[CPEO-MEF] Uranium dust worries Iraqis

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Weapons Dust Worries Iraqis

Provisional Government Seeks Cleanup; U.S. Downplays Risks

By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
Hartford Courant (CT)
November 1 2004

 Despite assurances from the U.S. military that depleted uranium from
exploded munitions does not pose a significant health threat, Iraq's
provisional government is asking the United Nations for help cleaning up
the low-level radioactive, metal dust spread across local battlefields
by U.S. and British forces during the Persian Gulf wars.

The request comes as the United States continues to defend depleted
uranium weaponry - prized for its tank-piercing and bunker- or
cave-smashing ability - against strong opposition by other countries,
scientists and veterans organizations.

Great Britain, a major partner in the coalition now fighting in Iraq,
has provided the U.N. with the coordinates where its forces used
depleted uranium, also known as DU, in southern Iraq, but the United
States has not. Britain and Germany are supplying money to train Iraqis
in environmental science. The United Nations plans to survey for DU hot
spots from both wars in Iraq and says it needs the coordinates for an
effective survey.

Neither British nor U.S. authorities have offered to augment the $4.7
million donated mainly by Japan to the United Nations to evaluate sites
of wartime contamination that health experts say threaten the well-being
of Iraqi civilians.

...

for the entire article, see
http://www.ctnow.com/news/health/hc-ducleanup1101.artnov01,1,7556418.story?coll=hc-headlines-health

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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