The British Ministry of Defence last night admitted it had known about the potential risk associated with depleted uranium (DU) weapons for more than 20 years. However, it insisted that the threat to British service personnel had always been insignificant.
The disclosure compounded ministerial embarrassment, already high after it emerged that an army health warning - dismissed earlier in the day as "discredited" - had in fact been issued on the authority of the then chief of staff, although he may not have read it.
The Ministry of Defence had shrugged off press disclosures of a 1997 internal army medical report warning that exposure to depleted uranium - used in US and British anti-tank shells - increased the risk of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers.
The Ministry of Defence claimed the document was "the flawed work of a junior officer". Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, the Ministry's chief scientific adviser, Sir Keith O'Nions, said it contained "many, many scientific errors" adding: "I am sorry to have publicly damaged someone [the author] who is probably rather embarrassed it has seen the light of day." And Sir Keith insisted the document had not been "part of the approved advice stream to ministers".
However, just hours later the Armed Forces Minister, Mr John Spellar, was forced to tell the World At One programme he had "no idea" whether the report and covering letter, dated April 17th, 1997, had been distributed, as was then proposed to the Royal Armoured Corps, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Logistics Corps.
The covering letter emanating from the office of a quartermaster general had recommended circulation of the medical report to these and "crew men and associated civilian workers involved in reclamation and decontamination work".
The warnings contained in the army document were in flat contradiction of the assurances - repeated by the Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, to the cabinet yesterday - that there is no evidence that exposure to DU poses any serious threat to service personnel.
In a key passage, titled "Risk assessment relating to Gulf War uranium exposure", the 1997 report warned: "First and foremost, the risk of occupational exposure by inhalation must be reduced." It continued: "All personnel . . . should be aware that uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk . . . has been shown to increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers."
The Conservative Defence spokesman, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, said ministers should now reveal "the documents which rescinded this advice, and the basis on which it was rescinded". If they could not, then he said veterans had real cause for concern.
Reuters reports:
Leading UN environmental officials, meanwhile, called for rigorous checks for possible health risks at war sites not only in Kosovo, target of intense NATO air attacks in 1999, but also in Bosnia. And a senior defence official in Russia, allied with Yugoslavia in 1999, said NATO should meet any costs of cleaning up land contaminated by its depleted uranium weaponry in that campaign.