BRITISH and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium
(DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United
 Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons
of  mass destruction.

DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the
soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians,
leading to birth defects in children.

Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted
uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at
Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by
the US department of defence with the post-first Gulf war depleted
uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'.

Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was
about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we
are  using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such
double-standards are repellent.'

The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when  an
American A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British
soldier and injuring three others in a 'friendly fire' incident.

According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws
which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the
Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva
Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; nd
the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid
employing> 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or
materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these laws are
designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed
conflicts.

DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war syndrome --  typified
by chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and memory loss --  among
200,000 US soldiers after the 1991 conflict.

It is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number
of birth deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war.

'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and
deformities between four and six times,' according to the UN
subcommission.

The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on
the battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military
experts say 1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.

In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of  DU
tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some
500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to
radioactive debris left in the desert.

The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of
Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying
number  of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq.
Only one in  50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad
hospital had  eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had
been exposed to  American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also
been cases of  Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a
deformity also  linked to DU shelling.

A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with
severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems
and fused fingers.

Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel  cannot
wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and  the
environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions.

'To do so is a crime against humanity.

'We must do what is right for the citizens of the world -- ban  DU.'

He called on the US and UK to 'recognise the immoral consequences  of
their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough
environmental remediation'.

He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic  wasteland
behind them and kill indiscriminately.

'It is equivalent to a war crime.'

Rokke said that coalition troops were currently fighting in the  Gulf
without adequate respiratory protection against DU contamination.

The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the Ministry of
Defence had test-fired some 6350 DU rounds into the Solway Firth over
more than a decade, from 1989 to 1999.