Guardian 11th January 2001

Nato brings out big guns to kill off cancer scare

Andrew Osborn in Brussels

Thursday January 11, 2001

Nato yesterday launched a massive damage limitation exercise it hopes will defuse growing concern that its use of armour-piercing depleted uranium-tipped shells in Kosovo may be the cause of unexplained cases of cancer among its troops.

In a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign at the alliance's Brussels headquarters, Nato's secretary general, Lord Robertson, told reporters that "no link of any kind" had been discovered between the use of depleted uranium (DU) shells and leukaemia or other illnesses.

"I do not believe the public should have been as excited as it has been. We are confident that there is little risk from DU munitions, but we refuse to be complacent," he said after a meeting of the alliance's top policy making body, the North Atlantic Council.

However he was adamant that even temporarily banning the use of such shells would be a grave mistake. "We must base our analysis on facts and not be swayed by perceptions," he said. "I would not agree to the use of the munitions if I believed there was a hazard."

Italy, Germany and Greece all pushed for a moratorium on the use of DU yesterday, but opposition from Britain and the US meant that the proposal was stillborn. Norway later said it too wanted a ban.

Nato's 19 ambassadors did agree to set up a working party to coordinate information on DU shells, a move which will go some way to assuaging Italy and other states which are pressing for a full inquiry. But the alliance will not conduct its own inquiry, preferring to leave it to organisations such as the UN, which it believes are better equipped for the job.

It has, however, already passed on the location of 112 sites in Kosovo where DU shells were used against Serb armour, and which it suspects may be contaminated. The UN said yesterday that it would consider marking and possibly sealing off these sites, and Nato has pledged to help with a clean-up.

Acutely aware of public anger in countries such as Italy over the perceived dangers of the shells, the alliance yesterday distributed a thick dossier of scientific reports debunking claims that DU was dangerous to health, and wheeled out two US medical experts from the Pentagon who claimed that the metal was practically harmless.

A former BBC defence correspondent, Mark Laity, now a Nato spokesman, also did his best to dampen rising alarm, in front of the biggest turnout of journalists since the Kosovo conflict in 1999.

Seated behind a 30mm DU-tipped shell of the kind fired by American tank-busting A-10 planes, Mr Laity criticised the media for blowing the issue out of all proportion. He said DU also had several civilian applications and was used as ballast in airliners and in the keels of many yachts.

But the concerns refuse to fade and have been fuelled by the death of six Italian Balkan peacekeepers from cancer.

Iraq yesterday demanded an inquiry into the use of DU shells in the 1991 Gulf war, suggesting that its cancer rates have soared in the aftermath.

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