#9
Russian environmentalists warn of harmful after-effects
of strike on Iraq
MOSCOW. Feb 27 (Interfax) - Up to 4 million people may die if chemical or
nuclear armaments are used in a military operation in Iraq. Casualties from a
conventional war may reach 250,000, head of the Greenpeace Russia office Ivan
Blokov told Interfax on Thursday.
About 200,000 Iraqis died in the previous Gulf War in 1991,
he remarked.
The environmentalist explained high civilian casualties by
the fact that the majority of Iraqi strategic sites are located in cities.
Blokov also noted the impact of bombing on the environment.
The largest concern of Greenpeace is the possible use of tactical nuclear
armaments, which "will actually liquidate the Non-Proliferation Treaty and
prompt many countries, among them North Korea, to boost the creation of their
own nuclear potential," he said.
Bombing may result in the pollution of vast territories
with products from burning oil and make them wastelands for decades, he said.
Meanwhile, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of
Sciences Alexei Yablokov called attention to the danger of depleted uranium,
which is a component of all US armor-piercing ammunition and large- caliber
machineguns. Depleted uranium is broadly used for peaceful purposes, for
instance in aircraft building, but it turns into an aerosol and becomes very
dangerous when hitting armor, the environmentalist said.
Despite American assurances, miniature nuclear bombs, meant
for the use against bunkers, will be harmful to the environment, Yablokov
warned. "It is impossible to keep radio-nuclides underground in blasting a
nuclear charge. Radiation will surely come out if such a projectile is exploded
at a depth of 30-50 meters," he noted.
As a final point, the bombing of Iraq may trigger
earthquakes both in the Middle East and thousands of kilometers away, Yablokov
said. "We witnessed that during the operation in Afghanistan. Bombs blasted
at a large depth caused colossal shifts of the earth's crust," he noted.
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