In a hospital in Basra, in southern Iraq, a region that came under heavy bombardment in the Gulf war, Dr Abdul Karim flicks through his casebook from the past four years. In it are pictures of babies born with severe physical deformities, of which Dr Karim claims to have seen a dramatic increase.

DR ABDUL KASRIM: I`ve noticed a rising incidence in these congenital malformations in babies. We think that depleted uranium might be the cause.

During the Gulf War, American and British forces used for the first time ammunition made from depleted uranium, a radioactive and toxic waste. Iraq and northern Kuwait were virtual testing ranges for this new weaponry.

On this road, hundreds of Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait for Basra were killed by bombs made from depleted uranium. This 27-year-old man survived.

FORMER IRAQI SOLDIER: At the time of the withdrawal, we were under heavy bombing in a convoy of tanks and trucks, with a lot of equipment. I was driving with my unit. The shelling was fierce and I began to smell a very bad smell - a strange smell, like bad eggs and rotten garlic.

The former soldier is apparently dying a slow and painful death from cancer which he believes is a result of depleted uranium in radiation.

FORMER SOLDIER: From 1997 until now, I`ve been taking various medications. I`ve had injections and I`ve taken pills. I can`t see any progress. Day by day, the swelling is getting bigger. At night, I can`t sleep and feel I am suffocating. It`s strangling me between the left and the right.

Depleted uranium, or DU, is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process, with a radioactive half-life of 4.5 billion years. It`s used in bombs and bullets because it`s cheap, available and extremely dense - an ideal armour-piercing material. Independent nuclear consultant John Large describes what a DU weapon looks like and how it works.

JOHN LARGE, NUCLEAR CONSULTANT: As it approaches the tank wall, of course it penetrates in and then the tower flicks off, usually - this section breaks. So it`s this bulbous part that goes into the tank. As goes into the tank wall, it literally seals itself in - it`s travelling through here at 1,000 miles an hour, say, getting very hot, but no oxygen can get to it. When it comes out the other side, it`s absolutely really incandescently hot. It immediately bursts into flames and creates all these particles.

The amount of energy, although it`s quite high, the amount of energy here just gives you a puff of very high temperature. So what`s interesting is that it doesn`t decimate all the munitions in the tank. It`s just enough energy to actually incinerate any diesel fuel in the tank, burn any dry skin, so it`s a pretty hideous weapon in terms of what it does. It`s a flash, bang sort of toaster.

In the flash, bang of Desert Storm, it`s believed between 300-800 tonnes of depleted uranium was lost in Iraq and Kuwait - much of it converted at high temperature into minute, insoluble particles and dust. At the end of the war, in the midst of the hype over the success of expensive high-tech weaponry, depleted uranium weapons received surprisingly little praise from Pentagon and defence industry officials.

A possible reason may have been the US Army reports, written before the Gulf War, which warned that the use of such weapons could have severe health and environmental consequences. The Pentagon has since dismissed those reports, claiming recent studies have proved DU weapons to be safe.

Many are not convinced, including high-profile activists like Ramsey Clark, the former US attorney-general seen demonstrating against UN sanctions in Baghdad last week. For many years, he and a growing number of American scientists have been calling for a ban on the use of DU weapons.

Carried by the wind or river systems, DU has, according to those scientists, contaminated thousands of Iraqis who have inhaled it or ingested polluted food and drinking water. This 13-year-old boy lies dying of lymph cancer. His doctor claims to have seen a four-fold increase in cancer cases in the Basra area, particularly among young people.

DOCTOR: We have an abnormal pattern of cancer. Cancers of the elderly we now see in the young. I saw a case of cancer in the ovaries - which is normally seen in women in their 30s and 40s - in a girl of just 11. Leukemias and lymphomas and cancers of the ovaries and testes have increased after the use of depleted uranium.

Inhaled or ingested, depleted uranium is believed by some Western health experts to cause kidney damage, cancers, chromosomal damage and birth defects. This boy was four years old at the time of the Gulf War and lived in an area that may have been contaminated by depleted uranium. Soon after he was filmed for his report, he died.

IRAQI FARMER: The grass here is contaminated. The whole environment is contaminated.

This farmer`s sheep are grazing around the remains of an Iraqi tank destroyed by a depleted uranium bomb. But no independent testing of the site has been undertaken to either confirm or disprove his fears. Local farmers, however, are convinced their children are suffering from irradiation.

SECOND FARMER: The whole area is contaminated. My son Yussef has been sick for about three years. The other one is beginning to suffer now. He cannot stand properly, and many Arabs in our neighbourhood are experiencing the same thing. My neighbours have two sick children as well.

This woman is about to have her baby by Caesarean section. She`s been told it has hydroencephaly, a severe deformity of the brain.

IRAQI WOMAN: We`ll see what they pull out of me this time. I don`t know what I can do. I`m very scared - in fact, I`m petrified.

Abdul Karim, the doctor who has kept the casebook of deformed babies born here, will perform the operation. The baby boy is alive, but clearly has a larger than normal head. There`s no way of knowing what caused his condition, but doctors at the hospital, like the local farmers, are convinced that depleted uranium will continue to damage unborn lives.

WESTERN MILITARY OFFICIAL: There is no evidence of possible exposure beyond the safe levels.

Western authorities deny any link between depleted uranium and cancer or birth defects. In tests on its own Gulf War soldiers, Britain`s Ministry of Defence described the danger of DU as extremely low.

JOHN HARRISON, NATIONAL RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION BOARD: I believe that we at the NRPB have studied the risks from depleted uranium more than adequately. This has also been looked at by other organisations and so far, there is no convincing evidence that uranium represents a hazard to people.

With little fanfare or discussion, DU weapons have found their way into the arsenals of nations powerful and poor, in some of the world`s most volatile regions.

JOHN LARGE: We can no longer tolerate, with this sophistication of weaponry, no longer tolerate that military planners and targeters have an entirely free hand to do something which may... OK, it may control a so-called tyrant for a few years, but certainly we wouldn`t want to see the effects going on for many decades. And that may be what we`re seeing now in Iraq, and it may be what we will see in Serbia, by the use, the unconstrained and unrestrained use of high-technology weapons.

Mounting public concern in Europe over NATO`s use of depleted uranium weapons in Bosnia and Kosovo led the European Parliament to last week call for a ban on their use while more health investigations are carried out.