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DEPLETED URANIUM IN BUNKER BOMBS
America's big dirty secret
(Le Mode diplomatique, March 2002)
The United States loudly and proudly
boasted this
month of its new bomb currently
being used against
al-Qaida hold-outs in Afghanistan;
it sucks the air
from underground installations,
suffocating those
within. The US has also admitted
that it has used
depleted uranium weaponry over the
last decade
against bunkers in Iraq, Kosovo, and now
Afghanistan.
by ROBERT
JAMES PARSONS *
"The immediate concern for medical
professionals and employees of aid
organisations remains the threat of
extensive depleted uranium (DU)
contamination in Afghanistan." This
is one of the conclusions of a 130-page
report, Mystery Metal Nightmare in
Afghanistan? (1), by Dai Williams, an
independent researcher and
occupational psychologist. It is the result of more
than a year of research into DU and
its effects on those exposed to it.
Using internet sites of both NGOs
(2) and arms manufacturers, Williams has
come up with information that he has
cross-checked and compared with
weapons that the Pentagon has
reported � indeed boasted about � using
during the war. What emerges is a
startling and frightening vision of war, both
in Afghanistan and in the future.
Since 1997 the United States has
been modifying and upgrading its missiles and
guided (smart) bombs. Prototypes of
these bombs were tested in the Kosovo
mountains in 1999, but a far greater
range has been tested in Afghanistan. The
upgrade involves replacing a
conventional warhead by a heavy, dense metal one
(3). Calculating the volume and the
weight of this mystery metal leads to two
possible conclusions: it is either
tungsten or depleted uranium.
Tungsten poses problems. Its melting
point (3,422�C) makes it very hard to
work; it is expensive; it is
produced mostly by China; and it does not burn. DU
is pyrophoric, burning on impact or
if it is ignited, with a melting point of
1,132�C; it is much easier to
process; and as nuclear waste, it is available free
to arms manufacturers. Further,
using it in a range of weapons significantly
reduces the US nuclear waste storage
problem.
This type of weapon can penetrate
many metres of reinforced concrete or rock
in seconds. It is equipped with a
detonator controlled by a computer that
measures the density of the material
passed through and, when the warhead
reaches the targeted void or a set
depth, detonates the warhead, which then has
an explosive and incendiary effect.
The DU burns fiercely and rapidly,
carbonising everything in the void,
while the DU itself is transformed into a fine
uranium oxide powder. Although only
30% of the DU of a 30mm penetrator
round is oxidised, the DU charge of
a missile oxidises 100%. Most of the dust
particles produced measure less than
1.5 microns, small enough to be breathed
in.
For a few researchers in this area,
the controversy over the use of DU
weapons during the Kosovo war got
side-tracked. Instead of asking what
weapons might have been used against
most of the targets (underground
mountain bunkers) acknowledged by
Nato, discussion focused on 30mm
anti-tank penetrator rounds, which
Nato had admitted using but which would
have been ineffective against
superhardened underground installations.
However, as long as the questions
focused on such anti-tank penetrators, they
dealt with rounds whose maximum
weight was five kilos for a 120mm round.
The DU explosive charges in the
guided bomb systems used in Afghanistan can
weigh as much as one and a half
metric tons (as in Raytheon's Bunker Buster
� GBU-28) (4).
Who cares?
In Geneva, where most of the aid
agencies active in Afghanistan are based,
Williams's report has caused varied
reactions. The United Nations Office of the
High Commissioner for Refugees and
the Office for the Co-ordination of
Humanitarian Affairs have circulated
it. But it does not seem to have worried
agency and programme directors much.
Only M�decins sans Fronti�res and the
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) say
they fear an environmental and
health catastrophe.
In March and April 2001, UNEP and
the World Health Organisation (WHO)
published reports on DU, reports
that are frequently cited by those claiming DU
is innocuous. The Pentagon
emphasises that the organisations are independent
and neutral. But the UNEP study is,
at best, compromised. The WHO study is
unreliable.
