The Trail of a Bullet

Rexh Himaj didn't think twice about salvaging parts from destroyed Serbian vehicles.

As a mechanic in Kosovo, Mr. Himaj lost most of his tools and equipment during the Kosovo conflict. Like thousands of other returning ethnic Albanian refugees, he was just glad to be back home and getting ready to return to work.

But what Himaj didn't know was that the American aircraft that chased Serbian forces from Kosovo and paved the way for his return had attacked these Serbian vehicles with depleted uranium (DU) bullets.

The concrete surface of this motor pool, part of a Serbian military base on the west side of Djakovica, is pockmarked by DU hits - as is the nearby road. And the ground is littered with spent aluminum shell casings that are unique to 30-mm DU bullets.

How much DU ammunition was fired at Serbian forces has not been made public: The Pentagon isn't talking. DU bullets, made of low-level nuclear waste material, are controversial because they leave toxic and radioactive debris in their wake.

DU ammunition was first used in combat by the US against Iraqi tanks in 1991. But that was in the desert. Evidence of DU in Djakovica indicates that for the first time this munition has been used in populated areas.

"There is a [health] risk to people. We chase children from [the targeted compound], and we try to persuade people to stop cutting up those vehicles," says Chris North, a 20-year veteran of the British Army's Royal Engineers bomb disposal unit. "But the message about DU is not getting around," he warns.

"You can't say it's everywhere [in Kosovo], but you don't have to go far to find it," says Mr. North, who now trains local deminers in Djakovica for the Lyon, France-based charity Handicapped International.

DU bullets were designed in the 1970s to defeat top-of-the-line Soviet tanks. The 30-mm bullets are fired by the A-10 "tank-buster" aircraft, a plane designed around the seven-barreled Gatling gun that almost exclusively uses DU. It is the most effective tool in the US arsenal for destroying tanks. When a DU bullet makes contact, it burns so hotly that it ignites fumes and ammunition inside a tank, causing a powerful blast. Half again as dense as lead, these bullets were used spectacularly against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's armored divisions during the Gulf War.

Pentagon officials point out one other benefit: The US has a stockpile of 1.2 billion pounds of the radioactive waste left from making bombs and gives it away for free to weapons manufacturers to make DU bullets.

In the United States, the military requires a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to handle the smallest amount of DU. The NRC restricts test firing, and troops within 50 yards of any vehicle struck with DU bullets must wear respirators and protective suits to avoid contamination.

British troops sent to Kosovo were issued such gear and were instructed to use it "if contact with targets damaged by DU ammunition is unavoidable."

But no warning of the potential risk of DU - or details about where and how many bullets were used - has been issued to the people who live in Kosovo.

"Residual depleted uranium from battlefield engagements in Kosovo does not pose a significant risk to human health," says US Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Victor Warzinski.

'Hot' material

But other experts say it's not so. Unlike chemical or biological weapons that dissipate within minutes or days, DU dust and fragments remain "hot," losing just half their radioactivity in 4.5 billion years - the age of the solar system.

American nuclear physicists have found that DU dust can travel at least 26 miles. Scientists of the National Institute for Health Protection in Macedonia, south of Kosovo, detected eight times higher than normal levels of alpha radiation - the primary type emitted by DU - in the air in April, during the conflict.

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