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June 02, 2005
Liberating the Environment
Sanctions, depleted uranium, our lack of interest in guarding nuclear and chemical plants after the war have all taken a major toll on the environment in Iraq:
AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraq's environmental problems - among world's worst - range from a looted nuclear site which needs cleaning up to sabotaged oil pipelines, a U.N. official said on Thursday."An improvement is almost impossible in these security conditions. Chemicals are seeping into groundwater and the situation is becoming worse and creating additional health problems," said Pekka Haavisto, Iraq task force chairman at the United Nations Environmental Programme.
"Iraq is the worst case we have assessed and is difficult to compare. After the Balkan War we could immediately intervene for protection, such as the river Danube, but not in Iraq," Haavisto, a former Finnish environment minister, said on a visit to Jordan to meet with Iraqi officials.
Lack of spare parts and Iraq's inability to maintain pollution standards during two previous wars and more than a decade of crushing sanctions have damaged the environment, including the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where most of Iraq's sewage flows untreated.
The situation became worse after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, in which depleted uranium munitions were used against Iraq for the second time and postwar looting and burning of the once formidable infrastructure caused massive spills and toxic plumes, Haavisto said.
"The bombing and war carried a cost but the looting cost the environment more, such as in the Dora refinery or Tuwaitha nuclear storage," Haavisto said.
"There has not been proper cleanup and only assessment work at some of these sites. Very little has changed and Iraqi teams are in the process of getting in some of these locations."
The U.N. official was referring to the 56 square km (22 sq mile) Tuwaitha complex south of Baghdad where 3,000 barrels that stored nuclear compounds were looted.
In the Dora depot on the edge of Baghdad, 5,000 barrels of chemicals, including tetra ethylene lead, were spilled burned or stolen, a U.N. survey showed.
Contaminated sites near the water supply also include a 200 square km (77 sq mile) military industrial complex, torched or looted cement factories and fertilizer plants, of which Iraq was one of the world's largest producers, and oil spills.
This is the kind of damage generations of Iraqi children will suffer from long after this is all over.
I guess I should say if this is ever over.
But, oh, wait. This is all Saddam Hussein's fault. Nothing to do with us.
Posted by zeynep at June 2, 2005 07:52 PM