Monday, May 19, 2003
UN nuclear agency head warns of 'nuclear emergency' in Iraq
Reuters Vienna, May 19
Mohammad El-Baradei, the head of UN's International Atomic Energy Agency and a former weapons inspector to Iraq, said the looting and destruction of the country's nuclear sites may lead to a radiological disaster, and appealed the US to allow him men back into the country.
"I am deeply concerned by the almost daily reports of looting and destruction at nuclear sites," UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed El-Baradei said in a statement.
He said he was especially worried "about the potential radiological safety and security implications of nuclear and radiological materials that may no longer be under control".
He said the reports the IAEA has received described uranium being emptied on the ground from containers then taken for domestic use and radioactive sources being stolen and removed from their shielding.
"We have a moral responsibility to establish the facts without delay and take urgent remedial action," El-Baradei said.
The U.N. agency has warned that stolen radioactive material could wind up in the hands of terrorists who could use it to make dirty bombs.
A dirty bomb combines radioactive material with a conventional explosive like dynamite to spread it over a wide area and is aimed more at causing panic than physical damage.
The IAEA chief first asked the United States on April 10 to secure the nuclear material stored under UN seal at Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear research centre and was promised by the United States that its military would keep the site secure.
After numerous media reports that Tuwaitha and other nuclear facilities in Iraq had been looted, El-Baradei wrote again to the US on April 29 requesting permission to send a mission to Iraq to investigate the looting reports.
The IAEA has yet to receive a response from Washington. On Sunday, El-Baradei told reporters in Boston that he had grown "frustrated" at the silence from Washington.
Recently, there have also been media reports that residents near Tuwaitha have exhibited symptoms of radiation sickness.
There were around 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, as well as several tons of natural and depleted uranium at Tuwaitha. There are more than 1,000 other radioactive sources in Iraq, many of which were stored at Tuwaitha.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2002. Reproduction in any form is prohibited without prior permission