LONDON: New fears have arisen over the long-term damage that can result from use of depleted uranium in the coalition attacks on Iraq.

“We are particularly worried because the tactics have changed in this war,” Henk van der Keur from the Laka Foundation, an independent group based in Amsterdam that researches nuclear energy told IPS. “The guerrilla tactics employed by Iraqis mean more tanks and fighting vehicles are operating in towns, and that means greater danger for people living there.”

Depleted uranium, a form of low-grade uranium is used in shells and rockets, usually alloyed with titanium to make them harder.

Depleted uranium is extremely dense material that remains when enriched uranium is separated from natural uranium to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. The fissionable isotope Uranium 235 is separated from uranium. The remaining uranium is called depleted uranium.

The US and British forces are firing these weapons hardened with depleted uranium from the US M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks, from the Bradley Fighting Vehicles and from the A10 ground attack aircraft known as the tank-buster. The British Challenger tanks are also firing weapons using depleted uranium, Keur says.

“The danger is that when these weapons hit their targets, microscopic particles are liberated, and people inhale these particles,” Keur says. “Many soldiers who fought in the last Gulf War are reported to have fallen ill from depleted uranium, but these reports have not been fully investigated.”

The Pentagon has admitted using about 300 tons of depleted uranium in the last Gulf War. Other independent estimates have suggested that about 1,000 tons may have been used.

“Depleted uranium is almost certainly an illegal weapon under a variety of international agreements including the Geneva Convention,” says Ian Willmore from Friends of the Earth in London. “It sets off radiation, and the consequences will inevitably be worse when such weapons are used in large cities or in confined space.”

Several of the battle tanks being used by the US and British forces are themselves strengthened with depleted uranium to toughen them against anti-tank fire.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.