U.S. Jets Used Controversial Ammunition in Kosovo War

U.S. jets used 31,000 depleted uranium rounds--about 10 tons of the munitions--during the Kosovo war, a U.N. task force said Tuesday, citing confirmation by NATO.

Some specialists say the rounds, which have been used as far back as the 1991 Persian Gulf War, are environmentally harmful, especially when people and animals inhale the dust that forms when the shells disintegrate on impact.

Target zones hit by depleted uranium--known as DU--should be marked and children kept away from them, said Pekka Haavisto, head of the U.N. Environment Program’s Balkans Task Force.

Haavisto said that NATO’s confirmation that it used DU should not cause alarm but conceded that scientific knowledge of its effects is limited. He said he was unable to estimate the number of people exposed.

“I’m very happy that this spring we have got finally from NATO the information, but we would have been more happy if we could have had this information already last summer,” Haavisto said.

A set of North Atlantic Treaty Organization maps of areas where the munitions were used “is not precise enough to make field assessments,” Haavisto said. He noted that U.N. experts last year carried out measurements in Kosovo but found no contaminants because the exact impact locations were unknown.

In New York, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that use of the ammunition did not violate any international conventions.