Keeping Baghdad Dirty

I noticed that UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Programme, has issued a report critical of the US refusal to allow pollution inspectors into Iraq to measure the amount of radiological pollution from the Pentagon’s use of uranium-rich dirty bombs and dirty bullets. What makes this different from all the other wars in the 90s where the Pentagon used nuclear radiological weapons is that they were never previously used within a dense urban environment like Baghdad’s. The US is refusing to fund an anti-radiation cleanup campaign, which seems odd given that this would be a high-price, juicy contract for a defence contractor. Unless, of course, attempting a cleanup would create hard, uncomfortable data on exactly how bad the radiation pollution is within the country. Meanwhile, after the IAEA seals on Iraq’s nuclear waste storage sites were breached by US invasion forces, heavy looting has dispersed hundreds of kilos of hot waste across the country and into the water table. Not to mention making it more likely that extremists will be able to buy radiological material for a dirty bomb at any convenient Baghdad market.

Earlier here.