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ISIS
The military hazards of depleted uranium
Author: General Sir Hugh Beach
Summary of Main Points:
· The use of depleted uranium (DU) in munitions significantly enhances their ability to
penetrate and destroy armoured vehicles.
· Concern surrounds the long-term impact on humans of the clouds of uranium dust
thrown up by the impact of DU munitions on armoured vehicles.
· Although 90 per cent of inhaled or ingested uranium is excreted within 24 to 48 hours,
about 10 per cent remains to form a long-term radiological hazard.
· The Ministry of Defence needs to be much more forthcoming in its attitude to screening
for soldiers or civilians who are ill and suspect a service related illness.
· If one accepts the application of the precautionary principle, concerns about the use of
DU suggest that NATO now needs to investigate whether all existing types of DU-based
munitions are still needed.
· While DU remains in service NATO should agree to record and report as accurately as
possible the time and exact places of its use.
Briefing Paper No. 78, January 2001

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Sir Hugh Beach is a member of the ISIS Governing Board. Formerly he was Master
General of the Ordnance and Warden of St. George’s House, Windsor Castle.
Contact the author for further information on:
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Email: hugh.beach@lineone.net
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The military hazards of depleted uranium
1. The nature of Depleted Uranium
and its uses
Depleted uranium (DU) is natural uranium that
has had much of its fissile (chain-reacting) isotope
removed. Hence, DU is about 40 per cent
less radioactive than natural uranium. The International
Atomic Energy Agency categorises
it as a Low Specific Activity material – the lowest
hazard class of all.
A by-product of the uranium enrichment process,
DU is both plentiful and comparatively
cheap. As an extremely dense material, DU fulfils
a number of civilian applications – including
as radiation shielding in hospital radiotherapy
departments. There are several tens of
thousands of tonnes of DU in civil use in the
UK alone and hence considerable knowledge
of the risks of occupational exposure to it.
Like other heavy metals (cadmium or lead) uranium
in soluble form is toxic. This means that
once dissolved in the blood it can cause damage
to body tissue, chronic kidney damage being
the most probable.
2. The military usefulness of DU
Besides being dense, uranium is also exceedingly
tough – i.e. resistant to deformation. This
property gives it unique value as a ‘penetrator’
of heavy armour. Until the mid-1980s the most
commonly used penetrators were tungstenbased.
On impact with armour these deform
in a way that progressively degrades penetration.
Uranium alloy penetrators preserve their
shape and ‘self-sharpen’.
This difference accounts for the superior performance
of DU over tungsten, giving 20 per
cent more penetration as well as being considerably
cheaper. During the 1970s several countries
decided to use DU rather than Tungsten
Heavy Alloy in armour piercing rounds for the
principal armament of their main battle tanks
(MBT): M-1 Abrams in the US, Leclerc in France,
Challenger-2 in Britain and T-80 in Russia.
DU has a further property that makes it still
more potent in the attack of armour. When a
DU penetrator impacts on a hard surface it
generates a cloud of uranium dust which ignites
spontaneously in air. Hence, when the
round has entered its target (e.g. a tank), it
causes a fierce fire that will greatly increase the
damage caused and may well cause the contents
of the vehicle to burn up. A material having
this property is described as ‘pyrophoric’.
Apart from ammunition for tank main armaments
DU is also used in smaller calibre rounds.
The Royal Navy’s Vulcan Phalanx is a Close-in-
Weapon-System (bought from the US) that uses
20mm ammunition, some rounds being made
of DU alloyed with molybdenum. The American
A-10 Warthog tank-killing aircraft is armed
with the GAU-8 30mm Gatling gun, the principal
ammunition of which is made of DU al
loyed with titanium.
3. DU munitions in action
Prior to 1990, DU-based tank ammunition was
already being developed for use by the UK’s
new Challenger-2 tank, also then under development.
During the Gulf War the Ministry of

2
Defence (MoD) quickly adapted that ammunition
for use by the existing Challenger-1 tank
fleet. In the campaign that followed British
tanks are reported to have fired 88 rounds
against the Iraqis (less than one ton of DU),
although additional rounds were no doubt fired
in Saudi Arabia during training.
The US Army, by contrast, expended some
9,500 tank rounds (including pre-combat livefire
training) totalling some 50 tons of DU. The
US Air Force fired some 783,000 30mm DU
rounds totalling 259 tons of DU. Over 300 tons
of DU, therefore, was used in this campaign: a
surprisingly large total.
In the campaigns in Yugoslavia British forces
made no use of DU-based ammunition. The
US used DU ammunition from A-10 aircraft
in Bosnia in 1994-95 amounting to some 10,000
rounds (3 tons of DU) and on some 100 missions
during the Kosovo campaign in 1999,
using 31,000 rounds (9 tons of DU).
