From: davey garland
Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 15:45:18 +0100 (BST)
To: du-list@yahoogroups.com, du-watch@yahoogroups.com, pandora-project@yahoogroups.com,
earthfirstalert@yahoogroups.com, gulfwarveterans@groups.msn.com, ozpeace@yahoogroups.com,
abolition-caucus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [du-list] scrap radioactive metal
Scrap-laden trucks from Iraq banned entry
AMMAN (JT) ? Customs authorities have banned scrap-laden trucks from Iraq entering
the Kingdom after on-the-spot checks detected radioactive metal among the cargo.
The shipment was en route to Aqaba Port for export to the United States, Britain,
and European countries.
Officials used devices that were able to detect quantities of enriched uranium
in the shipment.
The officials said one truck was carrying around 40 tonnes of scrap that
had radioactive material stuck to it, adding that the total quantity
was measured at
1,118 sievert (a measurement of radiation) while the normal limit is 75
sv.
Sources told Al Rai and The Jordan Times the vehicles were sent back to
Iraq.
Government Spokesperson Asma Khader could not immediately confirm
the report but told Agence France-Presse that Jordan had taken measures
to ensure scrap entering the country from Iraq was not contaminated.
We had scientific information that scrap and metal could be contaminated
and radioactive... so Jordan took preventive measures to test these shipments
before they enter the country, Khader told AFP.
We took all the necessary measures and have placed detection devices
at the border (with Iraq) to make sure that no such material enters Jordan
before it is tested.
The same sources added that Jordan has also banned the entry of foodstuff
from Iraq for fear of contamination as a result of the US bombardment
of the country during the war.
Jordan has set up three testing centres on the border, capable of detecting
traces of enriched uranium as well as chemical material.
AFP reported that The New York Times newspaper on Friday said military
equipment as well as seemingly brand-new parts of oil rigs and water
plants might be leaving Iraq by truck every day in what could be a massive
looting operation.
This is systematically plundering the country, John Hamre of the Centre
for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington research
institute, told the paper.
While coalition authorities have approved the removal of scrap metal
from Iraq, including thousands of damaged Iraqi tanks and military vehicles,
material seen in scrapyards in neighbouring Jordan include new material
from Iraq's civil infrastructure, the daily said.
One hundred semitrailers loaded with what is billed as scrap metal arrive
in Jordan everyday from Iraq bearing legitimate scrap metal, but also
inestimable amounts of plundered material, said the paper.
The customs sources that spoke to Al Rai and The Jordan Times said
they deal with 200-250 trucks on a daily basis.
The New York Times said one of its reporters saw piles of valuable copper
and aluminum ingots and bars, large stacks of steel rods and water pipe
and giant flanges for oil equipment, all in nearly mint condition, as
well as chopped up railroad boxcars, huge numbers of shattered Iraqi
tanks and even beer kegs marked with the words `Iraqi Brewery.'
The head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's verification
office in Iraq, Jacques Baute, told the paper that satellite photographs
the agency uses to monitor hundreds of military-industrial sites for
the removal of sensitive material show jarring
results.
Entire buildings and complexes of as many as a dozen buildings have vanished
from the photographs, he said.
We see sites that have totally been cleaned out,
Baute added.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies has sent a team to
Iraq and issued a report on reconstruction efforts at the request of
the Pentagon last July.
Sam Whitfield, a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, told
the paper that the coalition had put a stop to widespread looting in
Iraq.
But an engineer at a scrapyard in Sahab, Jordan, pointed to items that
did not look like scrap at all.
He indicated five-metre-long bars of carbon steel, water pipes 30 centimetres
in diameter stacked in triangular piles three metres high and large falanges
he identified as oil-well equipment.
It's still new and worth a lot, Mohammad Al Dajah told the Times. Why
are they here? They need it there, he said.
Monday, May 31, 2004
Civilian standards say 0.5 mSv is maximum exposure level. The Jordan story
(D Garland's posting) says 75 Sv are normal, a whopping 15,000 times
the standard. If the inspectors are finding thousands of times
(again) more than this level in Iraqi scrap metal they are handling
either pure uranium or other "special nuclear materials". The levels
reported in the article warrant highest level of emergency response
to anyone handling the material. There must be a mistake reporting the
numbers. Tell your friends to evacuate immediately.
