The Committee was established under the Senate Decision of 17 November 2004 in order to inquire into:

• cases of death and serious illness among Italian military personnel engaged in international peace missionsand their causes; and the
• storage conditions and possible use of depleted uranium in military exercises on national soil.

The Committee, chaired by Sen. Paolo Franco and composed of 21 Senators, began its hearings on 4 May 2005.

A total of 36 persons were examined in 19 hearings held in plenary session; these included representatives of institutions, experts, officers of the armed forces, public officials and other people affected by the problems addressed in the inquiry (e.g. military personnel falling ill while on missions abroad or family members of deceased military personnel).

The Committee also sent delegations on two missions:

• a mission to Sardinia, to investigate problems regarding the storage conditions and possible use of depleted uranium munitions on military firing ranges (17-18 October 2005); and
• a mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, to investigate the safety conditions of Italian military personnel engaged there (28-29 November 2005).

A total of 51 persons were heard during these missions, including representatives of institutions, Italian military personnel and experts.

In addition to its plenary session hearings and missions, the Committee also met informally with its Bureau, enlarged to include parliamentary group leaders, and its consultants:

• Two meetings were devoted to the establishment of working groups, to which the consultants appointed by the Committee were assigned.
• One meeting addressed the issues connected to the hypothesis that some of the deaths or cases of serious illness among military personnel may be due to the vaccinations administered to them.

A verbatim report of all the hearings held, both in the context of plenary sittings at the Senate and during the above-mentioned missions to Sardinia and the Balkans, has been published (it is available in Italian only).

For the purposes of supplementing the available scientific and empirical data, and of assessing the feasibility of future surveys regarding the environmental consequences of using munitions containing depleted uranium, the Committee also assigned technical¿scientific studies to two highly-qualified research centres:

• A "Study on particle samples collected in Kosovo and Iraq and on human serum samples taken from several soldiers" (done at Nanodiagnostics srl, via E. Fermi, 1/L, 41057 San Vito di Spilamberto, Modena, by a working group coordinated by Dr Antonietta Gatti);
• A "Study of the ecological and health consequences of the use of weapons containing DU" (done at Centro U-Series, via G. Fanin 48, 40127 Bologna, by Mr Massimo Esposito).

The Committee concluded its work on March 1^st 2006 and, in accordance with its mandate under Article 2 of the Senate Decision of 17 November 2004 by which it was established, adopted a Report to the President of the Senate on the results of its inquiry.

The Report (Doc. XXII-bis, n. 4) is available in Italian and English on this website. The Italian text also includes the following annexes to the Report:

• Annex 1: "Summary of the Committee Plenary Session Hearings", complementing the relevant verbatim reports;
• Annex 2: "Final report on the study on particle samples collected i