NATO’s Depleted Uranium: The Health Consequences of Freedom and Democracy in Iraq, Libya and the Former Yugoslavia

Essam Elkorghli

23 Apr 2025

CC Zawiya Street, Downtown Tripoli - civilian area (2023)

NATO’s depleted uranium weapons leave a deadly legacy—cancer, birth defects, and environmental ruin in war-torn regions. The silent genocide continues long after the bombs stop falling.

Originally published in Pambazuka News.

There are numerous books that speak about the legacy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s destruction.[0] There is no place they have intervened where the people have become more prosperous. This defensive military alliance that is only versed in being offensive, consumes much energy to maintain the imperialist hegemony; energy that can be used for development, industrialization and remedying global unequal (ecological) exchange. But instead, it is used to pollute our air, our seas and rivers. Thus, it exacerbates the climate change we are already experiencing. In discussions about NATO’s interventions, what remains untouched is the question of waste, military deposits, bombs, and the ecocide that they leave behind. The health crises NATO interventions produce are rarely ever spoken about.. Yet, imperialist journalists and mercenary doctors speak often about the consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s failure in 1986 as a diabolical scheme by the USSR.

Since NATO’s 2011 bombing of Libya, there is no denying that cancer rates have skyrocketed. Yet this very statement, when said by non-health experts, is deemed political just because of the reference point is 2011. However, many relatives and friends of mine who live in the area that was bombed the most in Tripoli, particularly the Bab-Aziziya compound, have gotten malignant diseases, cancers and birth defects, which is a testament to the health impact of the bombing. NATO’s aerial assault on Tripoli from 19 March 2011 until 24 August 2011 saw that area heavily bombed because it was perceived to be the main command center of the Libyan government. However, the city of Sirte — the birthplace of the African Union — was destroyed and laboriously bombed with weapons of grand magnitude, for symbolic and material reasons — to de-Africanize Libya[1] and destroy the infrastructure of what was meant to be the Africa Gate (port city, airports, and transnational hub of commerce interlinked with Pan-African ideals)[2] — which is also experiencing high rates of cancer.

There is a common trend found here that can be traced back to imperialist interventions: cancer, malignant diseases, birth defects, and generational consumption of toxins. Besides the social and economic collapse and deterioration of development indices across the board, only the future will tell us what other health consequences these imperialist interventions shall cause to the local population. Another common trend is the silencing of NATO’s depleted uranium legacy in the countries it has intervened in, namely US intervention in Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq again in 2003, and Libya 2011. These four countries share an understated commonality that speaks to the crimes the imperialists are willing to commit in order to promote their diktats of democracy and freedom.

From Desert Storm and Kosovo Syndromes to Fallujah: Tracing the Depleted Uranium

Depleted Uranium (DU), according to the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, is a toxic heavy metal and the main byproduct of uranium enrichment. Because of its high density, about twice that of lead, the usage of it is considered to be unethical given that it remains in the environment for 4.5 billion years. DU (U:238) can be inhaled without notice, absorbed by waters and soils seamlessly and exist in the environment unobtrusively. The main reason for its usage is its ability to pierce through thick metals (like tanks) and heavily fortified bunkers. This is the reason why NATO countries largely rely on this weapon without any consideration of the health and environmental impact it has on the local population.

The first observed case of DU usage was by the US troops in their attack on Iraq in 1991 in what has been called Operation Desert Storm . This operation came after an unprecedentedly destructive level of sanctions green-lit by the infamous US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who notoriously responded to the death figure of 567,000 Iraqi children (more than Hiroshima) that due to sanctions “we think the price is worth it”.[3] The destructive intervention by the US troops dumped more than 322 tons of DU. It also resulted in what is militarily termed as Burn Pits: large military equipment, chemicals, munitions, batteries, and other such deadly materials are dumped in a pit and burned so that they do not fall in the hands of the enemy or do not require transporting back to the empire’s core.[4] Ironically, these pits have had colossal health crises amongst American soldiers who inhaled the smoke, leading to respiratory diseases, cancer, and other life-threatening diseases. The number of US soldiers impacted by this so-called Desert Syndrome range from 24-35 percent of all soldiers.[5] In the summer of 2022, the Veteran Affairs legislated that all American soldiers impacted by Burn Pits will receive health care benefits for the remainder of their lives given the acuteness of the illnesses they harbored.[6] This strategy serves as a mechanism to silence any backlash from the veterans to speak against future interventions. However, no accurate statistics are given, because of the intentional concealment of the perils of serving for the US military while it constantly struggles to whitewash its malignant history. And no health services are to be provided to the local Iraqi (and Afghani ) population for that matter, who were exposed to the brunt of imperialist toxins.

