New evidence that Gulf War syndrome exists and was caused by radiation poisoning has been revealed by a former American army colonel who was at the center of his government's attempts to diagnose the illness.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic told a conference of eminent nuclear scientists in Paris that "tens of thousands" of British and American soldiers are dying from radiation from depleted uranium (DU) shells fired during the Gulf War. The findings undermine the British and American governments' claims that Gulf War syndrome does not exist.

Durakovic, who is professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, Washington, and the former head of nuclear medicine at the US Army's veterans' affairs medical facility in Delaware, told the conference that he and his team of American and Canadian scientists have discovered life-threateningly high levels of DU in Gulf veterans 10 years after the desert war. His findings have been verified by four independent experts.

Depleted uranium does not occur naturally. It is the byproduct of the industrial processing of waste from nuclear reactors. It is used to strengthen the tips of shells to ensure that they pierce armor.

Durakovic, who left America because he was told his life was in danger if he continued his research, has concluded that troops inhaled the tiny uranium particles after American and British forces fired more than 700,000 DU shells during the conflict.

Once inside the body, DU causes a slow death from cancers, irreversible kidney damage or wastage from immune deficiency disorders.

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka--Shuffling her sandal-clad feet in the dust, 14-year-old Arumuyam Malar confesses that she has been a naughty girl: She did not kill herself.

Trained since the age of 7 to fight until victory or death and commit suicide upon capture, she did not have a cyanide capsule or grenade handy when Sri Lankan government troops overran the position she was defending several weeks ago.

"If I'd had a grenade or cyanide capsule, I would have done it," she said through a translator. "I thought the army would kill me when I was caught."

The story of Arumuyam Malar, one of the youngest child soldiers captured alive by government forces in their 17-year war against the guerrilla fighters of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, is a sad tale of abduction and lost childhood.

Her transition from infant to child soldier started when at the age of 7, she was home alone. With her father dead and her mother temporarily hospitalized, she was in her uncle's care when a girl called Sylvie dropped by.

"Sylvie said we would go to buy something together at the shop," she said. Instead, she was taken from her village in northern Sri Lanka into the Jaffna Peninsula, the operations center for the Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

"They told me I must fight for the country," Miss Malar said. "I lived as brother and sister with other young people who also wanted to fight." The Tamil Tigers told Miss Malar that her mother had been informed about her joining the guerrilla army, but she never received any letters or direct messages from anyone in her family.

While in the guerrilla camp, she woke up each day at 4:30 a.m., took a bath and put on the Tamil Tiger's uniform: shirt and trousers with light green and yellow camouflage. She usually studied two hours of radio communication before breakfast.

Then, at 8 a.m., the day's training began, with only a short break for a lunch of rice and curry. Exercises included marching, drilling and practicing counterattacks, including the use of hand grenades and the T-56 semiautomatic rifle, a weapon similar to an AK-47.

At 3 p.m., those who did not have sentry duty could play games. Volleyball was popular, but Miss Malar preferred kabadi, a traditional Sri Lankan game similar to tag. She never owned a toy or played with a doll. Each night members of her unit took turns serving one hour of sentry duty.

Her strongest memories are of people dying in battle, such as when Sylvie was killed or when a cadre, Susila, was given cyanide after receiving a head wound from a shell blast. She herself has scars from battles which she survived.

Now awaiting trial, Miss Malar is held alone in the security compound. She has no playmates, and few people speak her language. A letter sent through the Red Cross to her mother several weeks ago has not yet brought a reply.

How does she feel?

"Lonely."

To question the bombing of Hiroshima is to explode a precious myth which we grew up with--that America is different from the other imperial powers of the world, that other nations may commit unspeakable acts, but not ours.

Further, to see it as a wanton act of gargantuan cruelty rather than as an unavoidable necessity ("to end the war, to save lives") would be to raise disturbing questions about the essential goodness of the "good war."

I recall that in junior high school, a teacher asked our class: "What is the difference between a totalitarian state and a democratic state?" The correct answer: "A totalitarian state, unlike ours, believes in using any means to achieve its end."

That was at the start of World War II, when the Fascist states were bombing civilian populations in Ethiopia, in Spain, in Coventry (England), and in Rotterdam. President Roosevelt called that "inhuman barbarism." That was before the United States and England began to bomb civilian populations in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Dresden, and then in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

Any means to an end--the totalitarian philosophy. And one shared by all nations that make war.

