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10/13/2004:

"Greenpeace Calls For Stepped Up Action to Protect Iraqis from Looted Nuclear Items"

by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON -- The environmental group Greenpeace has echoed a call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to permit the UN watchdog to return in force to Iraq to track nuclear-related materials looted after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion there and help protect and treat the population from exposure to deadly radiation.

The group’s appeal followed a report released by the IAEA Tuesday that found that significant quantities of specialized equipment and material in Iraq that could be used to build a nuclear or radioactive bomb had disappeared from sites monitored by the agency before the invasion.

In a letter to the UN Security Council, IAEA director Mohamed el-Baradei said his agency was concerned both with the “widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement of sites linked to Iraq’s nuclear program and with the health of Iraqis living around the main nuclear facility at Tuwaitha."

Greenpeace, whose mission to Tuwaitha in June, 2003, alerted the world to the extent of post-war looting of nuclear-related material and the possible health threats that may have resulted from it, charged that the response of both the U.S. occupation authorities and the new interim Iraqi government to the problem of looting and possible radiation exposure has been inadequate to date.

“Nothing has been done to date,” the group said about providing medical help to the surrounding communities. It also stressed that that the new regime in Baghdad has apparently failed to follow up on repeated offers by the IAEA to advise the authorities in Iraq on the safety and security of nuclear and other radioactive materials, although it has reportedly asked the agency to facilitate the sale of equipment it has recovered.

Full Article: commondreams.org