In the mid-1990s, NATO conducted its first military operations outside of its orbit, without UN Security Council approval, to bomb Yugoslav positions in Bosnia, particularly Republika Srpska, with DU. Since the secession of Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) from Yugoslavia, the cancer rates in the bombed areas have increased. Yet, the Federation of BiH remains silent about the cancer and the DU impact because it would discredit the intervention that gave the country its independence. Similarly, in the other aggressive act by NATO in 1999 that bombed Yugoslavia (particularly Serbia, Montenegro and the region of Kosovo), DU was extensively used. According to Dr. Alek Račić, there is a staggering increase in cancer rates by eight times in Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Republika Srpska. He said:

So, for example, in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that means Serbia and Montenegro, during one year in 1994, we had 5,800s new patients with malignant diseases. After this, Serbia and Montenegro were split. And Serbia also lost Kosovo and Metohija. And in 2011, so this is Serbia without Kosovo and Metohija and without Montenegro, we had 33,000. Eight times more than in 1994, before bombings…. Through these medical statistics, you are coming to the bombing [conclusion].[7]

It must be iterated that these attacks are predetermined by the NATO pact states and are not erratic, consequential and collateral. Joe Biden notoriously stated in a congress hearing that he cheerfully supported the bombing of Yugoslavia, where he said: “I was suggesting we bomb Belgrade, I was suggesting that we send American pilots and blow up all the bridges on the Drina [river], I was suggesting we take out his [Milošović] oil supplies, I was suggesting very specific action”.[8] The oil refineries, fuel storages, and other civilian infrastructure was intentionally bombed to de-industrialize the country — as General Wesley Clark put it, “demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure of [Yugoslavia]”[9] — and proliferate a health crisis.

Just like Iraq’s Desert Syndrome, there is something furtive which is the Kosovo Syndrome. When NATO bombed Yugoslavia and sent troops to southern Serbia, the area that was bombed by DU had Italian soldiers stationed there as part of a UN ‘peacekeeping’ mission. In the following weeks after the cessation of the bombing campaign, many of these soldiers became extremely ill. They were flown back to Italian military hospitals and many have developed malignant cancers and other forms of illnesses, such leukemia and respiratory illnesses. According to the Italian journalist, Maria Lina Veca, there are more than 500 dead Italian soldiers and 6000 injured after being exposed to DU in the region of Kosovo.[10] Ironically, these soldiers are being treated secretly so that it does not stir up the anti-NATO sentiment in the pact itself and especially in Kosovo, which houses the largest NATO base in the Western Balkans even though it is not a NATO entity. The Kosovo Syndrome is another legacy of the health consequences of imperialist interventionism that often go unspoken.

The journalist Kamal Ayash of Fallujah, Iraq, explained that life in the city after the US and its Coalition of the Willing invasion has dramatically changed. There is anxiety in the air due to the health crisis this city, and the overall Iraqi population, has experienced since the invasion. Ayash stated that, “Everyone expecting a baby in Fallujah, including myself, first thing comes to mind is birth defects”. Thirteen per cent of the total population suffered from the impact of DU.[10] He noted that “high rates of miscarriage, toxic levels of lead and mercury pollution, and increasing numbers of birth defects ranging from congenital heart defects to brain dysfunction and deformed limbs have been recorded. Most alarming, these conditions are occurring at an increasing rate among children born in Fallujah”. This is just one city example of the health crisis left behind following NATO’s democracy and freedom promotion. Overall, 50 percent of all births in Fallujah have birth defects, compared to only two percent before the invasion; 45 percent miscarriages as compared to one percent pre-invasion.[11]

Libya as the Most Concealed Case of DU

Unlike other NATO operations where there was explicit use of ground forces as in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no Tripoli Syndrome. This is due to the fact that no NATO forces were on the ground for an extended period of time (albeit Qatari, Emirati and Blackwater elements were present in 2011). There is no Tripoli Syndrome because of the very notion of worthy victims and unworthy victims, or what Chomsky[12] has termed “the unpeople”, where violence inflicted on white people of the empire are recognized, but the suffering of those on the periphery of the empire goes unnoticed.

Much of the bombing happened in Tripoli, Sirte and Bani Walid - three cities in western Libya that were under the control of the government for much of the intervention. Friends and acquaintances from these cities have reported a staggering increase in cancer rates and birth defects. Dr. Nouri Droughi[13], a professor and expert in radiation detection, radiation protection and medical radiation physics and Libya’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tested the 77 Military Base and found 10 to 15 times more DU elements than what is deemed appropriate (he tested Bani Walid but found no traces of DU). Unfortunately, the military equipment that was targeted by DU have been removed and relocated to different places across the country without radiation expert approvals, potentially leading to the spread of DU across Libya and not just the bombed locations. And Sirte has yet to be tested by experts due to political and security reasons that have prevented local experts from investigating the health crisis.

The connection between cancer and DU is clear despite however much NATO and its mercenary journalists attempts portray otherwise. Dr. Alek, who had relatives die due to cancer, noted that when looking at regular cancer patients, the severity of the cancer, its spread and malignancy is predictable. But in cases of DU, either due to inhalation, consumption of liquids through river waters in former Yugoslavia, and growth of food through contaminated soils shows a different story. He noted “For example, when I treated a patient who came from Kosovo, their tumors were more aggressive than tumors from the people from the other parts of Serbia… For example, they are more aggressive in a tissue and their metastatic deposits are making faster than [with] the other people.”