What means could be more horrible than the burning, mutilation, blinding, irradiation of hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women, children? And yet it is absolutely essential for our political leaders to defend the bombing because if Americans can be induced to accept that, then they can accept any war, any means, so long as the warmakers can supply a reason.

And there are always plausible reasons delivered from on high as from Moses on the Mount.

Thus, the three million dead in Korea can be justified by North Korean aggression, the millions dead in Southeast Asia by the threat of communism, the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 to protect American citizens, the support of death squad governments in Central America to stop communism, the invasion of Grenada to save American medical students, the invasion of Panama to stop the drug trade, the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, the Yugoslav bombing to stop ethnic cleansing. There is endless room for more wars, with endless supplies of reasons.

The principal justification for obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that it "saved lives" because otherwise a planned U.S. invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point used the figure "a half million lives," and Churchill "a million lives," but these were figures pulled out of the air to calm troubled consciences; even official projections for the number of casualties in an invasion did not go beyond 46,000.

In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that August did not forestall an invasion of Japan because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that.

General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use of the bomb, told him that "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."

The Japanese had begun to move to end the war in May of 1945. The Japanese Supreme War Council authorized Foreign Minister Togo to approach the Soviet Union, which was not at war with Japan, to mediate an end to the war "if possible by September."

Surrender would be unconditional--except for one condition enormously important to the Japanese: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader. Former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew had suggested that allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would save countless lives by bringing an early end to the war.

Yet Truman would not relent, and insisted on "unconditional surrender." This ensured that the bombs would fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs.

But why? Gar Alperovitz (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Knopf, 1995), concluded, based on the papers of Truman, his chief adviser, and others, that the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union. Byrnes advised Truman that the bomb "could let us dictate the terms of ending the war."

There is also evidence that domestic politics played an important role in the decision. In his recent book, Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999), David Kennedy quotes Secretary of State Cordell Hull advising Byrnes, that "terrible political repercussions would follow in the U.S." if the unconditional surrender principle would be abandoned. The President would be "crucified" if he did that, Byrnes said.

Can we believe that our political leaders would consign hundreds of thousands of people to death or lifelong suffering because of "political repercussions" at home? The idea is horrifying.

Of course, political ambition was not the only reason for Hiroshima and the other horrors of our time. There was tin, rubber, oil, corporate profit, imperial arrogance--none of them, despite the claims of our leaders, having to do with human rights, human life.

The wars go on, even when they are over. Every day, British and U.S. warplanes bomb Iraq, and children die. Every day, children die in Iraq because of the U.S.-sponsored embargo. Every day, boys and girls in Afghanistan step on land mines and are killed or mutilated. In Africa, more wars.

The problem is the corruption of human intelligence, enabling leaders to create plausible reasons for monstrous acts, and to exhort citizens to accept those reasons.

American reporter Seymour Hersh is at war with the American military over his report in The New Yorker that one of its most lauded generals, now a member of President Bill Clinton's Cabinet, ordered his troops to fire on retreating Iraqis on the eve of the Gulf War ceasefire in 1991.

Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, has denied accusations such as the machine-gunning of 350 disarmed Iraqi prisoners. "Why are we shooting at these people when they are not shooting at us?" says one of his men on a tape quoted by Hersh. "It's murder," says another.

But the enduring secret of the 1991 Gulf War was that it was not a war at all, rather an epic act of homicide. A great deal of propaganda has been devoted to covering up this truth and promoting the precision of so-called smart weapons, as if war has finally become a science. Unknown to reporters corralled in Saudi Arabia, less than 7 percent of the weapons used in the Gulf War were "smart"; most were old-fashioned bombs.

Seventy percent of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped on Iraq and Kuwait--the equivalent of more than seven Hiroshimas--hit no military targets and fell in populated areas.

Paul Roberts, one of the few journalists to escape the "pool" system, traveled with Bedouins. "I experienced bombing in Cambodia, but it was nothing like that," he said. "There were three waves every night. After 20 minutes of this carpet bombing there would be a silence and you would hear a screaming of children and people. [The survivors] were walking around like zombies."

