DISCOUNTED CASUALTIES
The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium
by Akira Tashiro
Chugoku Shimbun Press
2001 / $12.00 ISBN: 4885 173 019

In the current context, Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium is not only relevant and timely but urgent. Written by Akira Tashiro, an investigative reporter for the Hiroshima daily The Chugoku Shimbun and focusing on the history and diffusion of depleted uranium (DU) munitions, the book takes us on a global odyssey from the US to the UK, through Iraq, Kosovo, and Okinawa.

Written for the general public, it begins with an overview. Crude uranium ore undergoes an I enrichment' process to extract highly radioactive uranium-235, used for nuclear weapons and reactors. The by-product of this process is uranium-238 metal, or DU, of which more than half a million tonnes have been produced since the 1940s.

In the 1960s, the US military noted that certain properties of DU - namely, its high density and flammability - might make it useful for projectiles. It could also be acquired free of charge from the Department of Energy. In the I 970s, production of DU munitions began. They were first used in combat during the Gulf War, and some 950,000 DU rounds were fired from tanks and aircraft during Operation Desert Storm.

Because the projectiles burn on impact, some of the mass vapourises and diffuses into the air as uranium oxide particles, small enough to be inhaled into the throat and lungs. Although the Pentagon apparently knew about the potential hazards of DU as early as the 1 970s, no information or training was given to Gulf War soldiers, The result? out of nearly 700,000 participating US troops, approximately 436,000 entered areas contaminated by DU shells. Thousands of veterans died in the years following the war, and many others fell ill to leukaemia, lung cancer, kidney and liver disorders, joint pain, and congenital birth defects.

In a series of harrowing chapters, Tashiro presents a drama played out on various stages. 'On the Wrong Side of a Superpower' tells the story of individual Gulf War veterans and their illnesses. One young veteran from New Mexico describes how 25 chunks of radioactive shrapnel were removed from his body (the result of so called 'friendly fire') and how he later developed a bone tumour. A female veteran from California, exposed days after US forces destroyed thousands of vehicles on the 'Highway of Death' between Kuwait City and Basra (in southern Iraq), began suffering from headaches, sore joints, and extremely heavy menstrual bleeding in mid-1991. Yet another veteran, a native Oklahoman, apparently transmitted DU particles to his young wife through sexual contact. She now suffers from abdominal pains, miscarriages, and severe menstrual pains.

During the 1 970s and 1 980s, DU munitions were produced in a number of places in the US. 'The Threat in Our Backyards' examines the effects of DU production in suburban Concord, Massachusetts, a town in upstate New York, and a factory in northeastern Tennessee. By weaving together the experiences of residents and workers exposed to DU and the work of environmental analysts, epidemiologists, and nuclear scientists, Tashiro invites readers to draw links between the sites of DU munitions production and increased rates of cancer, tumours, and birth defects.

'Heavy Burden for an Ally' examines the human costs borne by exposed British Gulf War veterans. Of the 53,000 British soldiers sent to the Middle East in 1991, approximately 30,000 were stationed on the front lines. Since then, nearly 500 veterans have died and 6,000 more complain of physical problems similar to those of their counterparts in the US.

But perhaps the most graphic chapter in the book is the penultimate, 'The Scars of War', set in post-war Iraq. The statistics presented by local health officials are staggering. Cancer rates have skyrocketed.

In Basra, the number of people who have died of cancer in hospitals has increased more than ten-fold since the late 1980s. Leukaemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, and birth defects, once rare, are now common in the south of the country. Ca - ncer cases and congenital birth defects have increased from three to four times since the end of the Gulf War. Not only veterans, but women, children, and other civilians in Basra and Safan were exposed. There are reports that 20 per cent of the women in Safan between the ages of 25 and 40 have lumps in their breasts, in an area where nearly all residents have inhaled DU particles.

The chapter ends with a heartbreaking collection of photos of Iraqi children who were exposed to DU and have fallen ill with lymphoma, leukaemia, and other cancers, Their situation is made even more difficult as the result of economic sanctions. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy drugs, and other treatments are in short supply. And since contamination has settled in the soil, water, and plants of the region, it is likely that the effects will be longlasting.

The book concludes with a chapter that analyses the environmental and legal implications of DU, and the growing global movement to ban it, with the final pages drawing our attention to the ongoing use of DU in recent military operations in the former Yugoslavia and firing ranges in Okinawa prefecture.

Discounted Casualties is a sophisticated and successful exploration of the biological and social impacts of DU, an artifact as essential to the 'New World Order' as the derringer was to the Wild West. it is sure to provoke indignation and outrage among its readers - and hopefully inspiration in these most calamitous of times.

Roberto J Gonzalez is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University.