The Politics of Truth and Depleted Uranium

To tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is a revolutionary act.
-Antonio Gramsci

Following the 2011 intervention, Dr. Droughi and a couple of Serbian doctors went to this site to test for DU radiation. They were stopped by some NATO-backed militias and demanded that they cease their research, or they would be brutalized. This was after they learnt that the doctors were investigating the use of DU by NATO and wanted to notify the public about the impending health crises. This is not unique to Libya, it is a trend: Why do the people in Bosnia & Herzegovina (with the exception of Republika Srpska), the people of Kosovo (with the exception of the Serbs and Montenegrins) and the people of Libya (with the exception of those harboring antagonistic views against NATO’s imperialism) choose to remain silent and opt to silencing speaking the truth about DU in their respective spaces? Why is Italy extremely furtive when it comes to speaking publicly about the Kosovo Syndrome? Should not the people of southern Serbia learn the truth and be offered compensation for the health crisis they are enduring for the last 26 years? Should not there be a global endeavor to end the use of DU?

This is a public health matter which the NATO pact wants to silence, either by twisting the facts around the impact of DU by claiming it is not hazardous or engaging in coercive diplomacy to prevent research and publicity about the issue, or by claiming that whoever is speaking about DU is propagandist. In Serbia, the former Minister of Health, Danica Grujičić, who had a rather short term in that position (2022-2024), was also the head of The Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia. During her tenure, she opened the investigation on cancer patients in Serbia by using all of the Ministry’s resources at its disposal to discern who amongst the patients developed cancer due to DU and who developed it through non-DU causes. After some coercive diplomacy by the European Union and Jared Kushner (who leveraged Saudi and Emirati sovereign wealth funds to assuage the government into a more pro-EU direction) the government cabinet shifted, and Danica was removed from her position as Minister of Health and as the head of The Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia.[14]

Italian authorities, as of 2018, have admitted in investigative and parliamentary hearings that the soldiers have returned from Serbia and Bosnia with illnesses (Cancers: lymphomas, leukemia, lung cancer; and neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases) that led to the death of more the 340 veterans and more than 3000 illnesses after exposure to DU.[15] The studies by the Italian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the veterans serving in the Balkans have DU presence in their bodies and criticizes NATO for lack of transparency. However, this did not come directly from the Italian state, but from years of veteran families mobilizing against this issue. As a result, Italy established compensation funds for only affected veterans and funded research into DU’s health impacts.

It is the unfortunate reality that if a person from Libya, Serbia, Iraq and Bosnia seeks the truth about DU they become silenced by NATO propagandists. Speaking the truth delegitimizes the leadership in these respective countries and how they got into power (i.e. through NATO intervention). They make a purely scientific matter a political one. It becomes obligatory in times of deceit, lies and concealment to speak the truth to the juggernauts that want to silence the people. The people of these countries of Former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya must come together and form an international people’s tribunal against the use of DU. Otherwise, as imperialism becomes more thirsty and inflicts genocidal wars like we see in Palestine and Lebanon, military-induced ecocide will proliferate and these perilous weapons will be used (as observed recently in Lebanon’s bombing by the Zionist entity).[16] It is a moral obligation to stand against NATO and the imperialist use of DU. Complicity with this public health issue is a curse that the future generations will harbor.

* The author expresses immense gratitude to Alek Račić, Noureddin Droughi and Matteo Capasso for their breadth of knowledge and contributions to this piece.

Essam Abdelrasul Bubaker Elkorghli is a Libyan doctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, researching imperialism, ideology and education with a primary focus on Libya. He serves on the International Advisory Board of Pambazuka News, assistant editor to the Middle East Critique Journal, and member of the Global Pan-African Movement. He writes frequently for the Black Agenda Report.

ENDNOTES

[0] Horace Campbell, Global NATO and Catastrophic Failure in Libya (2013). Monthly Review; Michael Parenti, To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia (2001). Verso Books; George Szamuely, Bombs for peace: NATO's humanitarian war on Yugoslavia (2013)., Amsterdam University Press; Dianna Johnstone, Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Illusions). Pluto Press.

[1] https://www.blackagendareport.com/de-africanization-and-re-europeanizat…; see Maximilian Forte, Slouching Towards Sirte (2012). Baraka Books.

[2] Matteo Capasso, Everyday Politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (2023). Syracuse Press.

[3] Vijay Prashad, Washington Bullets (2020). Monthly Review.

[4] Joseph Hickman, The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers (2019). Skyhorse Publishing

[5] https://www.va.gov/gulfwaradvisorycommittee/docs/GWIandHealthofGWVeterans_RAC-GWVIReport_2008.pdf

[6] https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/gulfwar/medically-unexplained-illness.asp

[7] Private conversation between the author and Dr. Račić

[8] https://x.com/incontextmedia/status/1668023117917069312?lang=en

[9] https://www.converge.org.nz/pma/migil.htm

[10] https://en.rtdoc.tv/films/1076-fatal-dust-u-238

[11] https://alrafidain.tv/78343/جيل-من-الولادة-المشوهة-في-العراق-بعد-اح/

[12] https://truthout.org/articles/recognizing-the-unpeople/