Is the Pentagon using DU in Bosnia?

By Gary Wilson, Workers World, 22 January 1998

Evidence is mounting that the U.S. military is using chemical and depleted uranium-coated weapons in Bosnia.

Over the last year, persistent reports of the use of chemical and depleted-uranium weapons have appeared in the media.

The bulletin of the Serbian Unity Congress reports that NATO helicopters have been spraying chemicals over villages in the county of Doboj in the Republic of Srpska. (News Bulletin, Dec. 15, 1997) “All inhabitants from the villages over which the helicopters were flying started showing signs of massive choking, difficulties in breathing, headaches, watering of the eyes, malaise, vomiting, fatigue and drowsiness,” the bulletin reports.

“It is already evident that the effects of ‘chemical’ activities of NATO helicopters are being combined with the effects caused by NATO air strikes from Aug. 10 to Sept. 13, 1995, when both military and civilian targets in the Republic of Srpska were bombarded, especially in the county of Doboj. At that time the armament used had some sort of a milder nuclear charge. From the air bombs and missiles the craters remained from which there is a constant spreading of radioactive radiation,” the report continues.

This is consistent with a report in the Sept. 1, 1997, New York Times. The Times said the news media in the Republic of Srpska were reporting that “the NATO bombs unleashed low levels of radiation intended to make Serbs sick and destroy corps.”

The Times wrote: ‘Nothing grows around that hole, the field is destroyed,’ said Vlada Stevanic, 38, as he sat next to his three small children. ‘This is because of the radiation the NATO bombs put in the ground. A lot of people have been sick here since the attack. This is also from the radiation.’

“A yellow chunk of the missile with the words ‘Department of the Navy Naval Air Systems’ lay stacked against the side of a small shed with two other twisted metal hunks collected from the pit,” the Times reported.

The U.S. military has begun using a new generation of bullets and shells made from the radioactive residue of nuclear-weapons production. This dense material, called depleted uranium, increases the shells' ability to penetrate armor.

It also burns when it strikes the armor, releasing tiny radioactive particles into the air—which people may inhale or ingest.

The first large-scale use of these weapons was in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. DU is suspected of contributing to Gulf War Syndrome. These illnesses afflict ten of thousands of U.S. veterans of that war.

Some now believe these weapons are causing similar illnesses in the Balkans.