4. Radiation hazards from use of
DU-based ammunition in action
Even though the most modern tanks now
achieve much greater accuracy than ever before
in the heat of battle, it is reasonable to
assume that many more shots will miss than
hit. Where radioactive hazard is concerned we
are confronted with four general cases.
Rounds that hit a soft target or the ground tend
to stay intact or break into a few large fragments.
In this condition they emit little general
radiation of any consequence and are all but
harmless.
The second case is where the round hits a hard
object. This does not differ substantially from
the third case, namely:
Hitting its intended armoured target. When a
DU penetrator impacts upon armour its kinetic
energy is largely converted into heat by a combination
of shock and frictional heating. A
cloud of airborne debris is generated which
spontaneously ignites producing a plume of
fine particles. Based upon numerous test firings
it seems that about 20 per cent of the DU is
converted in this way to uranium oxides in aerosol
form, the normal radioactivity of the material
being unaffected by combustion.
About half of the dispersed aerosol can be inhaled.
In tests, some 40 per cent of inhalable
DU dissolves in simulated lung fluids within a
week but according to a model set up by the
International Commission on Radiological Protection
some 10 per cent can be retained in the
lungs for more than a year. Exposure to alpha
and beta radiation from such insoluble inhaled
DU could, in principle, cause damage to lung
tissue and a raised probability of lung cancer
some years later.
Much of the radioactive aerosol outside the target
vehicle is carried up on a column of hot air
created by the heat of the explosion. Some is deposited
quickly within a few tens of metres of
the target. This takes a considerable time to dilute
and disperse but is relatively easy to detect.
Other lighter material is carried further. Based on
test firings of DU-based ammunition in the UK,
the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency’s
Radiation Protection Service (DRPS) has reported
that radioactive material is difficult to detect more
than about one hundred metres from the target
even with the best monitoring equipment.
The resulting radiation hazard has been calculated
in various ways. According to two American
experts, if a person was unlucky enough to
be exposed to several close hits, the statistical
added risk of dying from cancer would be one
in 20,000. 1 (By way of comparison Americans
1
Steve Fetter and Frank von Hippel, “After the dust

3
have a one-in-five risk of dying from cancer
anyway). These authors estimate that if ten
percent of the 300 tons of DU expended in
the Gulf War was converted into aerosols and
blown over an area with average population
density of 50 people per square kilometre
(about right for Iraq) the result might be 10
excess lung cancer deaths in the lifetimes of
the exposed population distributed over a population
of up to one million. DU dust deposited
by the plumes could be kicked up later by wind
or human activity. For a resident population this
might roughly double the initial inhalation dose.
An alternative (but not incompatible) calculation
is offered by the British MoD (Testing for
the presence of depleted uranium in UK veterans of
the Gulf conflict: the current position, 19 March 1999,
available at http://www.mod.uk/
index.php3?page=991 ). This report concludes
that it is unlikely that anyone other than those
in an armoured vehicle that had been penetrated
by a DU projectile or those spending
prolonged periods within a few tens of meters
of the target would be exposed to enough of
the aerosol to receive a radiation dose of more
than 20-30 mSv. (compared to the permissible
whole body annual dose of 50 mSv).
settles”, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 55, No. 6, November/December
1999, pp. 42-45, available at
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/
nd99vonhippel.html.
Assessments carried out by the DRPS suggest
that such worst-case exposures could lead to
the inhalation of several milligrams of DU an
hour. This would occur only if people were
involved in dust-raising activity inside vehicles
that had been hit by DU rounds (for example
in removing human remains for burial or attempting
recovery of the vehicle). A continued
exposure at this level would need to extend
over a few tens of hours before the danger
level would be reached. Those working inside
lighter armoured vehicles or lorries hit by
DU would be at much less risk since DU penetrators
usually pass straight through leaving
holes the size of a ping-pong ball.
It is theoretically possible to inhale DU dust at
second hand through contact with people who
themselves have been contaminated on skin or
clothes (e.g. casualties or prisoners of war) but
in practice this does not represent a credible
route of exposure at any serious level.
The fourth case to be considered is that of
individuals who have solid fragments of
DU embedded in them as a result of shrapnel
wounds. Such fragments should be readily
detectable by X-rays and it would be normal
surgical practice to remove the larger
ones as soon as possible. Smaller particles,
however, may be so intimately mingled
with tissue as to be irremovable by surgical
means.
No such British casualties of this kind have
occurred since the only “friendly fire” episode
in the Gulf War involved Maverick missiles not
DU rounds. The US, however, had a number
of armoured vehicles hit by their own DU
rounds in ‘friendly fire’ episodes. Ten years after
the event no evidence of radiation damage
has emerged in any of the 15 US soldiers with
embedded DU fragments. The number of Iraqi
soldiers wounded in this way could run into
thousands.