This was never published in the mainstream media, nor was the overwhelming evidence that--as in Vietnam and last year in Serbia and Kosovo--civilians were not mistakenly killed, but targeted.

As the ceasefire was being negotiated with Iraq, columns of retreating other nationalities who had been trapped in Kuwait, mostly guest workers, were attacked by American carrier-based aircraft. They used cluster bombs and napalm B, the type that sticks to the skin while continuing to burn. Returning pilots bragged about a "duck shoot." Others likened it to "shooting fish in a barrel."

Unknown to journalists in the pool system, in the two days before the ceasefire (when the McCaffrey atrocities also allegedly happened), American armored bulldozers were deployed, mostly at night, burying Iraqis alive in their trenches.

Six months later, the New York Newsday reported that three brigades of the 1st Mechanized Infantry Division used snow ploughs mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to bury thousands of Iraqi soldiers--some still alive--in more than 110 kilometers of trenches.

A brigade commander, Colonel Anthony Moreno, said: "For all I know, we could have killed thousands." The policy of the American commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, was that Iraqi dead were not to be counted.

One of his senior officers boasted: "This is the first war in modern times where every screwdriver, every nail, is accounted for." As for human beings, he added: "I don't think anybody is going to be able to come up with an accurate count for the Iraqi dead."

Shortly before Christmas 1991 the Medical Educa­tional Trust in London published a comprehensive study of casualties. Up to 250,000 men, women and children were killed or died as a direct result of the American-led attack on Iraq. A one-sided slaughter.

In evidence before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the major international relief agencies reported that 1.8 million people had been made homeless, and Iraq's electricity, water, sewerage, com­munications, health, agriculture and industrial infra­structure had been "substantially destroyed," producing "conditions for famine and epidemics."

Most of this was not reported, or was tucked away. In the most covered war in history, almost everybody had missed the story. It is hardly surprising that, in the nine years since, the death of half a million children due to economic sanctions, and the continuing bombing of populated areas in Iraq by American and British aircraft, are not news.

"The thought that the state is punishing so many innocent people," wrote playwright Arthur Miller, "is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

Just a normal town … but out of nowhere a wave of chaos was to wash over that world. In a millisecond it was gone. There were no phones, no computers, no power, nothing. Yet nobody had died, and no buildings were razed to the ground.

 It sounds like the perfect weapon. Without fracturing a single brick or spilling a drop of blood, it could bring a city to its knees. The few scientists who are prepared to talk about it speak of a major change in how wars will be fought. Even in peacetime, the same technology could bring mayhem to our daily lives. This weapon is so simple to make, scientists say, it wouldn't take a criminal genius to put one together and wreak havoc. Some believe attacks have started already, but because the weapon leaves no trace it's a suspicion that's hard to prove. The irony is that it's our love of technology itself that makes us so vulnerable.

This perfect weapon is the electromagnetic bomb, or e-bomb. The idea behind it is simple. Produce a high-power flash of radio waves or microwaves and it will fry any circuitry it hits. At lower powers, the effects are more subtle: it can throw electronic systems into chaos, often making them crash. In an age when electronics finds its way into just about everything except food and bicycles, it is a sure way to cause mass disruption. Panic the financial markets and you could make a killing as billions are wiped off share values. You could freeze transport systems, bring down communi­cations, destroy computer networks. It's swift, discreet and effective.

Right now, talk of the threat of these weapons is low-key, and many want it to stay that way. But in some circles, concern is mounting. Last month, James O'Bryon, the deputy director of Live Fire Test & Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Defense, flew to a conference in Scotland to address the issue. "What we're trying to do is look at what people might use if they wanted to do something damaging," he says. With good reason, this is about as much as O'Bryon is happy to divulge.

E-bombs may already be part of the military arsenal. According to some, these weapons were used during NATO's campaign against Serbia last year to knock out radar systems.

Interest in electromagnetic weapons was triggered half a century ago, when the military were testing something a lot less subtle. "If you let a nuclear weapon off, you get a huge electromagnetic pulse," says Alan Phelps of the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. If this pulse hits electronic equipment, it can induce currents in the circuitry strong enough to frazzle the electronics. "It can destroy all computers and communications for miles," says Phelps.

But the military ran into problems when it came to finding out more about the effects of these pulses. How could they create this kind of powerful pulse without letting off nuclear bombs? Researchers everywhere took up the challenge.

