryland.