Taking all these factors into consideration the
DRPS has concluded, so far as the British military
are concerned, that even in the worst possible
case during the Gulf War exposure levels
“would have been far below the very high exposure
levels known to cause acute radiation
health effects in humans”. That the same may
be true of longer-term effects is suggested by
the results of a significant study recently reported
by the MoD. 2
2
UK Ministry of Defence, “UK Gulf Veterans’ Mortality”,
20 July 2000, available at http://www.mod.uk/
index.php3?page=1443.

4
These figures suggest very strongly that DUinduced
effects were not a factor in Gulf Veterans’
mortality during the first decade after the
war. So far as the US is concerned it is reported
that “there’s no proof that a single American
soldier is sick purely as a result of DU exposure”.
3
5. Chemical toxicity hazard from
use of DU in action
The degree of chemical toxicity of uranium is
similar to that of other heavy metals, cadmium
or lead. The real reason for concern – as in the
case of the radiation hazard – lies in the clouds
of uranium dust thrown up by the impact of
DU penetrators on hard objects such as tanks.
American Army tests have indicated that up to
half of the uranium oxides produced by these
impacts is relatively soluble. Whether swallowed
or breathed in, such material is quickly dissolved
in the body’s fluids and transported around the
bloodstream. Uranium’s reaction with other
biological molecules causes damage.
About 90 per cent of the uranium is excreted
by the kidneys within 24 to 48 hours, and it is
in the kidneys themselves that almost all the
damage occurs. In the acid environment of
urine the uranium combines with proteins in
the tubular walls of the kidney causing cell
death, and decreased ability to filter. The remaining
10 per cent of uranium that is not excreted
lodges permanently in organs such as
the liver and kidney, in fat and muscle but
chiefly in the bones. Here it can form a longterm
radiological hazard but the only known
evidence of chemical damage from uranium
in humans is to the kidneys.
3
William Arkin, “Politically depleted Munitions”, The
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 55, No.6, November/
December 1999, p. 72, available at http://
www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/nd99/
nd99arkin.html.
In order to inhale a dangerous level of uranium
dust someone would either have to have been
in a tank when it was hit by a DU-based round;
or have entered the tank immediately afterwards
in a rescue attempt; or taken part in a lengthy
clean-up inside the vehicle without proper respiration
gear; or engaged in other activities, such
as a recovery operation, leading to the inhalation
of freshly kicked up dust.
6. International law
Under the 1977 Geneva Protocols parties are
prohibited from employing materiel and methods
of warfare “of a nature to cause superfluous
injury or unnecessary suffering” or which
may be expected to cause “widespread, longterm
and severe damage to the natural environment”.
These protocols have now been ratified
by some 150 states (recently including the
UK, but not the US). Hence the war in Kosovo
was the first to be fought by Britain in which it
was bound by these Protocols. As the British
Government has explicitly recognised, one of
the principal purposes of these protocols is to
protect the civilian population and civilian objects
during armed conflict.
The British government’s categorical opinion
is that the use of DU ammunition is not proscribed
by the above nor by any other international
agreement to which the UK is a party.
This statement is considered below in the light
of the radiological, toxic and incendiary hazards
that can result from the use of DU munitions
in action.
7. DU as a radiological weapon
Uranium is certainly a material able to cause
injury by radioactive decay, and DU-based
ammunition contains this material as its princi-

5
pal harmful element. But it is not specifically designed
for this purpose. On the contrary it is
designed for the defeat of armour by shock
and heat, any damage or injury by ionising radiation
being an unwanted side-effect. There
is no international instrument forbidding the
use or possession of radiological weapons and
even under previous formulations, such as that
constructed by the Conference on Disarmament,
DU would not have been defined as such.
8. DU as a chemical weapon
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC) bans the use of all chemical weapons
as well as their development, production, stockpiling
or transfer. All chemical weapons and
their production facilities are to be destroyed.
Some 141 states have ratified the CWC, including
the US, Russia, and the whole of NATO.
The CWC is one of the most successful arms
control measures of all times – only certain key
states in the Middle East have refused to ratify.
(See http://www.opcw.org)
The relevance of the CWC to the present discussion
lies in its definitions. Although DU,
particularly in its dispersed form, is certainly a
toxic chemical, because DU-based ammunition
is not specifically designed to cause death or other
harm through the toxic properties of those
chemicals it is not a chemical weapon within
the terms of the CWC.
9. DU as an incendiary weapon
Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons (CCW) – ratified
by some 80 states including the US and the UK
– forbids attacks against civilians, though not
combatants, by incendiary weapons. Whether
the CCW has had any practical effect must be
open to doubt since it lacks any mechanism
for verification or compliance.
Once again, this Protocol draws a clear qualitative
distinction between weapons primarily
designed to set fire and others, in which the
incendiary effect is incidental. As the latter
category includes armour-piercing projectiles,
the exemption of DU-based munitions from
the application of this Protocol is quite specific.
