While the U.S. government keeps claiming that depleted uranium is
harmless, there is a definite link between its use and then immediate
surges in serious illnesses and
cancers in the area it was used. The three prime examples are the
Gulf War,
Kosovo, and the small island of
Vieques to the south of
Puerto Rico; which the U.S. has turned most of into a practice range for various
military exercises.
The Pentagon bases the claim that DU is harmless because it is only mildy radioactive. This may be true, but until there are more independent studies we can't be sure. To give them the benefit of the doubt, let's assume that it's true, that DU is mostly harmless on its own. Okay, good. Now, how can the link between its use and then the sudden rise in serious illness and cancers be explained? The most logical thing to do is to go back and look at where the DU was produced. The three main nuclear powerplants which produced DU back in the 1980s were in Paducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
These powerplants are important because it's where other nuclear weapons products were produced. So they were, without a doubt, contaminated with other nasty radioactive materials. The U.S. Department of Energy confirmed this when they found the machinery that was used to make DU was contaminated with such things as neptunium, plutonium, and technetium-99. Now, plutonium is one of the worst radioactive materials that is used. If very special procedures are not taken while handling it, the people doing the handling will get some nasty things (i.e. cancer). Not surprisingly, that's exactly what happened; especially at the Peducah, Kentucky plant.
That plant was designed to handle uranium, not other such things as plutonium. But, it was indeed found to have been contaminated with plutonium, among others. There's a very interesting link at this point. Thousands (yes, thousands) of people who worked at the Peducah plant while producing DU (who knows what else, Uncle Sam probably) became seriously ill; which is to say they suffered from cancer, early death, etc. These symptoms are exactly the kind that are found in Gulf War veterans who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome and also Iraqi people who live near where DU was used. They are also the symptoms found in people and soldiers in Kosovo and the residents of the island of Vieques.
A recent test (1999) on the DU weapons stores by the U.S. government itself showed that the stores contained plutonium and other nuclear material which was not DU. And the United Nations, which is investigating the Balkan War Syndrome, issued in January, 2001 a report that it found elements indicative of plutonium in Kosovo.
Studies in Vieques show that the bombing ranges are also contaminated with DU. The U.S. Navy admits that it did indeed use DU weapons on Vieques, but that it was an "accident" because they loaded the wrong munitions onto the attack aircraft for the training exercises. The only reason the Navy even admitted this is because campaigners on the island forced them to through the Freedom of Information Act. The investigation showed that many, many areas of the island were contaminated, which could only be the result of systematic exercises where DU was being used with full knowledge for at least a decade. One "accidental" use of DU wouldn't be able to produce the effects which now exist on the island. 9,000 residents live on Vieques, and more than 1/3 of them are suffering from the symptoms associated with radiation poisoning. 3,600 of the residents are planning to bring a class action lawsuit against the government.
When you add all of this up, it makes a pretty strong case that DU being used by the U.S. is not harmless, but rather malicious. I think European countries that want DU banned are hardly doing it to "demonize" America and divide NATO (as Jurph's writeup states above).