by Phil Miller at Declassified UK
- Sole body cited by UK military to defend Ukraine receiving depleted uranium weapons has not published new research on the subject for over 20 years
- Italy’s defence ministry has compensated soldiers who developed cancer after exposure to depleted uranium on service in the Balkans
- After the invasion of Iraq, the UK military accepted it had a ‘moral obligation’ to help clear depleted uranium debris from the rounds it had fired
The Ministry of Defence claimed last week that research by the Royal Society – Britain’s premier scientific group – supported its controversial decision to send depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine.
An MoD official briefed the media: “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”
The Royal Society was cited despite the group rebuking the Pentagon in 2003 for using their exact same research to justify American tanks firing the weapon in Iraq, Declassified UK has found.
When contacted, the scientific body told us: “In 2001/02, the Royal Society published two reports on the health hazards of depleted uranium munitions.” It provided links for the first and second report.
Their spokesperson added that depleted uranium “isn’t an active area of policy research for the Society, [and] we haven’t updated or published on this topic since those reports.”
In 2003, the US military used those Royal Society reports to defend the use of depleted uranium (DU) by coalition forces in Iraq.
That triggered a complaint to the media,…