It could be argued that this repeated recourse
to “specific design” is a cop-out, enabling governments
to circumvent the clear intention of
the Protocols to the Geneva Convention referred
to above. Restricted definitions of this
kind are essential in qualitative arms control,
however, without which the whole enterprise
would become vacuous.
10. Civilians in Iraq
One of the earliest worries to surface was the
effect upon civilians in Iraq, about which there
is little independent investigation in the form
of “on-site inspection”. One notable exception
is William Arkin, who at the time of writing
was Director of Military Research for
Greenpeace International. On the alleged effects
of DU on the civil population in Iraq he
said: “once inside Iraq and away from the Baghdad
propaganda regime, the story simply evaporated”.
4
4
William Arkin, “The desert glows – with propaganda”,
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Vol. 49, No. 4,
May 1993, available at http://
www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1993/may93/
may93reports.html#anchor433187.

6
11. American Gulf War veterans
Another major issue of concern has been the
part played by DU-based ammunition in the
variety of ailments reported by allied soldiers
who had served in the Gulf War and subsequently
generalised as “Gulf War syndrome”.
Ten years after the conclusion of the war there
is no known scientifically valid evidence linking
morbidity (let alone death) of US soldiers
taking part in that war with their exposure to
DU. This applies specifically to soldiers who
survived direct hits on their tanks by DU rounds
and includes some who retain DU fragments
in their bodies. This conclusion must apply a
fortiori to those who suffered lesser exposure.
The possibility of traumatic effects due to DU
emerging in future years can, of course, never
be excluded so long as any of these veterans
survive.
12. British participants in the Gulf
War
Since the British army in the Gulf suffered no
“friendly fire” episodes involving DU-based
ammunition it follows that no British soldier
could have experienced exposure to DU at an
intensity comparable to the American victims
of direct hits.
In May 2000 the House of Commons Defence
Committee published a Report on Gulf Veterans
Illnesses. 5 Under the heading “Depleted
Uranium” the committee criticised the government
for the way in which it had dealt with
5
House of Commons Defence Committee, Seventh
Report, Gulf Veterans’ Illnesses, Session 1999-2000, HC
125, The Stationery Office, 19 April 2000, available at
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/
cm199900/cmselect/cmdfence/125/12502.htm.
veterans’ concerns. The MoD was said to have
taken action on DU testing only when this had
become unavoidable, and had failed to explain
to veterans exactly what the available tests involved
so that some believed they had been
misled.
The Committee hoped that the MoD would
now approach these concerns in a less defensive
and more collaborative way. In particular
the Committee commended an investigation
being carried out by a team of scientists from
the Royal Society. In its reply the Government
promised that their physicians would arrange
for Gulf veterans to undergo any tests that they
consider clinically appropriate, including testing
for total urinary uranium if a need was seen
for it.
The Government duly welcomed and promised
to support the work of the Royal Society
Working Group. And it announced the setting
up of a MoD Depleted Uranium Working
Group to “provide a better explanation of the
potential … hazards associated with DU, and
to examine the potential for additional research”.
Thus, the Government largely acceded
to the suggestions of the Select Committee.
Meanwhile, the Government has reiterated its
view that, while “the radioactive and chemical
toxicity hazards of DU are recognised (they)
believe the risks to health which they pose are
small. Nevertheless (they) take appropriate precautions
and detailed safety instructions on the
hazards of DU are provided to all Service personnel”.
6
6
Eleventh Special Report. Gulf Veterans’ Illnesses :
Government Observations on the Seventh Report
from the Defence Committee of the Session 1999-
2000, HC 753. The Stationery Office, 19 July 2000,
available at http://www.parliament.the-stationeryoffice.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmdfence/753/
75302.htm.

7
13. NATO forces in the Balkans
DU-based rounds were fired by US A-10 aircraft
in the Balkans. Their use in the Kosovo
campaign was announced during the campaign
and in July 1999 NATO issued a warning to all
peacekeepers urging the use of face masks,
gloves and other protective measures when
coming into contact with DU-based shell fragments.
Soon afterwards the UN, on a joint initiative
of their Centre on Human Settlements and
their Environment Programme, set up a Balkans
Task Force (BTF) to monitor the situation.
This consisted of experts from the World
Health Organisation (WHO), the International
Atomic Energy Agency and the Swedish Radiation
Protection Institute. In October 1999
the BTF, noting that sites containing the remains
of DU-based ammunition had not received
any special protection, recommended
that local civilians should be warned of the risks
and contaminated sites marked off. The UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote to his
NATO counterpart, Lord Robertson, asking
for information. Four months later, in February
2000, Lord Robertson replied, saying that
NATO had used DU-based ammunition on
about 100 missions, to a total of 31,000 rounds
(9 tons of DU).
By January 2001 the BTF’s team of 14 scientists
had examined 11 of the 112 sites identified
by Lord Robertson (five in the Italian and
six in the German sectors) and issued an interim
report. On three sites they found no signs
of contamination. On eight sites there was a
slightly higher than normal level of beta radiation,
from which clothing normally provides
sufficient protection.
Although the 340 samples taken by the team
had not been fully analysed, the BTF’s Chairman
reported on 7 January 2001 that for any
NATO soldier to have suffered harm from
weapons residue he would have to have been
in close contact with contaminated material for
a long time. He thus effectively dismissed fears
that NATO troops could have contracted leukaemia
from radioactive dust. But he complained
again that none of the sites had been
marked and cordoned.
WHO specialists said that there has been no
rise in average levels of leukaemia among Albanian
civilians living in Kosovo. In fact, compared
with previous years there had been a
slight decrease in the year 2000. They confirmed
that the risk to soldiers in Kosovo was
minimal. Cancer takes five to twenty years to
develop, making the link with uranium even
more unlikely. Bernard Kouchner, head of the
UN mission in Kosovo, agreed: “in my humble
experience as a health minister for ten years,
I think there is no real risk”, he said. The final
report of the BTF should be ready by Spring
2001.
Nevertheless, the issue was re-ignited when the
families of eight Italian servicemen and a nurse
who had died of cancer following stints in the
Balkans took their complaints to the newspapers.
Independent Italian medical experts were
sceptical. They pointed out that while a total
of 11 confirmed cases of leukaemia among a
population of 65,000 Italian troops who have
served in the Balkans is higher than the natural
incidence of 1 in 10,000 for that age group,
the difference is not particularly significant.
Other countries then chimed in. In Portugal,
where one death had been reported, the Prime
Minister said he could no longer be completely
confident in NATO assurances, and ordered
the testing of some 10,000 soldiers and civilians
who had served in the Balkans. In Spain
press reports said that seven Spanish troops and
one civilian had contracted cancer since serving
in the Balkans and two had died, but the
military authorities deny any cause for alarm.
In France five cases of leukaemia have been

8
reported. In Poland, though there have been
no suspicious casualties, 600 troops are being
tested. In Belgium there have been five fatal
cases of cancer and a survey of 12,000 soldiers
is in progress. In the Netherlands there have
been several leukaemia cases. In Greece tests
are being carried out. In the Czech republic the
death of a pilot is being investigated.
In Germany all cases of leukaemia in the military
are being reviewed. The Defence Minister,
Rudolf Scharping, said that there was no
risk to soldiers from uranium. But the Chancellor,
Gerhard Schroeder, smarting from the
enforced resignations of his health and farm
ministers for failing to forestall the onset of
“Mad Cow Disease” in cattle, overruled
Scharping and said that there should be a moratorium
on the use of DU-based weapons until
the effects were clear. Norway, where soldiers
are refusing to serve on peace-keeping duty in
the Balkans, has offered health check-ups to
20,000 soldiers. And the Russian government
has called for an independent inquiry.
This pressure forced NATO’s hand. On 10 and
12 January 2001 Lord Robertson, speaking to
journalists at NATO headquarters in Brussels,
acknowledged that NATO’s assurances were
not being accepted in many quarters and announced
a “full-scale” action plan. This involves
providing further details of locations struck by
DU weapons, liaising with other international
organisations, co-ordinating research and setting
up a new committee to study further the
effects of DU. This may serve to defuse the
immediate brouhaha and deflect demands to
suspend the use of all DU-based munitions.
But it comes late in the day. Detailed locations
of DU strikes ought to have been disseminated
long ago.
The British MoD has also shifted its ground.
Speaking in the House of Commons on 9 January
2001, John Spellar, the Armed Forces Minister,
promised an additional voluntary screening
process for service personnel and civilians
who had served in the Balkans. Bodies such as
the National Screening Committee of the Department
of Health would be consulted. One
would have thought that the Kosovo veterans
could simply join the Gulf War arrangements.
In practice, matters may be less straightforward.
The most important point is that such screening
should be done by an independent body.
This may take until the end of the year to arrange.
These actions by NATO and in the UK are
welcome so far as they go. It is unfortunate
that they were not taken earlier, before the erosion
of trust became dangerous.
14. Use of DU on training ranges
A side-issue to surface during the Kosovo rumpus
was the “revelation” in the first week of
January 2001 that DU-based rounds had been
test-fired on ranges in the UK. In fact this was
no secret. The use of test ranges in the UK
was mentioned in the first (1993) MoD report
on “Radiological and Chemical Hazards of DU”
(http://www.mod.uk/indexphp3?page=990).