The Kosovo assessment mission that
provided the basis for the UNEP analysis
was organised using maps supplied by
Nato; Nato troops accompanied the
researchers to protect them from
unexploded munitions, including cluster bomb
sub-munitions. These sub-munitions,
as Williams discovered, were probably
equipped with DU shaped-charges.
Nato troops prevented researchers from
any contact with DU sub-munitions,
even from discovering their existence.
During the 16 months before the UNEP
mission, the Pentagon sent at least 10
study teams into the field and did
major clean-up operations (5). Out of 8,112
anti-tank penetrator rounds fired on
the sites studied, the UNEP team
recovered only 11, although many
more would not have been burned. And, 18
to 20 months after the firing, the
amount of dust found directly on sites hit by
these rounds was particularly small.
The WHO undertook no proper
epidemiological study, only an academic desk
study. Under pressure from the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the
WHO confined itself to studying DU
as a heavy-metal, chemical contaminant.
In January 2001, alerted to the
imminent publication by Le Monde
diplomatique of an article attacking
its inaction (6), the WHO held a press
conference and announced a $2m fund
� eventually $20m � for research into
DU. According Dr Michael Repacholi
of the WHO, the report on DU, under
way since 1999 and supervised by the
British geologist Barry Smith, would be
expanded to include radiation
contamination. The work would include analyses
of urine of people exposed to DU,
conducted to determine the exposure level.
But the monograph, published 10
weeks later, was merely a survey of existing
literature on the subject. Out of
hundreds of thousands of monographs published
since 1945, which ought to have been
explored in depth, the report covered only
monographs on chemical
contamination, with a few noteworthy exceptions. The
few articles about dealing with
radiation contamination that had been consulted
came from the Pentagon and the Rand
Corporation, the Pentagon think- tank. It
is unsurprising that the report was
bland.
The recommendations of the two
reports were common sense, and repeated
advice already given by the WHO and
echoed regularly by the aid organisations
working in Kosovo. This included
marking off known target sites, collecting
penetrator rounds wherever possible,
keeping children away from contaminated
sites, and the suggested monitoring
of some wells later on.
Uranium plus
The problem can be summed up as two
key findings:
o Radiation emitted by DU threatens
the human body because, once DU dust
has been inhaled, it becomes an
internal radiation source; international radiation
protection standards, the basis of
expert claims that DU is harmless, deal only
with external radiation sources;
o Dirty DU � the UNEP report, for
all its failings, deserves credit for
mentioning this. Uranium from
reactors, recycled for use in munitions, contains
additional highly toxic elements,
such as plutonium, 1.6 kilogrammes of which
could kill 8bn people. Rather than
depleted uranium, it should be called uranium
plus.
In a French TV documentary on Canal+
in January 2001 (7), a team of
researchers presented the results of
an investigation into a gaseous diffusion �
recycling � plant in Paducah,
Kentucky, US. According to the lawyer for
100,000 plaintiffs, who are past and
present plant employees, they were
contaminated because of flagrant
non-compliance with basic safety standards;
the entire plant is irrevocably
contaminated, as is everything it produces. The
documentary claimed that the DU in
the missiles that were dropped on
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq is
likely to be a product of this plant.
These weapons represent more than
just a new approach to warfare. The US
rearmament programme launched during
Ronald Reagan's presidency was
based on the premise that the victor
in future conflicts would be the side that
destroyed the enemy's command and
communications centres. Such centres
are increasingly located in
superhardened bunkers deep underground.
Hitting such sites with nuclear
weapons would do the job well, but also produce
radiation that even the Pentagon
would have to acknowledge as fearsome, not
to mention the bad public relations
arising from mushroom-shaped clouds in a
world aware of the dangers of
nuclear war. DU warheads seem clean: they
produce a fire modest in comparison
with a nuclear detonation, though the
incendiary effect can be just as
destructive.
The information that Williams has
gathered (8) shows that after computer
modelling in 1987, the US conducted
the first real operational tests against
Baghdad in 1991. The war in Kosovo
provided further opportunity to test, on
impressively hard targets, DU weapon
prototypes as well as weapons already
in production. Afghan-istan has seen
an extension and amplification of such
tests. But at the Pentagon there is
little transparency about this.
