U.S. Warned Germany of Uranium Leaks

BERLIN —  German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping told Parliament on Friday that the U.S. Army has informed Berlin of nine incidents of known or suspected releases of depleted uranium by American forces at German bases over the past two decades.

No Germans have reported illness from suspected exposure to the substance, however. That means the political fortunes of opposition lawmakers whose party was in power until two years ago could be in more danger than people in the areas where ammunition containing the slightly radioactive heavy metal accidentally exploded.

In the nervous atmosphere enveloping Germans already confronting one environmental crisis--”mad cow” disease--the incidents involving depleted uranium are likely to intensify the current health panic and feed political squabbling over leaders’ failure to protect and inform the public.

Scharping insinuated during his appearance before the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, that the 16-year government headed by Helmut Kohl, whose Christian Democrats are now in opposition, failed to tell the public about the incidents, which date back as far as 1981.

“One has to ask what my predecessors knew about this,” Scharping said during his testimony.

German media quickly recalled queries made of Kohl’s government in 1995 and again in 1997 by the now-ruling Social Democrats about risks posed by the presence of U.S. munitions containing depleted uranium. The Defense Ministry responded to the first of those inquiries with a categorical denial that weapons used for training and exercises contained any depleted uranium; two years later, it replied that it was unable to answer because of the need for military secrecy.

The U.S. Army report listed four known releases of depleted uranium through accidental firings of tank rounds or during fires on tanks that detonated ammunition. Five other incidents were also detailed in which release of depleted uranium was suspected to have occurred, but no records could be located to confirm them.

Most, if not all, of the accidents detailed in the report delivered to Scharping on Wednesday were reported to German authorities at the time they occurred, and German firefighters or ordnance disposal experts assisted in some of the responses, confirmed Jim Boyle, spokesman for the U.S. Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg.

Many Europeans suspect that depleted uranium contained in NATO weaponry has caused or contributed to numerous cases of leukemia suffered by alliance troops deployed in the Balkans. The leukemia deaths of several European soldiers who served in Kosovo or Bosnia-Herzegovina prompted the U.S. Army report, Boyle said.

On Thursday, two German arms makers reported having tested weapons containing depleted uranium during the 1970s, intensifying public concerns that some Germans may have been exposed to the low-level radiation released by such weapons. Those concessions made front-page headlines in this country.

Officials in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have rejected suggestions that the munitions used in the Balkans are responsible for the soldiers’ illnesses but have nonetheless ordered investigations. Some NATO countries, including Britain and Italy, have offered examinations to Balkans veterans to determine if they have been exposed to harmful levels of radiation.