THE GUARDIAN (London)
Monday January 8, 2001
MoD pressed to move on toxic shells
Special report: Kosovo
Richard Norton-Taylor

The Ministry of Defence was coming under increasing pressure last night to screen British troops who served in the Balkans and the Gulf war for signs of contamination by depleted uranium used in anti-tank weapons.

With Nato officials preparing to face up to growing concern across Europe about the weapons linked to a spate of leukaemia cases among Balkans veterans, Britain and the US, the only two countries to use the shells, are increasingly isolated in their defence.

Switzerland yesterday joined France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, and Finland in setting up screening programmes for soldiers who have served in the Balkans.

Official assurances and the lack of hard evidence have failed to dampen public concern among veterans - echoed by the European commission and the UN - about the safety of the weapons. Senior officials will meet in Nato headquarters in Brussels tomorrow to consider how to respond to pressure on governments faced with evidence linking DU shells with cancer. The EU has announced an inquiry into the health risks of the shells.

The Ministry of Defence insisted that ranges in Eskmeals, Cumbria, and the Solway Firth in Scotland, where DU shells were used, were monitored by the health and safety executive. It could not comment on reports they had also been fired at the army's ranges at Lulworth, Dorset.

Though the ministry acknowledges that toxic dust from the shells is harmful if inhaled or ingested in large quantities, a spokesman said it did not believe the shells posed "any significant health risk".

The MoD has asked for an independent study by the Royal Society, which is to report in the spring. However, it has no plans to screen veterans, the spokesman said.

The ministry's stand has not been helped by its failure to warn troops before the Gulf war of the risks of DU in shells used by US AI0 "tankbusters" and British Chieftain tanks.

The Labour MP Paul Flynn yesterday showed the Guardian a letter he received in 1993 from Jeremy Hanley, then a Foreign Office minister, who explained that the omission was due "to the urgency attached to bringing into service such a critical capability which at the start of the crisis was still under development".

Mr Flynn, who was also told in 1993 that DU shells had been used in West Freugh, Scotland, and Foulness in Essex, criticised the MoD for contaminating large areas with radioactive dust - what he called "an unknown hazard with unknown remedies".

Terry Gooding, a Gulf war veteran, described the MoD's refusal to screen for DU contamination as "disgusting". He has a war pension for what the MoD describes as "unspecified and ill-defined" illnesses.

American A10 aircraft fired more than 30,000 rounds of DU shells in Kosovo and more than 10,000 in Bosnia, mainly around Sarajevo.

The Commons defence committee is to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to summon ministers to explain the government's policy. "If it is shown that depleted uranium causes an increase in cancers, then we have got to look at alternative weapon systems and at precautions which could be taken to protect our troops, as well as at how we can clean up the areas where the shells were used," said Bruce George, the committee chairman.

He said no repeat should be permitted of the MoD foot-dragging over Gulf war syndrome in the 1990s, which saw ex-servicemen battling for years to convince ministers that their illness was real.