U.S. DELEGATION FINDS HIGH-RADIOACTIVITY IN IRAQI DESERT

RAMSEY CLARK AND SANCTIONS CHALLENGE HEAD BACK TO EUROPE, U.S. AFTER SOLIDARITY TRIP TO IRAQ/PALESTINIANS CHARGE ISRAELI MILITARY USES DEPLETED URANIUM (Reports from Baghdad, Iraq; Amman, Jordan; and Rome, Italy)

A investigating team from a U.S. solidarity delegation to Iraq on Jan. 18 found “extremely high levels of radioactivity” in soil samples in the Iraqi desert south of Basra. In that region during the 1991 war against Iraq U.S. forces fired hundreds of thousands of shells reinforced with depleted uranium.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and New Mexican activist and researcher Damacio Lopez had separated from the main body of Clark’s International Action Center’s 50-person “Iraq Sanctions Challenge” to collect the soil samples.

On Jan. 19, Clark reported on his team’s findings of high radiation levels at a news conference at the Italian Parliament in Rome. He condemned the Pentagon’s use of DU weapons in Iraq and Yugoslavia and demanded that scientists from these countries be included in the investigation of the dangers to humans of DU.

A storm of protest in Europe has brought to international attention the threat to soldiers and civilians from pollution by radioactive and toxic DU shells in Kosovo and Bosnia. There have already been massive protests in Greece, with hundreds of Greek soldiers demanding they leave Kosovo. Other protests are planned in Italy and Portugal and meetings have been held in Belgium, France and Spain.

 From Amman, Jordan, IAC co-director Sara Flounders said that “while DU poisoning of European and U.S. soldiers are criminal, the poisoning and pollution of the civilian areas of Kosovo, Bosnia and to an even greater degree Iraq are war crimes. We hold the Pentagon responsible for the damage done to the population and the environment of the Balkans and of the area including parts of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

“A report from Geneva,” said Flounders, “indicates that besides depleted uranium, some of the U.S. shells contained measurable amounts of plutonium and Uranium-236, even more dangerous pollutants than depleted uranium. This only adds to U.S. culpability in this matter.

“Today’s Jordan Times reports on its front page,” continued Flounders, “that Palestinian organizations have charged the Israelis with using DU against the Intifada. Through the Pentagon, which supplies most Israeli weapons, the Israeli military is supplied with DU. We in the IAC had raised last November the possibility that Israeli forces were also using this illegal weapon.”

In the days before the Rome news conference, both the Iraqi and Yugoslav governments had condemned the use of DU on their territories. Belgrade said it would demand that the International War Crimes Court at The Hague include DU use as a war crime to be investigated. [for reports from Iraq and Yugoslavia see the DU page on the IAC web site at www.iacenter.org]

Background to Sanctions Challenge

The U.S. group had arrived in Baghdad by air the night of Jan. 13, acting in defiance of the U.S./UN imposed no-fly zones. At a press conference at the airport Ramsey Clark declared, "The US must end the genocidal sanctions against Iraq. The whole world demands that the sanctions be lifted completely and immediately."

Fifty anti-sanctions activists led by joined a demonstration in downtown Baghdad at 2 a.m. on Jan. 17 to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led war of aggression against Iraq.

It was at 2 a.m. ten years ago that U.S. and British forces unleashed rockets and bombs on sleeping Baghdad.

The delegation spent the next three days visiting sites that demonstrate the consequences of the 10 years of sanctions or those hit by frequent bombing the past ten years.

Sites included a bomb shelter, elementary schools, a university, water and sewage treatment plants, and hospitals. The delegation also met with the Iraqi minister of health, visited a pharmaceutical plant, a school for the blind, the Iraqi Women’s Federation and a food distribution center.

They found that sanctions are still making life extremely difficult for the Iraqi population and causing needless deaths. Yet the mood of the Jan. 17 demonstrators was optimistic and combative. In the months leading up to the anniversary, more and more countries had begun individually breaking the ban on flights and other sanctions against Iraq. More than 100 flights have entered Iraq in the last five months.

The delegation delivered over $1.5 million in medical and school supplies, and plans to deliver more supplies to Palestinian hospitals on the West Bank.

In a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Ramsey Clark denounced U.S. policy toward Iraq. “This is genocide,” he said. “The progress that Iraq has made must not be lost at 12 noon on Jan. 20 when George Bush is inaugurated. Inspection teams and Oil-for-food program were both frauds from the beginning. There is no justification for the sanctions. They are a war by other means.”

The IAC delegation brings together people from fifteen US states and seven countries, including Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Greece, Britain, Iceland and Palestine. It includes students, teachers, long time activists, social workers, lawyers, and others committed to peace.

The delegates met with the Iraqi host organization, The Organization of Friendship and Solidarity with Iraq. The head of OFSI, Dr. Hashimi said: "You will see a nation of siege. The siege is from outsiders who say they do it in accordance with law and legality and UN resolutions"

"It is a siege to achieve unjustified objectives. We hold on in spite of the suffering and the pain and we will continue to hold on for as long as necessary. We know that if we give up we will lose Iraq".

Throughout the world, from San Diego to New York to London to Madrid to Vienna and throughout the Middle East, there were been protests on the 10th anniversary of the war demanding that sanctions be ended.

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