- Recently completed laboratory analyses show two members
of Uranium Medical Research Centre's (UMRC) field investigation team are
contaminated with Depleted Uranium (DU). The two field staff, one from
Canada and the other, from Beirut, toured Iraq for thirteen days in October
2003; five months after the cessation of Operation Iraqi Freedom's aerial
bombing and ground force campaign. Using mass spectrometry, UMRC's partner
laboratory in Germany measured DU in both team members, urine samples.
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- The UMRC team surveyed US and British controlled
combat areas and bomb-sites in southern Iraq, including Baghdad, An Nasiriyah,
As Suweiriah and Al Basra (details can be found at UMRC.net, Abu Khasib
to Al Ah'qaf: Field Investigation Report). The conditions responsible for
the team's DU contamination are considered to be inhalation of resuspended
ultra-fine soil and dust particles saturated with uranium and airborne
uranium oxides and metallic particulate. Uranium was used in anti-tank
penetrators, suppression ordnance and bunker-defeat warheads deployed during
the 26 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom by both US and UK forces. The contamination
of UMRC's team members occurring over a two-week period, many months after
the main conflict, represents a risk to civilians, non-governmental organisations,
staff, Coalition armed forces and foreign contractors and diplomatic staff.
In 1997, UMRC was the first study group to detect DU in the urine
of Canadian' British and US troops who served in Gulf War I. The urinary
excretion of battlefield uranium was identified six years following exposure.
In January 2004, the US Department of Veterans Affairs admitted it had
detected DU in the urine of US forces who are not retaining DU shrapnel,
in 2000, eight years after Desert Storm. In 2001 and again in 2002, UMRC
measured high concentrations of artificial uranium containing the synthetic
isotope, 236U, in Afghan civilians exposed to the detonation plumes of
bombs deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom.
In November 2003, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) released a
formal statement to the Guardian disclaiming UMRC's Operation Telic findings
of high levels of radioactivity in British-led battlefields. The MOD stated
unequivocally that battlefield uranium residues remain stable inside defeated
Iraqi tanks and cannot be made biologically available to humans. Since
then' the MOD has found unusually high concentrations of uranium excreted
in the urine of its 1st Armoured Division troops who served in Basra (September
2003, UK DU Oversight Board Meeting minutes, Gulf Veterans Illnesses Unit,
UK Ministry of Defence). The MOD's recent findings in its troops now deployed
back to Germany, coupled with the contamination of UMRC's staff demonstrate
the need to initiate immediate solutions to protect exposed civilians and
foreign personnel in Iraq.
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- Preliminary results of UMRC's laboratory analysis
of field samples of civilian urine, soils and water samples indicate uranium
contamination in several Iraqi cities and battlefields. Details of UMRC's
findings from US and British controlled battlefields and bombsites will
be released later this month (February 2004). UMRC has offered its assistance
to the United Nation's Environment Program (UNEP) to guide UNEP's post-conflict
study team to radiologically contaminated bombsites and battlefields in
Iraq and Afghanistan. UMRC urges UNEP to undertake immediate studies and
lead the implementation of a radiation protection program for Iraqi and
Afghan civilians as well as a supervised environmental clean-up program,
as early as possible.
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- For information:
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- T Weyman
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- Iraq Field Team Lead
- Info@UMRC.net
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