- 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.
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- "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.
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "Iraq was a modern industrial society in many ways.
The chemicals are very risky on its future. The more time passes the more
consequences on health," Haavisto said.
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- He said postwar assessment of the environmental damage
was proceeding despite threats to the 1,000 staff of an Iraqi environment
ministry, set up as an independent unit after the American invasion.
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- The field studies will eventually include depleted uranium,
a toxic, heavy metal used to make bombs more lethal, of which the United
States used an estimated 300 tonnes in 1991 Gulf War and an unknown quantity
during the last invasion.
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