Pentagon stance on DU a moving target

A soldier's boots are often treated with sacred regard, once they carry a warrior safely through combat.

But for one US soldier, who volunteered for his Gulf War tour, Mark Panzera, his boots were the first sign that something was very wrong.

He was an Army mechanic in the 144th Service and Supply Company of New Jersey, which in 1991 prepared US tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles that had been hit by "friendly fire" for shipment home.

This front-line equipment had been inadvertently hit by American gunners shooting radioactive depleted-uranium (DU) bullets at what they thought were Iraqi tanks.

For weeks after the mistake, the 144th worked at a salvage site in Saudi Arabia, getting into every corner of every vehicle to recycle equipment, wearing T-shirts and shorts, eating on and sleeping beside the vehicles.

Suddenly one morning, Mr. Panzera recalls, before his team began work, two experts arrived looking like astronauts, wearing hooded masks and suits - and carrying radiation detectors.

Before the two unexpected visitors approached the vehicles, they first ran their instruments over the awestruck mechanics. Their clothes were contaminated, but Panzera's boots especially set the detectors crackling.

The dust left over from the impact of DU bullets hitting the tanks had clung to the cleanup crew.

"'You're hot,' they told us, and I asked: 'What do you mean?' " Panzera remembers. "I was angry. Nobody tells you nothing, and the next day you are contaminated."

Later, Panzera received an official letter confirming his exposure to DU radiation. He has been seeking government compensation for what he says is DU-related illness.

Mixed messages from the top

By the Pentagon's own admission, its policy toward use of DU weapons has been inconsistent. Several military and independent reports describe the potential danger of DU particles trapped inside the body, though most deem the overall risk to be "acceptable." Strict federal and military rules govern every aspect of DU use and decontamination.

But the Pentagon today calls its own regulations - based on US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines, which require masks and suits when dealing with DU contamination - "total overkill."

In 1993, a report from the US General Accounting Office, the government's investigative arm, found that Army officials "believe that DU protective means can be ignored during battle."

Then, in 1995, all four branches of the US military approved a multimedia DU training kit. In January 1998 it was endorsed as "impressive" by the deputy secretary of defense, John Hamre.

The kit, obtained by the Monitor through the Freedom of Information Act, said "the greatest threat is during open-air, live-fire testing. We can call combat a great big open-air, live-fire test." An area hit by DU "remains contaminated, and will not decontaminate itself."

The kit was never issued, and it is now under review.

"They [the NRC] have their own standards. The military's [standards] are under review," says Bernard Rostker, the Pentagon's special assistant for Gulf War illnesses. He first raised doubts publicly only last August. He said the "extremely restrictive" NRC rules are "poorly suited" to war, and "need to be rewritten."

Reasons for backing DU

Critics say the Pentagon has reasons for its apparent downgrading of DU dangers: The bullet pierces enemy armor like no other, it's cheap, and any confirmed link with health problems could trigger a flood of compensation and reparations claims.

And the cost of cleaning up DU residue in the Gulf would be prohibitive, as well. The price tag for removing 152,000 pounds of DU in the now-closed, 500-acre Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana has been estimated to be $4 billion to $5 billion. More than four times that amount of DU was spread during the Gulf War, over a significantly larger area.

"The government is institutionally incapable of telling the truth on this matter," says Bill Arkin, a former military intelligence analyst and columnist for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His analysis: DU is too troublesome for the Pentagon to keep in its arsenal.

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