The Mess NATO Left Behind - the environmental damages of the NATO-Yugoslavia Conflict, 1999 - Column

Progressive, The, August, 1999 by Bill Mesler

U.S. F-15E and F-16 fighter bombers began using cluster bombs in Kosovo on April 6. Their intended targets were airfields and large troop concentrations, but civilians were hit as well. On April 24, five boys were killed and two wounded by submunitions from a cluster bomb near the village of Doganovic in southern Kosovo. Cluster bombs were also used when NATO hit a hospital complex in Nis.

Not all NATO officers were keen on using these weapons. The Spanish weekly Articulo 20 quoted Spanish air force captain Adolofo Luis Martin as saying a colonel he served with refused "a coded order from the American military that we should drop anti-personnel bombs over the localities of Pristina and Nis." The weapons were used most extensively in nonurban, mountainous areas of Kosovo. These could pose problems for refugees returning from the mountains.

Fatalities could be prevented, says Kavanaugh, if the U.S. Air Force would deploy special unmanned planes, drones called the Hunter and the Predator, equipped with synthetic aperture radar, designed for rooting out minefields but also able to find cluster bombs.

But the military has so far been unresponsive. "These systems can make sure refugees are safe," says Kavanaugh. "They aren't safe right now. And there is no reason we don't do this. We caused these problems, but we're not willing to help alleviate them. The Pentagon doesn't even want to talk about the issue."

But Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bill Dowdy says removing unexploded ordnance is now the responsibility of the RONCO Consulting Corporation based out of Washington, D.C., and Berkeley, which has just signed a $1.6 million contract with the State Department to demine Kosovo.

"We'll be providing pretty detailed maps of where the stuff was dropped," says Dowdy. "But it's not our job to clean up all this ordnance."

As for whether any help in locating and identifying unexploded ordnance will be provided in Serbia proper, Dowdy says, "that depends on the Serbian government."

Nor is it clear just what NATO plans to do about an array of bombs dropped into the Adriatic Sea by planes that had to discharge unused munitions before they could safely land at air bases in Aviano. After concern was raised in Italy by a flurry of newspaper articles, U.S. military officials originally said the weapons would somehow be retrieved. But now that is seen as too dangerous, and U.S. officials have stated that they plan to detonate the munitions. "How they are going to safely detonate them I don't actually know," says Greenpeace's Mills.

While unexploded ordnance poses perhaps the most immediate problem, the controversial use of anti-tank ammunition made from depleted uranium may pose more serious dangers. Depleted uranium, or U-235, is the radioactive and toxic byproduct left behind when uranium is enriched for use as nuclear fuel. The weapons were used with amazing effectiveness in the Gulf War. The problem is that when the uranium shell hits an armored target, up to 70 percent of the material burns, leaving behind particles of airborne uranium that can be inhaled. Anyone who goes near the impact area soon after the explosion can inhale the dust, which can cause kidney, skin, and respiratory damage, as well as lung cancer. Despite Pentagon claims that the weapons are relatively safe, Gulf War veterans groups worry that the material is responsible for many of the strange symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome.