Even as the heated debate over nuclear weapons faded with the end of the Cold War, a tangential debate has emerged that is every bit as emotional and contentious as the larger issue.

And the first thing you need to know about depleted uranium weapons is that solid, reliable, unbiased information about D.U. and whether or not it's dangerous, is hard to come by.

The Pentagon is in deep denial. The media generally avoid the subject. And Congress tip-toes around the issue, unwilling to discuss any matter that might sully America's quick and decisive victories in the two Iraq wars, in Kosovo and in Afghanistan.

The confusion around D.U. weapons begins with its misleading name. The term "Depleted" suggests emptiness, a metal devoid of radioactivity. In fact. it is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium.

But there is no ambiguity about three other characteristics of D.U.

-First, it is a heavy metal; and -- like its cousins, lead and mercury -- is toxic to the human body. Second, it is cheap -- the U.S. Department of Energy has nearly two billion pounds in storage, and makes it available at give-away prices. And third, it is pyrophoric, bursting into flame when it strikes a hard object. The press sometimes mistakenly refers to anti-tank shells as "tipped" or "coated" with D.U. In the shells portrayed here, the white portions contain the propellents, while the dark sections are the "penetrators", consisting of up to 10.5 pounds of solid D.U.

D.U.'s extreme density -- 1.7 times as heavy as lead -- gave U.S. and U.K. forces an enormous qualitative advantage in the ground war against Iraq in 1991. Over 1,000 Iraqi tanks were destroyed by D.U. anti-tank munitions. The Pentagon later estimated that 14,000 such rounds were expended during the war, with an additional 940,000 smaller-caliber D.U. rounds being fired by A-10 "Warthog" aircraft in ground-support operations. The total weight of penetrators and bullets fired during the conflict ran to a total of 340 tons.

When a D.U. penetrator hits an enemy tank, it bursts into flame and acts like a giant blowtorch -- burning a hole through the tank's armor-plate. In the process, up to 70% of the D.U. turns into a toxic dust -- or aerosol -- that contaminates the destroyed tank and a surrounding area 25 meters in diameter. In areas with frequent dust-storms, such as Iraq & Kuwait, the toxic residue may be stirred up and re-distributed over a far wider territory, eventually finding its way into water supplies and the food chain.

D.U.'s deadly combination of heavy-metal toxicity and mild radioactivity can be taken into the human system either by inhalation, ingestion or wound contamination. Adverse health effects from D.U. exposure, in soldiers and civilians alike, include lung problems, skin and organ cancers, kidney stones, rashes and birth defects in offspring.

In the years after the Gulf War, thousands of vets began to experience chronic health problems and sought evaluation and treatment at V.A. medical centers or military hospitals. Eventually, around 186,000 were examined and told that they suffered from "undiagnosed illness," which came to be known by the generic term "Gulf War Syndrome." Government spokesmen consistently rebuffed any attempt to associate the use of D.U. weapons with Gulf War Syndrome, asserting there was no scientific basis to connect D.U. with cancer or leukemia.

In 1994-95, A-10 aircraft shot 10,800 D.U. rounds at Serb forces in Bosnia. In 1999, A-10 aircraft shot another 31,300 D.U. shells at targets in Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro. Peacekeeping troops, civilians and relief workers in those countries were surprised to learn about D.U. contamination. And their concern turned to outrage when a number of European troops, sent as peace-keepers, became ill and died. Whether justified or not, D.U. weapons were believed to be the culprit, and calls for an investigation arose.

While the silence of the military is understandable, given its narrow interest in military efficiency, the silence of the media is less so. Pair (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) ran a story headlined "Depleted Coverage of Depleted Uranium, which asserted that a May 22 Nexis survey found no mention of D.U. on ABC, NBC or CBS evening newscasts since the first of this year. On a critical foreign policy issue, the media were AWOL.