Williams cites several press
articles (9) in December 2001 mentioning NBC
(nuclear-biological-chemical) teams
in the field checking for possible
contamination. Such contamination,
according to the US government, would be
attributed to the Taliban. But, last
October, Afghan doctors, citing rapid deaths
from internal ailments, were
accusing the coalition of using chemical and
radioactive weapons. The symptoms
they reported (haemorrhaging, pulmonary
constriction and vomiting) could
have resulted from radiation contamination.
On 5 December, when a friendly-fire
bomb hit coalition soldiers, media
representatives were all immediately
removed from the scene and locked up in
a hangar. According to the Pentagon,
the bomb was a GBU-31, carrying a
BLU-109 warhead. The Canal+
documentary shows an arms manufacturer's
sales representative at an
international fair in Dubai in 1999, just after the
Kosovo war. He is presenting a
BLU-109 warhead and describing its
penetration capabilities against
superhardened underground targets, explaining
that this model had been tested in a
recent war.
Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of
Defence, on 16 January this year admitted
that the US had found radiation in
Afghanistan (10). But this, he reassured, was
merely from DU warheads (supposedly
belonging to al-Qaida); he did not
explain how al-Qaida could have
launched them without planes. Williams points
out that, even if the coalition has
used no DU weapons, those attributed to
al-Qaida might turn out to be an
even greater source of contamination,
especially if they came from Russia,
in which case the DU could be even dirtier
than that from Paducah.
Following its assessment mission in
the Balkans, UNEP set up a post-conflict
assessment unit. Its director,
Henrik Slotte, has announced that it is ready to
work in Afghanistan as soon as
possible, given proper security, unimpeded
access to hit sites, and financing.
The WHO remains silent. When questions
about the current state of the DU
research fund were addressed to Jon Lidon,
spokesman for the director general,
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO did
not answer. Yet Williams urges that
studies begin immediately, as victims of
severe UD exposure may soon all be
dead, yet with their deaths attributed to
the rigours of winter.
In Jefferson County, Indiana, the
Pentagon has closed the 200-acre
(80-hectare) proving ground where it
used to test-fire DU rounds. The lowest
estimate for cleaning up the site
comes to $7.8bn, not including permanent
storage of the earth to a depth of
six metres and of all the vegetation.
Considering the cost too high, the
military finally decided to give the tract to the
National Park Service for a nature
preserve � an offer that was promptly
refused. Now there is talk of
turning it into a National Sacrifice Zone and
closing it forever. This gives an
idea of the fate awaiting those regions of the
planet where the US has used and
will use depleted uranium.
* Journalist, Geneva
(1) See website
(2) The internet sites of Jane's
Defense Information, the Federation of American
Scientists, the Centre of Defense
Information.
(3) See FAS Website
(4) FAS and USA Today
(5) Chronology of environmental
sampling in the Balkans
(6) See Deafening silence on
depleted uranium, Le Monde diplomatique English edition,
February 2001.
(7) La Guerre radioactive secr�te,
by Martin Meissonnier, Roger Trilling, Guillaume
d'Allessandro and Luc Hermann, first
broadcast in February 2000; updated and
rebroadcast in January 2001 under
the title L'Uranium appauvri, nous avons retrouv�
l'usine contamin�e by Roger Trilling
and Luc Hermann.
(8) The Use of Modeling and
Simulation in the Planning of Attacks on Iraqi Chemical
and Biological Warfare Targets
(9) For example "New Evidence is
Adding to US Fears of Al-Qaida Dirty Bomb",
International Herald Tribune,
December 5, 2001; "Uranium Reportedly Found in
Tunnel Complex", USA Today, December
24, 2001.
(10) "US Says More Weapons Sites
Found in Afghanistan", Reuters, January 16, 2002.
Translated
by the author
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED � 1997-2002 Le
Monde diplomatique
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