This is from the Baghdad Bulletin which bills itself as the
only English language newsmagazine dedicated to the
redevelopment of Iraq.
baghdadbulletin.com
Greenpeace delivers nuclear waste to Bremer
Published date: 20/7/2003
Author: Seb Walker
The controversy over possible risks of radioactive
contamination for communities living around the huge
Tuwaitha nuclear complex near Baghdad has been dragging on
for weeks now. While facilities like oil pipelines and
museum artefacts were immediately secured following the
ceasefire, the Tuwaitha nuclear storage facility was left
unguarded.
Consequently, it was heavily looted by locals and
radioactive material has been dispersed around the area.
At the beginning of June, a US official stated that there
were no health risks for the local population or soldiers
now guarding the site. Greenpeace, the international
environmental organization, surveyed the villages in the
area for a period of three weeks and found: a huge uranium
mixing canister abandoned in a field with about 4 or 5
kilograms of powder left inside, radioactivity in houses up
to 10,000 times above normal, radioactive barrels being
stored in houses, and consistent and repeated stories of
?unusual sickness? after coming into contact with material
from the Tuwaitha plant.
On July 4, the charity delivered a container of
?yellowcake? ? radioactive uranium ? found in the region to
the office of the Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul
Bremer. The sample was safely contained, unlike the
canister left open and unattended near the Tuwaitha plant
with significant quantities of radioactive uranium inside.
?What we have brought for Bremer is just a fraction of what
the people of Tuwaitha have had to live with for months,?
said Mike Townsley, a spokesman for Greenpeace.
Contaminated containers were looted from the Tuwaitha plant
by local people who wanted them for water storage.
Greenpeace has been taking new water storage barrels into
the villages to try to get people to swap their radioactive
containers, but for many water storage overrides the threat
of radioactivity.
According to Greenpeace, the current situation is nothing
short of a nuclear disaster, and even the US Army?s own
radiation expert has recommended that the International
Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation
should conduct an immediate assessment of the risks.
However, the subsequent IAEA report released on July 16 has
come up short of expectations, with the agency finding that
only 10 kilograms of radioactive uranium has been dispersed
in the communities around Tuwaitha. But the US authority
only allowed the IAEA to check for missing uranium, denying
permission to look into highly radioactive ?industrial
isotopes? which can also be deadly.
Greenpeace estimates that the site contains as any as 400
of these industrial isotope sources. The charity is shocked
by the brevity of the report which they say fails to
reflect the problems facing the communities around
Tuwaitha.
Published date: 20/7/2003
Author: Seb Walker |
