War on Iraq

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Girl standing outside the Al-Majidat school for girls next to the Tuwaitha nuclear facility. Greenpeace found levels of radioactivity up to 3000 times higher than background levels at the school.

We don't believe war is the answer to ridding the world of Weapons ofMass Destruction and this is one of the reasons why we took particularissue with the war on Iraq. We joined with people all over the world inmonths of global action to promote a non-violent solution to theconflict in Iraq.

Webelieved the war was more about oil than about effectively dealing withweapons of mass destruction. It has resulted in devastating human andenvironmental consequences, and set a dangerous (not to mentionillegal) precedent.

Though the occupying forces were quick tosecure Iraqi oil fields, they neglected to safeguard dangerous nuclearmaterial. Now that material has made its way to homes and schools.Weapons of mass destruction, the alleged reason for the war in thefirst place, were never found.

Uranium and other nuclearmaterials stored under UN control in Iraq until the fall of SaddamHussein have been stolen and local residents are reportedly displayingsymptoms of radiation poisoning. Six weeks after the occupying forcestook control of the country, the US finally conceded that the UNnuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), couldreturn to assess what has been stolen at part of one site, Tuwaitha.Yet the IAEA has been refused access to the nearby population or toother sites it wants to visit, in contravention of UN resolutions.

We went to Iraq in June 2003 with a small, specialist teamto examine the local environment and to assess the extent of anynuclear contamination. The team took samples of soil and water forlaboratory analysis and conducted on-site monitoring with specialistradiation detection equipment. While the extent of the Greenpeaceradiological survey will not be comprehensive, it will provide someidea of the true level of risk to the people of the area and to theenvironment.

We are calling for a full assessment of the situation at Tuwaitha and other nuclear sites in Iraq:

• TheIraqi government must ask the IAEA to remain in Iraq with anunrestricted mandate to test as well as document all nuclear sites.
• TheIraqi government must ask the IAEA to oversee an urgent medical andenvironmental assessment of the impact of the radioactive material thathas spread in the local community - a practice that would be standardin any other country and circumstance.
• A hunt for all the industrial radioactive isotopes in Iraq must be conducted urgently as these are all potential dirty bombs.

See our Iraq war archive

• Consequences of War
• Its all about oil
• Double standards
• One year later