BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO came under pressure on Tuesday to set aside political differences and face up to growing European concerns of a possible link between uranium tipped bombs and cases of cancer among Western peacekeepers. Controversy has erupted over the alliance"s use in the Balkans of armor-piercing shells tipped with depleted uranium although health experts have cast doubt on links to blood cancer among soldiers. Depleted uranium (DU) is used in missiles, shells and bullets to increase heavy armor penetration. Defense experts say it can be pulverized on impact into a radioactive dust. Political advisers at both NATO and the European Union met separately to discuss the issue. NATO appears split between those, like Britain and the United States, who argue there is no health risk from DU weaponry and others -- including Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium -- who want a full NATO inquiry. U.S. attack jets fired 31,000 rounds of DU ammunition against Serb targets during NATO"s 1999 campaign to drive the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo. Some 10,000 rounds were also fired in neighboring Bosnia in 1994-95. The controversy echoes the long-running row which followed the West"s use of DU munitions in the Gulf War that resulted in thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, the birth of deformed babies and claims of "Gulf War Syndrome" among soldiers. GROWING LIST OF VETERAN CASUALTIES Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands have reported deaths from cancer among soldiers who served in the Balkans. Many others have fallen ill, prompting widespread calls for increased medical screening and alliance-wide research. But NATO has insisted there is no known link between the depleted uranium arms and illness among troops. "There"s absolutely no proof that there"s a connection," Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday. World Health Organization experts in Geneva doubted that DU weapons had caused leukemia, a potentially fatal blood cancer, among troops sent to the Balkans. WHO experts said studies in Kosovo hospitals had so far shown no rise in average levels of leukemia among the largely Albanian civilian population of the Serbian province. But they warned that children playing in former conflict areas where the weapons had exploded could be at risk and recommended that soldiers who had taken home depleted uranium shell parts as souvenirs should dispose of them. The Royal Society of leading British scientists has said it plans to study the safety and health effects of depleted uranium in weapons used by NATO in the Balkans. NO RUSSIAN CASES, BUT SCREENING STEPPED UP Russian defense officials were quoted Tuesday as saying Moscow had so far found no peacekeepers ill with leukemia due to DU from NATO weapons used in Kosovo. Russia has around 4,000 troops in Kosovo and Bosnia. But Moscow insisted an international inquiry was the only way to check claims of so-called "Balkans Syndrome." The RIA news agency quoted Lieutenant-General Nikolai Staskov, first deputy head of Russia"s paratroop forces, as saying some 10,000 servicemen who had served in the former Yugoslavia would be examined in Russia. In London, a Defense Ministry spokesman denied media reports that Britain planned to screen war veterans. An official said later that the government would make a statement on depleted uranium at 1530 GMT. Defense experts said it was time to clear the air and urged NATO to agree on research into any possible health risks. "I think NATO should lead from the front," said British military analyst Paul Beaver, spokesman for Jane"s Weekly. "There is no doubt in my mind -- there has to be an alliance-wide epidemiological survey," he told Reuters. "This is not just military and medical, this is political. Bruce George, chairman of the British parliament"s influential defense select committee, told BBC Radio: "It is vitally important that all the major countries who are going to examine their forces do so with a common methodology. "It would be ludicrous if one group of people -- the Portuguese -- embarked on one approach and the Americans and British had different approaches." Former army engineer Kevin Rudland, the first British ex-serviceman to say contact with DU dust in the Balkans had caused him to suffer a related illness, said it was scandalous that the authorities were dragging their feet. "There are so many people in the same boat as me. I think they should sort this out once and for all," he said.
