The Guardian
Whitehall chaos over depleted uranium paper
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uranium/story/0,7369,421050,00.html
Special report: depleted uranium
Staff and agencies
Thursday January 11, 2001

Whitehall confusion over depleted uranium weapons deepened today as armed forces minister John Spellar admitted he did not know how widely a paper warning of the risks of cancer had been distributed within the Army.

The 1997 paper, an internal medical report that warned of a heightened risk of lung, lymph and brain cancer from the weapons, had earlier been dismissed by the Ministry of Defence as the "discredited" work of a junior officer.

But it later emerged that a covering letter from the office of the quartermaster general had recommended the paper should be circulated to military and civilian personnel likely to come into contact with depleted uranium (DU) ammunition.

"It will be of particular interest to the RAC (royal armoured corps), REME (royal electrical and mechanical engineers) and RLC (royal logistics corps) crew men and associated civilian workers involved in reclamation and decontamination work," the letter said. In an interview with BBC, Mr Spellar was forced to concede that he had "no idea" whether the report and covering letter, dated April 17 1997, had in fact been sent out.

But he insisted the Army medical report had been flawed and that there was no scientific evidence linking DU with cancer or the other symptoms reported by Gulf war and Balkans veterans. "The paper on the hazards of depleted uranium munitions has a number of errors in it. Much of it is actually correct. Certain elements are scientifically incorrect or misleading," he said.

"All the data from the various countries shows no evidence linking depleted to cancers or the more general ill health being experienced by some Gulf veterans."

The latest disclosures will come as a further embarrassment to the government, which has been desperate to stem the flow of damaging claims and allegations that Downing Street had hoped to kill off the story by forcing a reluctant MoD to offer medical tests to veterans.

It followed a wave of concern sweeping across European nations with troops in the region after it emerged that eight Italian soldiers who had served in Bosnia had since contracted leukaemia. Despite claims that their illnesses may have been the result of inhaling DU dust from exploded rounds fired by American A10 "tankbuster" aircraft, both Britain and the US have resisted Italian and German calls for a moratorium on the use of DU weapons.

At today's Cabinet meeting, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, told ministers that although the government was now offering medical tests to veterans it did not accept that DU weapons posed a "significant health risk" to British troops.

"He simply made the point that as the government we have a clear duty of care to our personnel and we take that duty very seriously. That's why we have offered the screening programme," the prime minister's official spokesman, Alastair Campbell, said.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats have demanded that Mr Hoon makes a full statement to the House of Commons explaining exactly what ministers had been told about the risks associated with DU.