There is never a good time for a fight but the timing of the latest row between the United States and Europe over the use of depleted uranium

ammunition (DU) in the Balkans could prove to be disastrous. Coming at the time when the European Union (EU) is building its own defense apparatus, the depleted uranium controversy could push European countries away from NATO and possible lead to competition between the new European defense identity and the North Atlantic alliance.

The European defense identity is a train that cannot be stopped. The EU is already an economic giant with a GDP comparable to that of the United States. It is also inching ever closer to becoming an actual state rather than a loose group of states. At the latest summit in Nice, EU leaders included 30 more policy areas under the rubric of "enhanced cooperation" which require a qualified majority, rather than unanimity. This means that on a whole range of issues, from EU budget to regulation of financial services, a collective decision by a majority of EU members can overrule an individual country's opposition, much as the U.S. federal government can, in many areas, overrule states' legislation and impose federal laws. Germany's Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, was only stating the inevitable when he called on the European nations to create within the next decade a functioning European government on a federalist model, presumably similar to the federal government in Washington, DC.

As an emerging actor on the international scene, the EU naturally demands a say in defense and security policies. Hence the recent effort to establish a 60,000-strong EU Rapid Reaction Force and the necessary political and military bodies to guide it. What is not clear yet, however, is the relation between the emerging European superstate and the United States. In the defense realm, this translates into uncertainty about the European defense identity's relation to NATO.

Some in Europe, most notably France, have sought to keep the EU completely separate from NATO. Although Europe and the United States see eye-to-eye on most defense issues, creation of a separate EU force carries the seeds of a conflict. The EU and NATO may find themselves unable to conduct joint operations as they used to for the past five decades. Moreover, should Brussels and Washington disagree on a security issue, there will be less incentive to seek common ground as Europe will have the ability to act independently. All decisions in NATO have to be made unanimously, thus forcing the allies to hear each other out and compromise.

Making a virtue out of necessity, the United States has publicly endorsed the European defense efforts. At the same time, Washington has sought to steer the EU's defense institution closer to NATO. The alliance's involvement in EU defense decisions would guarantee that Washington is at least consulted on, if not actually asked to approve, EU's military plans. To this end, U.S. officials have successfully worked with their close allies in Europe -- Great Britain and Germany -- to make sure that EU any defense agreements provided for close NATO involvement.

But proving once again that it is the little details that usually derail grand plans, the depleted uranium (DU) controversy is destroying much of the will in Europe to trust and work with the Americans. U.S. planes fired all of the controversial DU-coated rounds, which Italy, Spain, Portugal and other states now suspect of causing cancer in members of their peacekeeping forces. The European press has been merciless. "What kind of military alliance do we have where [we] must beg for information from the superpower?," wrote the Frankfurter Rundschau. "Confidence in the alliance has been shaken," wrote the respected French daily, Le Figaro. "It looks likely that a clash between the Americans and the Europeans cannot be avoided," wrote Italian daily La Repubblica.

Never mind that Washington maintains that it informed its allies of the DU hazard back in 1999, that a link between DU and cancer has not been convincingly proven, and that the number of cases of cancer among peacekeepers may be well within the statistical average for the population at large. "The controversy about an alleged Balkan syndrome carries the traits of a panic," wrote the Suddeutsche Zeitung. Next time the European leaders discuss how closely to anchor the EU defense institution to NATO, the public will no doubt ask whether they want to be linked to an alliance which many Europeans are now convinced is killing its own soldiers.

But something positive may come out of the controversy. Washington has indeed at times treated its European allies with a cavalier attitude. Until recently, nobody has bothered to ask the allies what they think of the proposed U.S. national missile defense system, even though the program will not work without installations on the territory of European countries. U.S. pundits and officials routinely accuse Europe of not pulling its weight in the Balkans even though the EU pays 80% of non-military aid to Bosnia and Kosovo, and contributes two thirds of the peacekeeping troops (the U.S. share is 15%).

