IRAQ: Radioactivity poses risk to population, warns UN nuclear agency (From Sadam Nuke Prog.)

BAGHDAD, 25 April (IRIN) - The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Monday that some 1,000 people living near the former Tuwaitha nuclear site faced serious health risks from lingering radiation.

Tuwaitha, situated some 20 km south of the capital, Baghdad, "is one of a number of sites in the country identified as needing decommissioning or remediation, where radioactive material was used or waste buried," according to an IAEA statement.

Residents of the nearby Ishtar village, for example, are exposed to levels of radiation higher than normal, the agency noted, which – in the case of prolonged exposure – could pose serious health risks. According to Bushra Ali Ahmed, director of the Radiation Protection Centre in Baghdad, blood tests carried out on residents revealed a degree of radioactivity in almost half of them.

Devoted to nuclear research under the former regime of Saddam Hussein, Tuwaitha has the highest levels of ambient radiation in the country, according to experts. "Research was done under the Hussein regime using the most dangerous kinds of nuclear material," said Ammar Kheiry, a senior official at the Ministry of Science and Technology. "This resulted in a concentration of radioactive material and exposure of innocent civilians to the dangerous material."

Kheiry went on to draw attention to the government's concern over radioactive material and equipment that vanished from Iraq's nuclear sites in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion of the country. There have been scattered reports, for instance, of equipment being used by poor families to store water and petrol domestically.

Officials at the health ministry, meanwhile, point out that the number of patients diagnosed with cancer countrywide has increased noticeably in the past two years. Experts suspect the main cause for rising cancer rates could be radioactive contamination resulting from the widespread use of radioactive munitions and equipment.

"Before 2003, there was one new cancer case a day in the capital, at most. This number has now risen to five per day," said Dr Ahmed Abdul Jabbar, an oncologist at the Baghdad Radiation Hospital. "An urgent study should be undertaken, because, according to our statistics, most of the cancer cases have come from areas affected by war and fighting."

The government, therefore, has asked the IAEA for assistance compiling a study on radiation levels throughout the country. "We've called for help from international organisations with expertise in these issues to protect Iraqis from becoming victims of these dangerous materials," Kheiry explained.

The first steps to be undertaken by the IAEA will be to identify, cordon off and prioritise the areas posing the greatest risk to the population. According to agency officials, the main challenge will be to "determine unknown locations where contaminated equipment and materials might be buried and recover lost records about…radioactive materials stored in waste containers".

But cleaning up radioactive materials is a relatively long and complicated process, say officials. "This is a huge task," Dennis Reisenweaver, the IAEA expert heading the effort, noted recently. "And one that could take many years."

Two Iraqi documents that talk about the exposure of civilians to Nuclear Radiation but of course Saddam Regime wanted to blame it on the bombing of the US and Coalition forces during the 1991 Desert Storm campaign, i.e. their lies and accusations that the US used Depleted Uranium against civilians that caused death, cancer, or even mass graves as one of the document mention. In fact both documents were written in 2001 and shortly after that Saddam Regime started a propaganda and lies campaign about Iraqi civilians suffering from decease due Depleted Uranium used by Coalition bombing in 1991.

Document ISGQ 2004-00224003 , I did the translation last month and publish it under http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1603696/posts, you notice in the body if the translation the Iraqi wanted to confirm that the dead bodies in the mass grave are exposed to Nuclear Radiation. “A. Inspect the graves to confirm the existence of Nuclear Radiations.

In document BIAP-2003-004555 there is this interesting secret and immediate letter dated February 24 2001 from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization to the Iraqi Heath Ministry asking to provide them with sample for each case of cancer in the Southern region and Baghdad so they can test the concentration of “Depleted Uranium” in the organs. It was clear that the Iraqi wanted to use this to promote a big lie that the Iraqi people were exposed to Depleted Uranium during the first Gulf war in 1991 and this was due to Coalition Forces bombing. The real fact that these people had leukemia and other type of cancer because of the nuclear waste and nuclear experimentations that Saddam regime was doing for many years.

Beginning of the translation of Page 157 of document BIAP-2003-004555

Republic of Iraq

Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization

Number 15/246

Date: 24/2/2001

Secret and Immediate

Health Ministry/ Office of the Minister

Subject: Use of Depleted Uranium

Indicating to the letter of the Presidential Secretariat numbered aa’/4165 on 3/2/2001 please provide us with sample for each Cancer case that come to the hospital in the Southern Region and the capital Baghdad for the purpose of examining the concentration of Uranium in the affected organs or blood attached with information about the patient clarifying all the information for purposes of documentation and providing the statistical analysis and estimate the health risk for the pollution with Depleted Uranium, and prepare what is required from scientific facts and statistics to show the negative impacts and with what collate with the direction of the respected Presidential Secretariat to support the international campaign against the use the of Depleted Uranium.

Signature…

Fadel Muslim Abed Al Janabi

Chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization

End of Translations of Page 157

PS: In the light of the recent revelations of Iraqis getting cancer because of Saddam Nuclear activities in the past, I do not know if we should make the above a thread by itself to show the evil of Saddam Regime, their lies, and their deceptions regarding this issue.

