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From: "viviane lerner" <•••@••.•••>
To: "Richard K Moore" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Fw: [GSN] depleted uranium weapons in Yugoslavia
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 19:27:35 -0700
-----Original Message-----
From: MichaelP <•••@••.•••
To: unlikely.suspects :; <unlikely.suspects :;
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 9:08 PM
Subject: [GSN] depleted uranium weapons in Yugoslavia
From: MichaelP <•••@••.•••
Felicity Arbuthnot has previously written inciteful pieces about the
plight of civilians in Baghdad. I think this report is reliable.- and
frightning !!
MichaelP
(Thanks Jos.A for fwd)
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NATO using depleted uranium weapons
Sunday Herald Glasgow, Scotland
By Felicity Arbuthnot and Darran Gardner April 4 1999
Deadly depleted uranium weapons, blamed for spiralling numbers of cancers
and birth defects in Iraq, are being used by NATO forces in Yugoslavia.
Both Tomahawk Cruise missiles and munition rounds used by American Warthog
bombers contain the radioactive waste material. While British forces
launched their first cruise missiles from the submarine HMS Splendid this
weekend, American forces have already fired more than 100 at targets
across Yugoslavia.
The weapons, first used in the Gulf War in 1991, require depleted uranium
(DU) for their armour piercing coating. The DU is imported under licence
from America and manufactured into tank-busting shells by Royal Ordnance
in the English Midlands, before being shipped to storage in South Wales
and at Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire.
DU shells have been linked to Gulf War Syndrome, which is thought to be
responsible for the deaths of more than 400 UK war veterans. DU munitions
are currently listed by the UN as weapons of mass destruction.
Dan Fahy of the US Military Toxics Projects, an American environmental
pressure group, told the Sunday Herald: "The Tomahawk cruise missiles now
being used in the Balkans, and those used during Desert Storm as well as
those used against Iraq in 1996 and December 1998, contain depleted
uranium in their tips to provide weight and stability.
"When they impact a target or other hard surface, the area can be
contaminated by uranium. "
Fahy warned that further contamination could occur if European and US
forces launched a ground war against the Serbian forces of President
Slobodan Milosevic. "If tanks go in, there will be further spread of DU."
According to Chris Helman, a senior analyst for the Centre of Defence
Information in Washington, it would be "an aberration" for American
Warthogs not to use DU munitions.
The lethal nature of exposure to DU has been well documented since the war
in Iraq. A report sent by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to
the British government in 1990, warned that if the 50 tonnes of residual
uranium dust was left in the Gulf area there would be more than half a
million extra cancers by the end of the century. Up to 900 tonnes was left
throughout Iraq and Kuwait.
In Scotland, DU has already been linked to a leukaemia cluster around the
MoD firing range at Dundrennan, near the Solway Firth. Communities close
to the range, where 7,000 shells have been tested since 1983, show the
highest rate of childhood leukaemia in the UK.
After the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) recently found
radioactive contamination on the site, people living near the range have
been increasingly anxious about the long-term health implications. Backed
by their MP Alisdair Morgan, they have called for an independent health
and environmental study to be carried out.
Despite the information provided by Fahy and Helman, a spokesman for the
Ministry of Defence dismissed as "nonsense" the claim that British and
American Tomahawks contained DU.
Major Rick Jones, spokesman for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in
Europe, said: "We don't comment on any ordnance." Both Nato and the
Pentagon refused to comment.
*** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. ***
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