One way to ensure continued European defense cooperation with the United States is to make NATO a more palatable choice for the Europeans. This need not be complicated. Washington needs to be more forthright with its allies, more willing to hear their views on issues of common interest, and more careful to check the facts before accusing Europe of not pulling its weight.

Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/SNN/

BRUSSELS, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The depleted uranium row has hit NATO with its biggest credibility challenge since the alliance struck at Yugoslav targets in 1999, but this time there is no major external threat to hold the alliance together.

Bereft of a common enemy to enforce consensus, the allies are increasingly airing differences, foreshadowing a potentially far more serious split later this year if the United States goes ahead with its controversial missile defence plan.

"NATO has nothing to hide," alliance Secretary-General George Robertson insisted on Wednesday, in a flashback to its battle against charges that the Kosovo war was ill-conceived, badly conducted and inflicted indiscriminate destruction.

Stunned by the media reverberation of charges that depleted uranium (DU) shells U.S. strike planes used in the Balkans could cause cancer among European troops, Robertson pledged to inform and reassure the public that such fears were unwarranted.

The hope was that by promising full cooperation with fresh investigations, and enlisting the support of United Nations health and environment experts, the furore would die down. But that might depend on the attitude of member governments.

Alliance diplomats said some members faced an uphill task against a potent array of anti-nuclear, anti-war, anti-NATO campaigners active in a European electorate whose trust in government and science was badly dented by health scandals over mad cow disease and industrial toxins in the food chain.

"You can stack the facts a mile high but there are some people who are never going to be convinced," a diplomat said.

MEDIA WHIRLWIND

The DU emergency hit the 19-member alliance like a whirlwind last week, quickly ensuring it would dominate Wednesday's first meeting of the North Atlantic Council of the new year.

Governments with the most vociferous anti-NATO lobbies demanded and got the alliance's full attention, even while admitting there was no new scientific evidence of major risk.

Robertson held a full-dress news conference before the biggest media turnout since the Kosovo war, and U.S. military medical experts in uniform were flown in from Washington to try to damp down the furore with a barrage of established facts.

All made a concerted effort to balance public health concerns that no allied government can ignore and the conviction among major NATO allies that DU is a legitimate and necessary weapon whose debris poses no major health hazards.

"We are not, and never will be complacent," Robertson said. But there was "no known link" in a multitude of studies between cancers such as leukemia and the very low levels of radiation in the immediate vicinty of spent DU ammunition.

He said an Italian-Greek-German call for a moratorium on the use of DU was irrelevant since it was not currently in use.

But he also ruled out a suggestion that, whatever its health implications, the DU armour-piercing round had become a political liability in need of a cleaner replacement.

"We cannot possibly go on the basis of perceptions or peoples' concerns about that one word - uranium," he said. "We have to base what we are doing on the facts...we must focus more on the facts and less on the emotions."

COME BACK, MILOSEVIC

Some NATO insiders compared the dissonance created in the alliance by the uranium row -- and the media attention it attracted -- with recent internal squabbling over the creation of a European Rapid Reaction force.

The incoming U.S. administration of president-elect George W. Bush is expected to take a somewhat tougher line than its predecessor as tricky negotiations with the EU over sharing NATO assets procede this year towards a hoped-for agreement.

The Bush team's conservative security chiefs were unlikely to have been impressed by European suggestions that major American DU-firing weapons such as the A-10 ground attack aircraft and the M1AI Abrahms tank be mothballed.

Washington may be counted on to point out, once more, that its airforce had to conduct 85 percent of the Kosovo strikes because the European allies were so poorly equipped.

The argument inevitably goes back to the absence of a current military threat to the alliance, a lack of consensus on where tomorrow's threat will come from, and how seriously to address it by means of military spending and development.

The DU furore looked like being the precursor to a far more divisive split later this year over the Bush administration's determination to go ahead with a National Missile Defence that European and other opponents have warned could spark a new arms race.

The alliance was "better at action than theory," one NATO diplomat remarked recently. "If (Yugoslav ex-president Slobodan) Milosevic were still around, I don't think you'd be seeing so much of this."

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