Although the National Gulf War Veterans Association
said that such testing could be a serious
risk to public health 7 , there is not the faintest
evidence for this assertion. Test firing is an
essential part of developing and producing
ammunition of any kind. DU-based rounds
have been proof-fired in the UK for over twenty
years. All such firings are carried out under the
Ionising Radiation Regulations 2000, enforced
by the HSE and its Scottish counterpart. These
bodies have a monitoring programme and have
published results that continue to show no significant
risk to marine life, service personnel
or civilians. John Spellar dealt with this point
in his statement and there the issue should rest.
7
Sunday Telegraph, 7 January 2001.

9
15. What the authorities have said
The US authorities have been quite unbending
on certain points of principle: DU-based ammunition
is economical and demonstrably more
effective against heavily armoured targets than
any other; its use contravenes no international
convention or undertaking; there is no known
instance of a US soldier or civilian suffering in
health due to exposure to DU – even those
who had survived inside armoured vehicles
struck by DU-based ammunition. (See http://
www.gulflink.osd.mil/du, 31 July 1998). This
conclusion holds good ten years after the event.
Claims of civilian morbidity or death resulting
from the use of DU-based rounds in the Gulf
War and the Balkans are most unlikely to be
true and have never been substantiated.
It follows that the US government has every
intention of keeping DU-based rounds in its
inventory and of using them in any future war
where US forces are required to engage enemy
armour.
In Britain the House of Commons Foreign
Affairs Committee, in its Fourth Report of the
1999-2000 Session dealing with Kosovo , noted
the British government’s position as follows:
“the MoD reserves the right to use DU-based
weapons if the safety of British troops requires
a capability against modern armour”. 8 This mirrors
the US view precisely. The Committee
noted with surprise that the government had
not unequivocally asserted that the use of DU
was lawful.
The MoD has been under constant pressure
from the House of Commons Defence Committee
on the subject of Gulf veterans’ illnesses
8
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee,
Fourth Report, Kosovo, Session 1999-2000, HC 28-I,
The Stationery Office, 23 May 2000, available at http:/
/www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/
cmselect/cmfaff/28/2802.htm.
and from recent media concern about Kosovo
veterans. Moves have been made to give the
safety implications of DU-based munitions
much more attention. The importance of independent
research has been recognised by the
Government both in the welcome given to the
study being carried out by the Royal Society
and by the admission that screening of veterans
should in future be conducted by an independent
body. These are welcome moves, needing
to be supplemented by a far greater emphasis
on public explanation.
16. What is to be done?
A Review Conference of the CCW will convene
this Spring. It would not be justifiable to
seek the addition of a Protocol banning all DUbased
rounds, at least at this stage. Let us consider
the rationale for some existing bans. Unlike
blinding weapons, cluster bombs etc. the
case for any ban on DU-based rounds is weak.
There is no evidence at present, built upon peerreviewed
scientific research from any quarter,
of one single unintended casualty, military or
civilian, attributable to the radiological or toxic
effects of DU on the human body. Meanwhile
the ammunition, at least as applied to the main
armament of battle tanks, is proven to be of
unique effectiveness.
There are certain obvious steps that need to be
taken urgently.
1. All soldiers and civilians employed in operations
where DU-based ammunition is used, or
on post-war tasks in areas where it has been
used, should be properly equipped for and instructed
in the necessary protective measures.
As explained above, NATO issued a warning
in July 1999 to all peacekeepers in Kosovo urging
the use of face-masks, gloves and other protective
measures when coming into contact with
DU-based shell fragments. That some national

10
contingents failed to do so sits very oddly with
the indignation some are now expressing over
the leukaemia scare.
2. DU-based ammunition is not inherently “indiscriminate”;
indeed the great precision of the
tank ammunition is one of its great selling
points. It need not be used indiscriminately, nor
should it be. Amended Protocol II (of May
1996) to the CCW, while directly applicable only
to anti-personnel mines, gives useful general
guidance concerning the indiscriminate use of
munitions and on collateral damage. It provides
that use of munitions must be recorded. This
means recording the location and area where
the munitions were used, the total number and
type, the date and time of use. It provides that
responsibility for the clearance of all residual
ordnance should be assigned to those who have
used them. All necessary technical information
should be made available to the UN and demining
bodies immediately after the end of
hostilities. Warning of the threat posed by
“remnants of war” should be provided to the
civilian population immediately.
3. It is quite inexcusable that eighteen months
should have elapsed after the end of the
Kosovo war before the UN and NATO arranged
for sites where DU debris was known
to exist to be marked and cordoned off, and
due warning given to the locals.
4. NATO and all governments, not least the
British, need to adopt a totally new attitude to
public information. As explained above there
are excellent documents on DU in the public
domain. Still more convincing documentation
is available from American sources. All this
material has been allowed to lie dormant. It has
been painful to see how, as crises of public
confidence have arisen, information has been
dragged out of public respondents in the form
of “revelations”, “admissions” and so forth.
