BRUSSELS: Despite its efforts to reassure the public with stacks of independent, factual reports denying a serious health risk, NATO may have to accept that the scare over depleted uranium (DU) is here to stay.

The trick will be to make it lie dormant while allies tackle core issues: a NATO-European Union deal on crisis management; uneasy relations with Russia; controversial US plans for a missile shield and Kosovo Albanian separatist gunmen.

Beyond that challenge, some NATO diplomats worry that the so-called "precautionary principle" favoured by the EU is slowly bleeding from troubled transatlantic trade disputes into the domain of security.

This holds that if you suspect something, such as genetically modified foods, may be harmful, you don't need to show scientific proof in order to ban their import.

The principle is rejected by the United States and it could deal a severe blow to NATO's efforts to achieve higher military efficiency among the 19 allies if it ever seriously infected decision-making on weapons and standards.

After three weeks of allegations and explanations, the depleted uranium row is now at what a NATO official on Wednesday called "the needle-in-a-haystack stage, where you're always going to find an extra question."

While insisting there is no link between DU ammunition and cancer and no evidence of any mystery "Balkans Syndrome," the allies this week solemnly pledged to check again. The last thing they want is to appear complacent.

That may move the story off the front pages for now, but its potential to snap back to the top of Europe's news agendas cannot be underestimated, NATO insiders acknowledge.

"It's like the ''X-Files,'' or the Roswell Incident," said one alliance diplomat, comparing the suspicions whipped up by the alleged cancer risk to the belief in alien landings and abductions.

"It has become quite simply an urban legend," said another NATO source.

Realizing that its own hand-on-heart assurances would not be enough for some, NATO is urging doubters to read the independent scientific literature on depleted uranium.

"It's all out there on the Web," said the official.

But the alliance is aware from the suspicion it faced over the bombing of Yugoslavia that some people will always be swayed by the "terrible secret" version of a story, especially if top alliance politicians themselves seem ambivalent.

German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping, denying any evidence of a cancer risk, put up a strong argument for calm and reason in a Sunday television interview.

But on Wednesday, plutonium was the "extra question."

When reports surfaced that US-made DU munitions may contain tiny traces of the highly toxic isotope, Scharping called in a US diplomat "to express the concerns that are triggered by the word plutonium."

It was not the fact but the word, and its known certainty to alarm many German voters, that worried the minister.

A NATO official declined comment but noted it was no secret that DU is indeed made from nuclear waste and typically contains very small quantities of plutonium, which do not, however, significantly increase its low radioactivity.

As for persistent charges that DU has caused hundreds of cancer deaths in Iraq and Bosnia, the NATO official said such assertions "should be put through the same mill as ours."

"What we need is more evidence and less assertions," he added "Calm science works ... people are believing us. The allies are pleased with the way they have faced up to the issue last week and we're getting to grips with it."

A majority of the European Parliament, however, was clearly not convinced. Undeterred by NATO's weighty assurances, the deputies on Wednesday voted in favour of a moratorium on DU ammunition and an independent study.

The United States, Britain and France have already rejected calls by their German, Italian and Greek allies - all of whom have to take account of strong anti-NATO constituencies - to ditch what commanders say is the best tank-busting weapon.

Not only NATO is seeing its agenda for 2001 set back by the furore over depleted uranium. The EU's ruling Council in Brussels also says it is working overtime on the issue while other matters go on the backburner.

EU Foreign and Security Policy Chief Javier Solana tried in vain on Wednesday to head off the European Parliament moratorium vote, which is not binding but can only add pressure on opinion-led governments to cut and run. Citing all the steps taken to ensure no clues are overlooked and all the science already published showing no health risk, Solana urged deputies to remember what the stakes had been when NATO used the munitions in Bosnia and Kosovo in 1995 and 1999.

Agencies via Xinhua

Date: 01/19/2001
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