[lbo-talk] Greenpeace says bulk radioactive materials untended in Iraq

[Michael Pollak]

[Civilians can literally pick up a carload of the stuff up off the ground.
Good thing there's no terrorists in Iraq!]

[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.