For example, much has been made of “warnings”
relating to the possible toxicity and radiological
hazards of DU-based rounds. This
has been in the public domain for years, needing
only to be set in its proper context.
5. The MoD also needs to be much more forthcoming
in its attitude to screening for soldiers
or civilians who are ill and suspect a servicerelated
cause. The story of “concessions” reluctantly
extracted for sufferers from Gulf War
syndrome and more recently Kosovo veterans
is one from which the MoD needs urgently to
learn a lesson – as the Select Committee made
plain. The need for independent scientific
judgement also needs to be addressed much
more positively.
17. Can NATO do without DU-based
weapons?
The precautionary principle states that if the
safety of a system is uncertain its use should
be limited. Can the use of DU be sensibly limited?
One avenue is to enquire whether all existing
types of DU-based munitions are needed.
An obvious candiate for disposal is DU-based
ammunition for the naval Phalanx Close-in-
Weapons System. This weapon has been in
service with the US Navy since 1978, designed
for terminal defence against sea-skimming missiles.
It uses 20mm ammunition made of a DUmolybdenum
alloy.
In 1988, however, based on live testing, the US
Navy decided that tungsten rounds met the
performance requirements while offering reduced
probabilities of radiation exposure and
environmental impact. Anti-ship missiles at
close range are of course much softer targets
than tanks. Since the DU-based ammunition is
manufactured in the US, the Royal Navy is perforce
following suit. But it has only now (13
January 2001) announced that the DU-based
ammunition is being phased out over the next
two years.

11
A similar question, though not directly applicable
to the UK, needs to be raised about the
GAU-8/A air-to-surface gun system for the A-
10 close-support aircraft. The aircraft, designed
to counter the massive Warsaw pact armoured
formations once expected to form the spearhead
of any attack into Western Europe, was
literally designed around the GAU-8. This large,
eight-barrelled 30-mm cannon was designed to
defeat the top armour of even the heaviest
enemy tanks. The US Air Force opted for an
armour-piercing incendiary round (API) using
a DU-titanium alloy. The system was deployed
to Europe (including the UK) over twenty years
ago.
As we have seen, more than 80 per cent of all
DU-based munitions used in the Gulf war and
all of those used in the Balkans were fired from
A-10 aircraft. These were no doubt effective
in the Gulf against Iraqi tanks and other heavy
equipment. The relative lack of success of air
attacks on Serbian field equipment in the
Kosovo campaign has been analysed in another
ISIS Report. 9 All the post-war damage assessment
of that campaign has focussed on airdelivered
bombs. It must be doubted, for the
reasons explained in the ISIS report, whether
A-10 aircraft scored any hits at all. The postwar
literature on this campaign makes no mention
of them.
The use of DU rounds was protested at the
time by some NATO allies. The damage it has
caused in recent weeks has seriously shaken the
cohesion of the Alliance. Is it not time to retire
this elderly system, designed for a completely
different scene? The occasions when
NATO will need to defeat modern armour by
top-attack from close support aircraft must be
9
General Sir Hugh Beach and Roy Isbister, “Old
wine, new bottle: the Just War tradition and humanitarian
intervention”, ISIS Briefing on Humanitarian Intervention
No. 3, October 2000, available at http://
www.isisuk.demon.co.uk/0811/isis/uk/hiproject/
no3.html.
numbered. If constrained to operate above
5,000m the chances of success must be minimal.
If it is too much for NATO to ask that the US
Air Force dispense with this ammunition and
revert to tungsten, at least they might be reminded
of the likely adverse effects on public
support for the Alliance. They must also be
reminded of the need to avoid civilian casualties
as far as possible. NATO needs to be put
under an obligation to record and report, as
accurately as possible, the times and exact places
of such use. And, as suggested above, the US
should accept the obligation, post-war, urgently
to ensure that sites where residual DU rounds
are found are located, marked and cordoned
off, and that advice should be provided to the
local population. This prospect alone may serve
to dim the attractiveness of this weapon system
in the eyes of the US military and bring
forward the day when they are prepared to renounce
it.
Another basic principle in radiation protection
is that all exposures should be as low as reasonably
attainable (ALARA). Based on the evidence
presented above, the use of DU-based
ammunition for the main armament of their
principal battle tanks by the US, Britain and
France meets that requirement, subject to the
various safeguards just discussed. Yet lingering
doubts remain. It is not simply that various
important investigations are still incomplete:
notably those by the Royal Society in the UK
and by the UN Balkans Task Force in Kosovo.
Nor is it based on suspicion that, in carrying
out the multifarious studies described above,
the investigators may have trimmed to the
wishes of those paying for the studies; though
it must be said that the financial stakes for governments
in the form of compensation claims
must be enormous. At root it is a question of
the “falsifiability” of all scientific knowledge,
coupled with the inherent impossibility of proving
a negative.

