http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20109
IRAQ:
Experts Warn of Radioactive Battlefields
Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Sep 12 (IPS) - Concerns are growing about the presence of depleted
uranium and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among U.S.
troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad
are extremely elevated.
So far, according to figures obtained by the 'Washington Post', more than 6,000
soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of
the war. About 1,400 of them were injured in combat or non-combat incidents,
such as vehicle accidents, meaning the majority were evacuated for various physical
or psychological illnesses.
No further breakdown has been released. In July, the U.S. Army announced that
two soldiers had died of severe pneumonia and more than 100 were hospitalised
for the illness. The deaths are still being investigated.
While experts discount a single cause for these illnesses, some remain concerned
that neither the troops stationed in Iraq nor the civilian population is being
adequately protected from toxic residues left over from the war.
These fears were heightened when a correspondent for the 'Christian Science Monitor'
took a Geiger counter to parts of Baghdad that had been subjected to heavy shelling
by U.S. troops. He found radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal
in residential areas where children were playing nearby.
One explanation is the presence of depleted uranium (DU), the trace element left
over when uranium is enriched and the most radioactive types have been removed
for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. DU munitions vaporise on contact,
dispersing particles over wide areas, where they settle as dust that can be inhaled
or ingested.
The Pentagon has portrayed DU munitions as indispensable in giving U.S. soldiers
an edge on the battlefield. The high density of DU shells allows them to punch
through walls and armoured vehicles.
But some see a more cynical reason for their popularity: the United States is
the largest generator of DU in the world, with a stockpile of 700,000 tonnes
and growing. Since the supply is controlled by the Department of Energy, it is
readily available and free of charge. Transforming DU into weaponry has the added
advantage of easing the DOE's burden to safely store the spent nuclear fuel.
DU munitions made their debut in the 1991 Gulf War, and were later deployed in
Bosnia and Kosovo. It is almost certain that DU was used in Afghanistan in 2001,
but information on the exact amount remains unavailable.
Precise data is similarly hard to come by for the most recent U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, but based on preliminary reports, experts estimate that at least 200
tonnes of DU were released during combat.
While some studies on the effects of DU have been inconclusive, others determined
that it raises the risk of childhood cancers, birth defects and other long-term
health damage.
''The Pentagon's own published studies have shown adverse health effects,'' said
Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute,
which published an analysis of the available scientific research on DU in July.
''That's what so bizarre about their stance on this.''
NPRI and other groups are now calling on Washington to immediately halt the use
of DU, initiate a plan for cleaning up contaminated areas, and to support further
studies.
''The research that's been done -- the little and flawed research that's been
done -- has focused on adults,'' Sheehan-Miles added in an interview. ''No one
today has ever done any study on children that are exposed to it. We know from
other research that children are much more sensitive to toxicity..''
His concerns appear to be well founded. Two Iraqi doctors visiting Japan recently
reported a ten-fold increase in the number of cancer cases diagnosed in and around
the southern region of Basra since 1988.
Dr. Janan Ghalib Hassan, a neo-natalogist at the Women and Children's Hospital
in Basra, said that in 2001, 611 babies were born with no limbs, no eyes or other
birth defects, compared with 37 such cases in 1990. The area where the children
were born was subjected to heavy shelling with DU munitions in the first Gulf
War.
A recent analysis of already available data by the U.N. Environment Programme
(UNEP) concluded the latest invasion has ''undoubtedly'' worsened the serious
environmental problems that have accumulated in Iraq over the past two decades,
dating back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
''Given the overall environmental concerns during the conflict, and the fact
that the environment of Iraq was already a cause for serious concern prior to
the current war, UNEP believes early field studies should be carried out,'' said
UNEP administrator Klaus Toepfer in a statement.
''This is especially important to protect human health in a post-conflict situation.''
A spokesperson for UNEP told IPS that, ''we will conduct a full on-the-ground
study once the security situation allows, but there's no telling when that might
be.''
The White House and Pentagon have repeatedly denied that DU munitions pose any
threat to human health. One recent State Department report titled 'Apparatus
of Lies' has a section called ''The Depleted Uranium Scare'', which accuses the
Iraqi government of exaggerating the toxicity of DU in order to generate international
sympathy.
''In recent years, the Iraqi regime has made substantial efforts to promote the
false claim that the depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused
cancers and birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of
children with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium,'' the report
says.
''But scientists working for the World Health Organisation (WHO), the U.N. Environmental
(sic) Programme, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to
exposure to depleted uranium,'' it concludes.
However, according to a WHO monograph issued in 2001, ''DU munitions were used
in conflicts only relatively recently and the science has not yet thoroughly
addressed this exposure situation''.
''What we need is a credible, independent assessment of what the actual effects
are,'' says Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource
Centre.
''Obviously, the U.S. military needs to allow civilian health agencies and monitoring
teams into the war zone to conduct a large-scale epidemiological survey and rule
it in or rule it out,'' he told IPS.
''If these weapons have a so-called ''after-killing'' effect, that is clearly
prohibited under the Geneva Conventions.” (END/2003)
