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By Tareq Delwani, IOL Correspondent
AMMAN , June 16 (IslamOnline.net) ?
Jordan is considering a ban on Iraqi military
scrap imports amid fears that they could be
contaminated.
A committee of ten ministries and other
government-run institutions has recommended the
ban, citing health and environmental hazards of
the booming scrap business.
Tons of scrap metals have been imported from
Iraq by Jordanian traders at low prices since
the fall of Baghdad to the US-led occupation
forces.
The committee said that local inhabitants of
northern
Amman have complained of health problems
including breath difficulty and severe
headaches.
The imported scrap metals include destroyed
military vehicles and tanks of the disbanded
Iraqi army.
Jordanians fear that these military vehicles
were shelled by depleted uranium during the
US-British invasion of Iraq .
On April 25, the
Observer
quoted military sources as affirming that
depleted uranium shells and bombs used by US and
British troops during Iraq invasion were five
times more than the number used during 1991 Gulf
war.
The Pentagon had admitted shelling Iraq with
about 350 tons of depleted uranium in 1991,
aggravating cancerous tumors cases among Iraqis.
In a report issued Thursday, April 24, the UN
Environment Program (UNEP) pressed the
occupation forces to
pinpoint
Iraqi sites hit by depleted uranium.
Booming Business
With a large amount of scrap metals trucked from
the neighboring country, the trade is booming in
Jordan .
In
Al-Zarqa
district in southern Amman , people tell of
gangs smuggling the scrap metals from Iraq .
Others allege they had seen dismantled parts of
Russian-made tanks of the Iraqi army.
Some estimated that more than 100 trucks loaded
with scrap metals drive from Iraq to Jordan and
the other five countries sharing borders with
the war-scarred country every month.
"Spare parts of military equipment used in the
Iraqi water and oil sectors are also smuggled
every month to Jordan ," said Abu Abdel-Rahman,
a worker in the "Scrap Area" in the northern
Amman city of Sahab .
Acting chief UN inspector Demetrius Perricos
told the Security Council on Tuesday, June 10,
that 20 engines from banned Iraqi missiles were
found in a Jordanian scrap yard, raising new
security questions about Iraq's scrap metal
sales since the occupation of the country.
The missile engines and some other equipment
discovered in the scrap yards had been
reportedly tagged by UN weapons monitors because
of their potential dual use in legitimate
civilian activities.
Perricos suggested that the interim Iraqi
government, which will assume power on June 30,
may want to reconsider policies for exporting
scrap metals that apparently began in mid-2003.
He told reporters that up to a thousand tons of
scrap metals were leaving Iraq every day.
"The only controls at the borders are for the
weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether
there are any explosive or radioactive materials
within the scrap," he said.
But the Jordanian government's spokeswoman, Asma
Khedr, dismissed the statements.
"The spare metals are only disposable scraps."
Khedr said that Jordan has carried out stringent
procedures to prevent access of poisonous
materials across borders.
But traders still make good money out of the
smuggling.
US To Blame
Analysts heaped blame on the US-led occupation
forces for allowing the scrap metals to move
from Iraq .
Sufyan Al-Tal
accused the American troops of facilitating the
scrap exports to protect their soldiers.
"The scrap metals had been hit by depleted
uranium, something which highlights the danger
of keeping them in Jordan ," he said.
A military source close to NATO unveiled in July
last year that
several mysterious diseases
were reported among a number of American troops
within the vicinity of Baghdad airport.
He asserted there were levels of radioactive
pollution with destructive impacts on man and
environment that may lead to risks suffered by
generations to come.
Following the invasion, the US occupation
authority signed contracts with Israeli
companies to export the scrap metals to Jordan.
The contracts could not be cancelled by the
Jordanian government or the new Iraqi interim
government. |