12
The dilemma is plain. Does it make sense to
believe that the few maverick scientists are on
to something and should be heeded? This is
not unusual in the history of science and the
term is used in no pejorative sense – the discovery
of prions as the causative agent of
spongiform encephalopathies being an excellent
case in point. Or should one follow the
established and unanimous finding of peer-reviewed
publications and proceed on that basis
until worse is proved?
In the case of radiological and toxic consequences
of ingesting/inhaling DU oxide dust
we are talking of substances which may remain
lodged in the body tissue until death. Does
the fact that no ill effects have shown up in ten
years of exposure provide any reassurance
against morbidity in twenty, thirty or forty years
time? May the radiation or chemical toxicity
synergise with some other agency as yet unidentified
to produce sinister consequences? The
fact that DU residues on the ground in Kosovo
have been shown to contain a much more radioactive
isotope (albeit in tiny quantities) that
could only have derived from re-cycling – not
enrichment – raises the disturbing possibility
of other harmful contamination.
The Gulf War syndrome is still largely unexplained
though many causes have been proposed:
multiple vaccines against biological warfare
agents; smoke from burning oil wells; organophosphate
sprays in tents; protectives
against chemical warfare agents or the release
of such agents by bombing of Iraqi ammunition
dumps. But no one can say with certainty
that the 300 tons of DU residues played no
part. Scientists, like other academics, are adept
at proposing lines of needed future research.
In this case we may have to wait for many years
before the full truth emerges.

Recent ISIS (UK) Briefing Papers
International Security Briefings
No.73 : The Revolution in Military Affairs and the UK, Gerrard Quille, December 1998.
No.74 : The Future of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Dr Stephen Pullinger, November 1999.
No.75 : Controlling Chemical Weapons, Ian R. Kenyon, January 2000.
No.76 : International Security in the Early Twenty-First Century, Prof. Paul Rogers, January 2000.
No.77 : Saintly or Cynical: An Ethical Dimension to Foreign Policy, Ronald Higgins, May 2000.
ISIS Briefings on UK Nuclear Weapons Policy
No.1: On the Road to “Zero”? - A Long-Term Perspective on UK Nuclear Weapons Policy, Prof. John Ziman, FRS,
July 1999.
No.2: The Verification and Compliance Regime for a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, Dr Trevor Findlay,
November 1999.
No.3: Nuclear Non-Proliferation at the Crossroads, Rebecca Johnson, January 2000.
No.4: Opportunities for Breakthrough: Britain’s Role in Furthering Nuclear Disarmament, Nick Ritchie,
March 2000.
No.5: Implications of the Outcome of the NPT Review Conference, Rebecca Johnson, January 2001.
ISIS Briefings on Preventing Deliberate Disease
No.1: The Danger from Deliberate Disease, Dr Stephen Pullinger, July 1999.
No.2: The Emerging Verification Protocol, Dr Stephen Pullinger, July 1999.
No.3: Accurate and Complete Declarations, Dr Stephen Pullinger, November 1999.
No.4: The BTWC Protocol: An Integrated, Reliable and Effective Regime, Profs Graham Pearson and Malcolm
Dando, May 2000.
No.5: 25 Years of the BTWC: Assessing Risks and Opportunities, Profs Graham Pearson and Malcolm Dando
(eds), June 2000.
No.6: Strengthening the BTWC through International Cooperation in Microbiology and Biotechnology,
Prof. Graham Pearson, January 2001.
ISIS Briefings on Humanitarian Intervention
No.1: Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical Endeavours and the Politics of Interest, Roy Isbister, May 2000.
No.2: Peace Support under Fire: Lessons from Sierra Leone, Colonel (ret.) Philip R. Wilkinson, OBE, June
2000.
No.3: Old Wine, New Bottle: The Just War Tradition and Humanitarian Intervention, General Sir Hugh
Beach and Roy Isbister, October 2000.
ISIS Briefings on Ballistic Missile Defence
No.1: Missile Defence Policy: Strident Voices and Perilous Choices, Dr Gordon R. Mitchell, April 2000.
No.2: Theatre Missile Defence: Deployment Prospects and Impact on Europe, General Sir Hugh Beach,
September 2000.
No.3: National Missile Defence: Implications for UK Security, Dr Stephen Pullinger, October 2000.
_____________________________________________________________________________
ISIS Briefing Papers are available on the web at http://www.isisuk.demon.co.uk.
Hard copies are available from Dr. Stephen Pullinger, Executive Director, ISIS,
Strand Bridge House, 138-142 The Strand, London WC2 1RH.
Tel: +44 (0)20-7848 2941; Fax: +44 (0)20-7848 2748;
Email: spullinger@isisuk.demon.co.uk