Interesting take on the birth defect/cancer thing, but even the WHO admits DU isnt all that nasty a stuff.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/

Exposure to uranium and depleted uranium

Under most circumstances, use of DU will make a negligible contribution to the overall natural background levels of uranium in the environment. Probably the greatest potential for DU exposure will follow conflict where DU munitions are used.
A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low.
A UN expert team reported in November 2002 that they found traces of DU in three locations among 14 sites investigated in Bosnia following NATO airstrikes in 1995. A full report is expected to be published by UNEP in March 2003.
Levels of DU may exceed background levels of uranium close to DU contaminating events. Over the days and years following such an event, the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water.
People near an aircraft crash may be exposed to DU dusts if counterweights are exposed to prolonged intense heat. Significant exposure would be rare, as large masses of DU counterweights are unlikely to ignite and would oxidize only slowly. Exposures of clean-up and emergency workers to DU following aircraft accidents are possible, but normal occupational protection measures would prevent any significant exposure.

Intake of depleted uranium

Average annual intakes of uranium by adults are estimated to be about 0.5mg (500 μg) from ingestion of food and water and 0.6 μg from breathing air.
Ingestion of small amounts of DU contaminated soil by small children may occur while playing.
Contact exposure of DU through the skin is normally very low and unimportant.
Intake from wound contamination or embedded fragments in skin tissues may allow DU to enter the systemic circulation.

Absorption of depleted uranium

About 98% of uranium entering the body via ingestion is not absorbed, but is eliminated via the faeces. Typical gut absorption rates for uranium in food and water are about 2% for soluble and about 0.2% for insoluble uranium compounds.
The fraction of uranium absorbed into the blood is generally greater following inhalation than following ingestion of the same chemical form. The fraction will also depend on the particle size distribution. For some soluble forms, more than 20% of the inhaled material could be absorbed into blood.
Of the uranium that is absorbed into the blood, approximately 70% will be filtered by the kidney and excreted in the urine within 24 hours; this amount increases to 90% within a few days.

Potential health effects of exposure to depleted uranium

In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium. There is limited information from human studies indicating that the severity of effects on kidney function and the time taken for renal function to return to normal both increase with the level of uranium exposure.
In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.
Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).
No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.
No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.
Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue, and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the few studies reported.

This is from http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/suffering.html

"Depleted Uranium Scare
During the Gulf War, coalition forces used armor-piercing ammunition made from depleted uranium, which is ideal for the purpose because of its great density. 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 campaign has two major propaganda assets:

Uranium is a name that has frightening associations in the mind of the average person, which makes the lie relatively easy to sell; and
Iraq could take advantage of an established international network of antinuclear activists who had already launched their own campaign against depleted uranium.

But scientists working for the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Program, and the European Union could find no health effects linked to exposure to depleted uranium.

The truth has not deterred the Iraqi disinformation campaign. On November 15, 2000, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that Iraq had set up an organization called the "“Central Committee for the Follow-up of the Consequences of Pollution" under the direct supervision of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, to pursue this issue. It also reported that Iraqi Major General Abd-al-Wahhab Muhammad al-Juburi headed a working team of military personnel, scientists, and others to generate data and organize tours for the international media. Iraq has hosted international conferences on the alleged ill effects of depleted uranium and sent "experts" abroad to speak on the subject, including Iraqi professor Mona Kammas, a member of Iraq’s "Committee of Pollution Impact by Aggressive Bombing."

Medical Facts on Iraqi Chemical Weapons Exposure
The Iraqi News Agency website directs viewers to a gruesome picture of a boy from the city of Mosul, with the caption, "We say to human rights advocate: Look what their bombs have done to the children of Iraq. Look how they use internationally banned weapons, including Depleted Uranium ammunition, in their aggression against Iraq." In November 2000, the Iraqi magazine Alif Ba' claimed that an Iraqi child had been born with "two heads and three arms" because the mother had been exposed to depleted uranium.

If there has been an upsurge in birth defects and cancers in parts of Iraq, it is most likely to have been caused by the regime's use of chemical weapons from 1983 to 1988, including mustard gas and nerve agents. Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in southern and northern Iraq against the Iranians, with whom they were at war from 1980-88, and against the Iraqi Kurds, as in the well-known chemical attacks in the northern town of Halabja. Mustard gas has long been known to cause cancers and is strongly suspected of causing birth defects.

Dr. Christine Gosden, professor of medical genetics at the University of Liverpool researched congenital malformations, fertility and cancers in Halabja in 1998. Says Dr. Gosden: "What I found was far worse than anything I had suspected ... . Conditions such as infertility, congenital malformations and cancers (including skin, head, neck, respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, breast and childhood cancers) in those who were in Halabja at the time ... are at least three to four times greater, even 10 years after the attack. An increasing number of children are dying each year of leukemias and lymphomas. The cancers tend to occur in much younger people in Halabja than elsewhere, and many people have aggressive tumors ...."19

Dr. Gosden also described a visit to a hospital in Halabja: "The staff in the labor ward told of the very large proportion of pregnancies in which there were major malformations. In addition to fetal losses and perinatal deaths, there is also a very large number of infant deaths. The frequencies of these in the Halabjan women is more than four times greater than that in the neighboring city of Suleymania... The findings of serious congenital malformations with genetic causes occurring in children born years after the chemical attack suggest that the effects from these chemical warfare agents are transmitted to succeeding generations."20

According to Dr. Fouad Baban, Chairman of the Department of Medicine of Suleymania University, "Congenital abnormality rates in [Halabja] are four to five times greater than in the post-atomic populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rates of stillbirths and miscarriages in the town are even more alarming. Rare and aggressive cancers in adults and children are found at levels far higher than anywhere in the world."21 "

What is scary is that a lot of americans are buying into this DU scare as they have bought into other eco scares in the last 30 years. It falls on us (freepers) as self appointed monitors of the media to expose this nonsense when we see it or it will get worse and soon we will be paying reparations to the Iraqis for what Saddam did to them, at least if Hillary gets into office.

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