for Sunday Herald, 06 November 2011
Depleted uranium (DU) weapons were tested in Scotland despite warnings from Ministry of Defence (MoD) scientists that the contamination they would cause could never be cleaned up, government documents reveal.
Fierce opposition to anything nuclear north of the border also caused the MoD to conceal its real intentions on DU testing. In an attempt to defuse public anxiety, MoD officials even proposed giving uranium another name.
Previously secret government records made available in the National Archive give a fascinating insight into the political manipulation and manoeuvring that went on behind the scenes in the 1970s to try and ensure that Scotland didn’t thwart MoD plans to test fire DU munitions at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright.
An internal MoD memo from 1973 warned that test firing would leave parts of the range contaminated by “very persistent dust”. It added: “It will probably be impossible to remove this completely and initial consideration of this fact is essential.”
Nevertheless the MoD pursued its plans, opting instead to hide them. “My inclination would be not to mention Kirkcudbright at all at this stage, but to wait until we can point to accident-free experience in English ranges before tackling the Scots,” wrote one senior official in 1979.
He added: “I don’t like promising consultation ‘with all those concerned’ – which could include the owner of the local sweet shop.”
Labour’s Scottish Secretary at the time, Bruce Millan, protested to the then Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, that DU testing would compound the problems he was having with nationalists and environmentalists opposing Scotland becoming a “nuclear dustbin”.
Complained Millan in a 1978 memo: “In Scotland at the moment, the use of the word ‘uranium’ is sufficient to provoke resentment and suspicion. Much publicity is currently being given to anti-nuclear pressure groups and demonstrators who are conducting a campaign against the nuclear power station to be built at Torness in East Lothian.”
Despite this, however, Millan accepted that the Dundrennan range would have to be used for DU tests. The documents disclose, though, that DU weapons were opposed by two other Labour ministers, Tony Benn and Frank Judd, who were concerned that they would blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
The MoD was preoccupied with the "presentational and political difficulties" of selling DU to ministers and the public. The archive shows that officials redrafted one key memo to play down the dangers of DU by deleting a suggestion that it was a “heavy metal poison”.
Officials repeatedly stressed that the issue needed “careful handling” to overcome the “local difficulties likely to arise in Scotland”. A 1978 memo stated that there were “likely to be considerable pubic and parliamentary reactions to the use of ranges for DU firings.”
One proposal to help overcome opposition was to avoid the word ‘uranium’ altogether. “The Americans have renamed the material Staballoy, and I think we might adopt a similar but distinctive device,” said a 1977 memo. ‘Durametal’ and ‘Penetroy’ were suggested.
Selected copies of the government archive documents on depleted uranium weapons can be downloaded here (8.6MB pdf).
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