Posted on 04/04/2004 6:28:26 PM PDT by TYVets
AL-TUWAYTHA, Iraq (AFP) Mar 31, 2004 Hundreds of Iraqis living near the country's largest nuclear plant fear for their lives as dozens of radioactive barrels from the site looted at the end of the war a year ago remain there. Residents of Al-Tuwaytha compound, south of Baghdad, are reporting strange ailments and doctors say the number of children suffering from blood-related diseases is on the rise. "There are people who are losing their hair, others find spots on their skin and the colour of the face is changing," said Mohammad Abbas, a tailor. "One of my clients knows an entire family who gets sick at nightfall. They only get better when the sun rises," he added. Fuad Obeid, 27, has no doubts that these people "came into contact with radioactive barrels" from Al-Tuwaytha. Looters ransacked the nuclear station at the end of the 20-day US-led war that ousted former leader Saddam Hussein. Thieves broke into Al-Tuwaytha, emptied the barrels of their contents and then washed them in the Tigris River before selling them for a profit. The environmental group Greenpeace sounded the alarm at the end of the war and launched a campaign to retrieve the toxic barrels, which many residents had begun to use to store water and food. "More than 2,000 came into contact with these containers. It was a disaster for our health and the environment," said Hatem Karim, an optician who also sits on the municipal council. "Children have been stricken with blood diseases and brain tumors and new cases are coming in regularly," he added. Karim said he had begun investigating the pollution affecting the area along the Diyala river which is home to 125,000 people, and has piles of documents to press his case. "Most of the people here are poor and ignorant. They are totally unaware of the danger or the repercussions of radioactivity. These people don't even have sewers," he said. According to Karim some of the barrels from Al-Tuwaytha have never been found while others surfaced in Mosul, in northern Iraq. Last summer residents of Al-Tuwaytha staged a protest in Baghdad during a visit of a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who came to Iraq to probe reports of radioactive material. "Ever since no one has worried about us. We need technicians to measure the level of radioactivity," said Karim. At the Diyala out-patient clinic, Doctor Rabih al-Assadi recalls that a Greenpeace team which visited the region measured the level of radioactivity but Karim complains that the results have not been made public.
Mosul, a long way to go for just a barrel
Do these guys look happy |
Help keep "Wonder Vermin" |
Or mail checks to or you can use PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com |
|
SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC |
But they have a nuclear power station? Isn't that putting the cart before the horse a little? Anyway, how in the hell could you educate someone on the dangers of gamma radiation when they can't even grasp the concept of a flush toilet?
http://www.terradaily.com/2004/040331063626.65cnc18f.htm
Thanks for the help
If the barrels were full of something? would that make they worth more money in Mosul ?
========= Chemical Warhead found in Kirkuk =============
Chemical warhead found at an Iraqi air base, marked with a green band,
the symbol for chemical weaponry. Trace amounts of a nerve agent were found
at two spots along the ~meter-long warhead. These amounts are consistent with
leakage from the chemically armed weapon. A 13-foot missile was found next to it.
========= Halabja =========
Dead children, previously playing in Halabja
Victims of Saddams' WMD in March 1988.
=========== French missiles FIRST given to Iraq to be USED Against US and Coalition Heroes =========
French missiles found by the Poles, and to protect France, blown up.
Froggies said they did not say "2003". LOL. Decide for yourself.
Iraqi missiles given to, and now located in, Syria:
========= RUSSIAN MISSILES AND DIRTY BOMBS FOUND IN IRAQ =========
Russian-made R-60, NATO AA-8 Aphid, air-to-air missiles were found..
The Russian-made missiles are >6 feet long. Each carries 3.5 pounds of uranium.
wrapped around a high explosive warhead (13.2-pound) making a "dirty bomb".
Also found in Iraq:
* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service
that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials
working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home,
one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF),
and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in
resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission
that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles,
a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists
have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -
well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed
Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology
related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles,
and other prohibited military equipment.
Still missing based on the UNSCOM report to the UN Security Council in January 1999,
when the UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, they had been unable to account for:
up to 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agents, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent;
up to 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons which,
in the Iraqi chemical warfare program, were unique to the production of VX;
growth media procured for biological agent production (enough to produce
over three times the 8,500 litres of anthrax spores Iraq admitted to UN inspectors to having manufactured);
over 30,000 special munitions for delivery of chemical and biological agents;
20 al-Hussein missles with a range of 650 km, in violation
of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (Iraq had told UNSCOM that it filled these warheads with anthrax and botulinum);
2,850 tons of mustard gas, 210 tons of tabun, and 795 tons of sarin and cyclosarin;
development of the Al-Samoud short-range missle (which had the capability to fly beyond the 150 km allowed by UN resolutions)
Having their nuclear technology supplied by France would explain the conceptual disconnect between such technology and anything associated with hygiene.
Thieves broke into Al-Tuwaytha, emptied the barrels of their contents and then washed them in the Tigris River before selling them for a profit. The environmental group Greenpeace sounded the alarm at the end of the war,,,,,,,
Perhaps those 2,000 people that came in contact with the barrels were poor, no money there for Greenpeace?
Only 125,000 people lived along the river,, too small a base for a big fund raiser?
Follow the "Money Trail" first, last and aways.
What is the going price of a barrel FULL of RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS on the streets of Mosul today ?
.
Fear-mongering by the mainstream media and the sheeple who live by ABCCBSNBCCNNMSN has made electricity one of the most misunderstood and over-priced commodities that ever existed.
That level if ignorance is understandable, even excusable, in Iraq.
But not here.
That was the first thing that crossed my mind when i read this.
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.