DU Shells Spiked with Plutonium

by John LaForge, Nukewatch

"Plutonium is a fuel that is toxic beyond human experience. It is demonstrably carcinogenic to animals in microgram quantities. The lung cancer risk associated with these radiologically unique aerosols is unknown to orders of magnitude. Present plutonium standards are certainly irrelevant."

The world press has discovered depleted uranium (DU) weapons -- the super hard munitions made with toxic radioactive waste material. The deaths from leukemia of sixteen white Europeans -- after their participation in military missions in Bosnia and Kosovo -- have moved major news groups, the European Parliament and eleven European governments to launch investigations into the health and environmental consequences of "shooting radioactive waste at your enemy," as Dr. Rosalie Bertell puts it.

DU (also known as U 238) is left after uranium ore has gone through the gaseous diffusion process that removes most of the fissionable isotope U 235. DU, prized for its high density, is then used to create munitions capable of piercing heavy metal, such as the outer shells of tanks. By building radioactive waste into armaments, the U.S. is, in effect, using radiation as a weapon of war.

Some 320 tons of DU munitions were blasted into Iraq and Kuwait by U.S. forces in 1991. The Pentagon says the U.S. fired about 10,800 DU rounds -- close to three tons -- on Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. More than ten tons were blasted into Kosovo in 1999.

A total of sixteen soldiers from Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Czech Republic have died of leukemia since their 1994 and 1995 service in Bosnia and Kosovo. In response, Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Guterres wrote to NATO Secretary General George Robertson demanding an explanation of where and why DU munitions were used in Europe.

The U.S. military and apologists for the nuclear industry reacted swiftly to Italian and German politicians who demanded information from the Pentagon and called for a moratorium on the use of DU. After a week-long study, NATO hastily assured that DU used in the Balkans can be "ruled out" as a significant health hazard.

NATO Denials Contradicted

Prominent scientists worked to calm the uproar. Dr. John Boice, of the International Epidemiology Institute, told the New York Times (January 13, 2001), "To get leukemia you need to get the radiation to the bone marrow. The radiation does not go to the marrow. And uranium 238 will not get to the bone marrow. I don't think it causes leukemia at all."

U.S. physicist Steve Fetter told the same paper that uranium did not penetrate to bone and marrow, where leukemia originates. This half-truth refers to external DU exposure and neglects the internal hazard from ingestion or inhalation.

Jean François Lacronique, director of France's National Radiation Protection Agency, flatly contradicted NATO, saying, "U 238 has been found stored in bone, and if it gets into bone, it can reach the bone marrow."

Dr. Frank von Hippel, author of a December 1999 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article on DU, told Nukewatch, "Yes, it does get to the bone. We looked at that in our study." And the December 2000 Science for Democratic Action reports that "some particles remain in the body where they can build up in lung [tissue], or enter the blood stream where it can accumulate in bone tissue." Internal exposure "increases the risk of leukemia and lung, bone and soft tissue cancers, particularly when inhaled or ingested."

At the height of the January media frenzy, a 17-year-old advisory bulletin from the U.S. Federal Aeronautics Administration was leaked to the press. It puts the lie to official government denials of health risks associated with DU exposure. The December 20, 1984 memo warns FAA crash site investigators that "if particles are inhaled or digested, they can be chemically toxic and cause a significant and long-lasting irradiation of internal tissue."

Needing no further evidence of harm, the European Parliament, on January 17, 2001, voted 394 to 60 for a resolution urging a moratorium on the use of DU among its members.

Just when NATO felt it was getting the public "hysteria" over DU munitions under control, the presence of plutonium was disclosed.

Plutonium Contamination Raises Stakes

In Europe, a wildfire of publicity was lit by the United States' publicized admission in January, 2001 that its DU shells contain plutonium and other nuclear wastes far more radioactive and carcinogenic than uranium 238. Dr. von Hippel wrote in The Bulletin that plutonium 239 is roughly 200,000 times more radioactive than U 238. And plutonium 238 is 300 times more radioactive than plutonium 239.

The dose of plutonium 239 needed to cause lung cancer is about a millionth of an ounce. "Plutonium is probably the most carcinogenic substance known," according to Dr. Arjun Makhijani, writing in the 1992 book Plutonium.

Pentagon assurances regarding plutonium appear preposterous in light of its power to cause cancer, yet the Associated Press reported on February 3, "U.S. officials have said the shells contained mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm."

On February 13, NATO officials said that "traces of highly radioactive elements such as plutonium and americium were not relevant to soldiers' health because of their minute quantities."

"If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium," said Dr. Michael Repacholi of the World Health Organization, which has demanded to know how much plutonium is in the DU ammunition. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is still working on an answer to that question.

As early as January 2000, the DOE quietly admitted that the United States' DU munitions are spiked with deadly plutonium, neptunium and americium-"transuranic" (heavier than uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear reactors. This news, however, was never publicized.

DU "contains a trace amount of plutonium," said the DOE's assistant secretary David Michaels, who wrote to the Military Toxics Project on January 20, 2000: "Recycled uranium, which came straight from one of our production sites, e.g., Hanford, would routinely contain transuranics at a very low level. . . .We have initiated a project to characterize the level of transuranics in the various depleted uranium inventories."

The DU is made by Starmet Corporation in Concord, Massachusetts; Aerojet Corporation in Sacramento, California; and others. It is used to make at least five types of munitions, as well as casings for bombs, shielding on tanks, counterweights, and "ground penetrators" on missiles.

Poison Weapons Illegal in Any Armed Conflict

The U.S. Air Force's 1976 "International Law: The Conduct of Armed Conflict and Air Operations" governs the actions of all U.S. pilots. "It is especially important," the manual says, "that treaties, having the force of law equal to laws enacted by the Congress of the United States, be scrupulously adhered to by the United States armed forces." The manual names treaties specifically recognized as binding, including the Hague Conventions of 1907, the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, and the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, 1949.

The Geneva Gas Protocol outlaws "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices . . ." The Hague Conventions explicitly outlaw poison saying, "It is especially forbidden: a) To employ poison or poisoned weapons."

Poison is defined by the Air Force manual as "biological or chemical substances causing death or disability with permanent effects when, in even small quantities, they are ingested, enter the lungs or bloodstream, or touch the skin."

Although the law couldn't be more clear, NATO spokesman François Le Blevennec told Knight Ridder January 6, 2001 that DU "has never been declared illegal by any war convention." However, as the Air Force manual makes clear, "any weapon may be put to an unlawful use." The manual declares, "A weapon may be illegal per se if either international custom or treaty has forbidden its use under all circumstances. An example is poison to kill or injure a person."

WAMM Action!

"Depleted Uranium: The Invisible Weapon"

Thursday, August 9, 2001, 6:45 p.m.

William Mitchell College of Law
875 Summit Avenue (at Victoria)
2nd Floor Auditorium

Featuring:

Doug Rokke, Ph.D., veteran of two wars and former director of the Army's Depleted Uranium Project (1994-1995). A confirmed depleted uranium (DU) poisoning casualty, Rokke has dedicated himself to the work of obtaining medical care for all individuals affected by DU, as well as the completion of environmental remediation.

John LaForge, longtime anti-nuclear activist and organizer for Wisconsin-based Nukewatch.

Tom Bottolene, organizer for Alliant Action, a coalition that opposes Minnesota-based Alliant Techsystems, a supplier of over 17 million DU munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Sponsored by WAMM, Twin Cities Campaign to End the Sanctions, Minnesota Veterans for Peace Chapter 27, Minnesota Alliance for Democracy, and others.