In Northern New Mexico, a large percentage of American Indians working in mines during the fifties and sixties, later developed cancer and related illnesses. In Iraq, children today suffer from a nine-fold increase in cancer, and some mothers have reportedly given birth to infants who are missing eyes and noses. Almost a sixth of the American troops who served in Operation Desert Storm suffer from illnesses and ailments whose symptoms range from minor skin irritations, chronic fatigue and hair loss to various types of cancer. In Europe, at least fifteen soldiers have died of leukemia, and several more have reported ailments similar to those felt by their American counterparts. What do each of these cases have in common? They are all populations who have been exposed to radioactivity in the form of depleted uranium, a toxic by-product of natural uranium.

The United States, by far the country most responsible for depleted uranium (DU) contamination, has roughly 1.6 billion pounds of DU, and the government has tested it near indigenous peoples and has used it in various military operations, most notably during the Gulf War and the Balkans War. Militarily, DU is used because it is cheap and it is efficient in armor piercing. It also conveniently turns enemy territory into a nuclear waste dump. Depleted uranium was first used during the Gulf War. Iraq and northern Kuwait became a virtual testing ground for depleted-uranium weapons. Over 940,000 30-millimeter uranium tipped bullets and more than 14,000 large caliber DU rounds were consumed during Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield, according to the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute.

Depleted uranium was also used more recently during NATO's attack on the Balkans both in 1994-95, and in 1999. It is reported that NATO used one-third the number of DU bullets in Bosnia that it did in Kosovo, which was more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition. In Yugoslavia the current number of rounds that the U.S. government admits to firing are 31,000. NATO's very own guidelines state: Inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium dust particles has been associated with long-term health effects including cancers and birth defects. It was only after six Italian soldiers who had served in Kosovo, died from leukemia, that the scandal caused havoc in NATO. Geoffrey Hoon, the Defense Secretary, began to contradict himself, saying DU posed a limited risk, then no risks, then, bizarrely, that it is "protecting British forces" a similar line to the one Colin Powell toted in response to Gulf War Syndrome.

As far as the United States is concerned, the government reports published before the Gulf War confirm the links between DU and negative health consequences on those exposed. A report by the US Army Environmental Policy Institute stated,If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The report adds,The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological. Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures. In another report conducted by the US Army Armament Kinetic Energy report, SAIC reported that short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low does have been implicated in cancer. Since the medical findings linking Gulf War Syndrome and Balkans War Syndrome to depleted uranium, the U.S. government, as well as NATO, have severely altered their tone.

Up until recently, the United States government stonewalled nearly every discussion of Gulf War Syndrome and even denied its existence. Now, officials who defend U.S. foreign policy initiatives unconditionally, refuse to admit any link to DU. Other guilty parties include Great Britain, where there is at least a controversy brewing unlike the eerie silence on the subject here in the United States.

On 9 January, Britain's Defense Minister reported that the conclusion of many years of research demonstrated there is no evidence linking DU to cancers or to the more general ill health being experienced by some Gulf veterans. This is in complete contradiction to the credible and extensive data available dating back to the development of the atomic bomb in 1943, when the head of the Manhattan Project cautioned that particles of uranium used in ammunition could cause permanent lung damage. In 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority warned that, if particles from merely 8 per cent of the DU used in the Gulf were inhaled, there could be 300,000 potential deaths.

Several physicists agree with the consequences of depleted uranium. Renown nuclear physicist Dr. Michio Kaku is reported to have said: Now we have hundreds of millions of tons of nuclear waste tailings, all of which goes into the nuclear-fuel cycle and winds up as depleted uranium-DU. We now shoot nuclear wastes into other people's backyards. We're talking about laying the groundwork for an investigation into war crimes against ordinary people.

The UN has called for an investigation into the military use of DU by NATO and the United States. Both refuse to comply. NATO says it will do its own investigations.

When the Iraqi government refused to comply with UNSCOM weapons inspections, the United States brandished Saddam as a satan. Clinton then proceeded to bomb Iraq. But when the United States and its Western allies are responsible for the far more massive and repeated use of radioactive weapons against civilian populations, it is passed off as collateral damage. NATO and the United States must pay for their crimes before DU becomes simply another bad memory in human history.

Sarah Waheed is a freelance writer and media contributor to Media Monitors Network (MMN), in Chicago, Illinois.