The BBC ran a story yesterday on a report by the UN into the persistence of depleted uranium in the Balkans. Although no one is prepared to say that there is a significant danger to health, no one seems prepared to categorically state that there isn’t one either, and it is flagged as a “cause for alarm”.

It is interesting to note that although the MoD, Nato and the Pentagon say that “it poses little risk on the battlefield or subsequently”, they do recommend that their personnel wear protective clothing when entering environments which have been subjected to attack with DU ammo. And now the UN is finding it in the groundwater in Bosnia, 8 years after the conflict ended.

Our troops are using DU ammunition in Iraq this time around, and it seems clear that we really don’t know what the medium to long term side effects of this kind of weapon are.