The scientists knew that the key was to produce intense but short-lived pulses of electric current. Microwaves in the gigahertz range can sneak into boxes of electronics through the slightest gap: vent holes, mounting slots or cracks in the metal casing. Once inside, they can do their worst by inducing currents in any components they hit. Lower radio frequencies, right down to a few megahertz, can be picked up by power leads or connectors. These act as antennas, sending signals straight to the heart of any electronic equipment they are connected to. If a computer cable picks up a powerful electromagnetic pulse, the resulting power surge may fry the computer chips.

You could take out a city's communications systems without killing anyone or destroying any buildings. In addition to the obvious benefits for the inhabitants, this also avoids the sort of bad press back home that can fuel opposition to a war. But that doesn't make these weapons totally safe, especially if they're being used to mess up the electronics of aircraft. "If you're in an airplane that loses its ability to fly, it's going to be bad for you," points out James Benford of Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California.

Another big plus for people thinking of using these weapons is that microwaves pass easily through the atmosphere. This means that you can set off your weapon and inflict damage without having to get close to your target.

Electromagnetic weapons can be sneaky, too. You don't have to fry everything in sight. Instead you can hit just hard enough to make electronics crash, and then quietly do what you came to do without the enemy ever knowing you've even been there.

The idea of weapons like these being used in warfare is disturbing enough, but what if criminals get their hands on them? According to Bill Radasky, an expert in electro­magnetic interference with Metatech in Goleta, California, they may have already done so. A basic microwave weapon, he says, can be cobbled together with bits from an electrical store for just a few hundred dollars. Such a system would be small enough to fit in the back of a car and could crash a computer from 100 meters away. Reports from Russia suggest that these devices have been used to disable bank security systems and to disrupt police communications.

Regardless of whether these weapons have been used yet, they highlight the way our dependence on electronics could become our Achilles' heel. The next time your computer crashes, don't automatically blame Bill Gates. Just wander over to the window and look for that unmarked van that sometimes parks across the street. Could there be someone inside sending a blast of microwaves your way?

It was acclaimed as the most successful air campaign ever. "A turning point in the history of warfare," wrote the noted military historian John Keegan, proof positive that "a war can be won by airpower alone." At a press conference last June, after Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic agreed to pull his army from Kosovo at the end of a 78-day aerial bombardment that had not cost the life of a single NATO soldier or airman, Defense Secretary William Cohen declared, "We severely crippled the [Serb] military forces in Kosovo by destroying more than 50 percent of the artillery and one-third of the armored vehicles." Displaying colorful charts, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Henry Shelton claimed that NATO's air forces had killed "around 120 tanks," "about 220 armored personnel carriers" and "up to 450 artillery and mortar pieces."

An antiseptic war, fought by pilots flying safely three miles high. It seems almost too good to be true—and it was. In fact—as some critics suspected at the time—the air campaign against the Serb military in Kosovo was largely ineffective. NATO bombs plowed up some fields, blew up hundreds of cars, trucks and decoys, and barely dented Serb artillery and armor. According to a suppressed Air Force report obtained by Newsweek, the number of targets verifiably destroyed was a tiny fraction of those claimed: 14 tanks, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, not 450. Out of the 744 "confirmed" strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo by helicopter and by foot, found evidence of just 58.

Why the evasions and dissembling, with the disturbing echoes of the inflated "body counts" of the Vietnam War? All during the Balkan war, Gen. Wesley Clark, the top NATO commander, was under pressure from Washington to produce positive bombing results from politicians who were desperate not to commit ground troops to combat. The Air Force protested that tanks are hard to hit from 15,000 feet, but Clark insisted. Now that the war is long over, neither the generals nor their civilian masters are eager to delve into what really happened. Asked how many Serb tanks and other vehicles were destroyed in Kosovo, General Clark will only answer, "Enough."

Air power was effective in the Kosovo war not against military targets but against civilian ones. Military planners do not like to talk frankly about terror-bombing civilians ("strategic targeting" is the preferred euphemism), but what got Milosevic's attention was turning out the lights in downtown Belgrade. Making the Serb populace suffer by striking power stations—not "plinking" tanks in the Kosovo countryside—threatened his hold on power.