[And to lie-and-deny there and elsewhere, now and forever. Perhaps General Ralston would give us a personal demonstration by inhaling a generous dose of plutonium dust himself. Properly heated and ionized, of course.]

NATO's senior military commander insisted yesterday that his troops would use depleted uranium ammunition in Kosovo if they came under attack, despite a campaign to brand it dangerous. General Joseph Ralston, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said: "I have a responsibility to protect the soldiers in Kosovo." Although Nato had no need at present to use depleted uranium because there was no fighting, senior officers were willing to order its use, he said. "In the unlikely event that Kfor soldiers or citizens were attacked tonight by a tank, I would be irresponsible not to use depleted uranium."

His comments came after a meeting with George Papandreou, the Greek Foreign Minister, in Athens. Greece is among a number of European countries concerned about possible health risks from DU ammunition and has allowed some of its troops to pull out of Nato's Kosovo force. Nato admitted that it would not be surprised if traces of highly radioactive plutonium and uranium 236 were found in Kosovan soil, but said it did not see that as a cause for concern.

A spokesman said: "We're not predicting it but we would not be surprised. Neither would we be worried." The traces would be too small to "add in any way to the existing low-level health risk". He said a committee of 50 nations hastily set up by the alliance two weeks ago had found no evidence to support claims that the ammunition, which Nato says is the most efficient means of penetrating modern tank armour, could cause cancer.

America admitted that the DU rounds in use by its A10 tankbuster aircraft still contained dirty depleted uranium, tarnished by traces of plutonium introduced during the manufacturing process. The Pentagon said the batches of depleted uranium used in US rounds had come from two American factories which were reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.

A spokesman said: "In these plants we found elements in the equipment itself that would have produced these trace elements in the depleted uranium as it was processed through those plants." The plutonium and other trace elements would still be in the ammunition because America had not made any new DU ammunition since then, he said.

But he insisted that there was no risk. He said: "If you would inhale one-millionth of an ounce of depleted uranium that contained levels of plutonium found in our studies, this would result in you inhaling 1/23rd of a quadrillionth of a gramme of plutonium. We have seen nothing in our studies that would indicate that this has more than an insignificant amount of impact on either personal health or the environment."