[BTW, this story was also reported by the FT, where it noted that the US military authorities had no comment. Which is perhaps why this got so litle play in the US, as compared with Cesium in Laos & Thailand]
http://www.terradaily.com/2003/030624115623.7o4zmpgz.html
TERRA.WIRE
TUWAITHA, Iraq (AFP) Jun 24, 2003
Environmental group Greenpeace called Tuesday on the US-led coalition
governing Iraq to clean up villages surrounding a nuclear site outside
Baghdad that have been contaminated by "frightening levels" of
radioactive material.
Carrying Arabic and English banners that read "Al-Tuwaitha - nuclear
disaster. Act now!", Greenpeace activists returned a large uranium
"yellowcake" mixing canister to US troops stationed inside the nuclear
plant, 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of the capital.
The canister -- the size of a small car -- contained significant
quantities of radioactive yellowcake and had been left open and
unattended for more than 20 days on a busy section of open ground near
the Tuwaitha plant, Greenpeace said.
"No one cares about us. We are dying slowly. Our whole neighborhood is
contaminated. Although Greenpeace came, it is too late," said Tareq
al-Obeidi, a 41-year-old Tuwaitha city council member.
"We need medicine and good hospitals. Removing it from the garbage is
just the beginning of our long suffering," he said.
Greenpeace said there were three kilograms (6.6 pounds) worth of
yellowcake -- slightly enriched uranium -- inside the mixer looted
following the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"It is a disgrace that occupying forces can say they are taking care
of human health here in Iraq and they can still allow this to lie open
on the ground where children can play in it," said Greenpeace
spokeswoman Sara Holden.
Greenpeace said in a statement released in Baghdad that "if this had
happened in the UK, the US or any other country, the villages around
Tuwaitha would be swarming with radiation experts and decontamination
teams.
"It would have been branded a nuclear disaster site and the people
given immediate medical check-ups."
Much of the material was looted from the facility by villagers who
used it for house building and water and food storage, according to
Greenpeace International official Mike Townsley.
During a week-long survey, Greenpeace said it had uncovered
radioactivity in a number of buildings, including one source measuring
10,000 times above normal and another, outside a 900-pupil primary
school, measuring 3,000 times above normal.
Locals were still storing radioactive barrels and lids in their
houses, several objects carrying radioactive symbols lie discarded in
the community, and there are "consistent and repeated stories of
unusual sickness after coming into contact with material from the
Tuwaitha plant," the statement said.
Greenpeace said the preliminary survey "highlights the total failure
of the occupying forces to address the urgent need for a full
assessment, containment and clean up of missing nuclear material from
the Tuwaitha nuclear facility."
The environmental group accused the coalition of refusing so far to
allow experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to
carry out proper documentation and decontamination in Iraq.
"The Greenpeace team has only been surveying for eight days and has
discovered frightening levels of radioactive contamination," said
Townsley.
"The IAEA must be allowed to return with a full mandate to monitor and
decontaminate. They may believe they have accounted for most of the
uranium, but what about the rest of the radioactive material?"
IAEA inspectors have been charged with taking a stock inventory at
Al-Tuwaitha, including checking on levels of uranium ore believed to
have been looted.