Global Policy Forum

By Louis Charbonneau

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency warned on Monday that a nuclear contamination emergency may be developing in Iraq and appealed to the United States to let his experts back into the country. "I am deeply concerned by the almost daily reports of looting and destruction at nuclear sites," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.

He said he was especially worried "about the potential radiological safety and security implications of nuclear and radiological materials that may no longer be under control." He said the reports the IAEA has received described uranium being emptied on the ground from containers then taken for domestic use and radioactive sources being stolen and removed from their shielding. "We have a moral responsibility to establish the facts without delay and take urgent remedial action," ElBaradei said. The U.N. agency has warned that stolen radioactive material could end up in the hands of terrorists who could use it to make dirty bombs, which combine radioactive material with a conventional explosive like dynamite to spread it over a wide area and is aimed more at causing panic than physical damage. The IAEA chief first asked the United States on April 10 to secure nuclear material stored under U.N. seal at Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear research center and was promised by the United States that its military would keep the site secure.

One of the sources stored at Tuwaitha is caesium 137, a highly radioactive powder that would be especially dangerous in a dirty bomb. In 1987, a canister of caesium powder found in a Brazil junkyard exposed 249 people to radiation, killing four. After numerous media reports that Tuwaitha and other nuclear facilities in Iraq had been looted, ElBaradei wrote again to the U.S. on April 29 requesting permission to send a mission to Iraq to investigate the looting reports.

The IAEA has received no response from Washington and said that the contamination in Iraq could lead to a "serious humanitarian situation." There have already been media reports that residents near Tuwaitha have exhibited symptoms of radiation sickness. There are more than 1,000 other radioactive sources in Iraq, many of which were stored at Tuwaitha.

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