SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Puerto Rico's government plans to ask the
                  European Union to include the U.S. Navy bombing range on Vieques island in its
                  investigation of the effects of depleted uranium, a senator announced Thursday.

                  The Navy has acknowledged that during training in 1999 for the Kosovo assault
                  it fired 263 depleted uranium-tipped bullets, of which it recovered 57, on the
                  training range on Vieques, an island of 9,400 residents. The Navy said it was an
                  accident. It's against federal law to use the armor-piercing ammunition, which
                  contains slightly radioactive depleted uranium, on such exercises.

                  The U.S. Caribbean territory's legislature expects
                  to pass a bill asking to be included in the
                  European investigation in several days, Senate
                  vice president Velda Gonzalez told a news
                  conference Thursday.

                  Gov. Sila Calderon told reporters Thursday that
                  she would welcome any "force that could help
                  discover the reality of what has occurred in
                  Vieques."

                  Anti-Navy activists long have blamed the Navy
                  bombing for higher than average cancer rates on
                  Vieques. The Navy says there is no scientific
                  evidence its activities have affected residents'
                  health but, responding to local studies that argue
                  otherwise, it has commissioned a study by the
                  toxicology department of the Atlanta Centers for
                  Disease Control.

                  U.S. Navy spokesman Jeff Gordon said he
                  resented the comparison of the use of the
                  ammunition in the Balkans to the incident on
                  Vieques.

                  "In Kosovo, NATO shot 31,000 bullets only
                  meters from people, and here in Vieques there
                  were only 263 that were more than 9 miles away
                  from the population," Gordon said.

                  In Europe, concerns that depleted uranium could
                  cause cancer were unleashed last month after
                  Italy began studying the illnesses of 30 Balkans
                  veterans, seven of whom died of cancer.

                  The EU study into possible health and environmental impact of the ammunition is
                  to be completed by February.

                  U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted Monday there was "absolutely
                  no proof" tying NATO forces dying or getting cancer to use of depleted
                  uranium. Lord Robertson, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty
                  Organization, also said there was no scientific evidence that depleted uranium
                  ammunition poses a significant health risk.

                  The debate comes as Puerto Rico's newly installed governor has promised to
                  press for the Navy to end its military exercises on Vieques, which has been used
                  for training for every major conflict since World War II.

                  Calderon supports islanders who reject an agreement between President Bill
                  Clinton and former Gov. Pedro Rossello for a referendum on Vieques that would
                  allow islanders to vote this year for the Navy to withdraw, but only in 2003.