Iraqis may face fallout from nuclear looting soon

Villagers who looted uranium-tainted barrels from a former Iraqi nuclear facility may face the fallout within months, when the effects of using them at home could show up in rising cancer cases, experts say.

US soldiers now guard the facility in Tuwaitha, about 25 kilometres south of Baghdad, that was bombed first by the Israelis in 1981 and then by a US-led coalition in 1991.

In the US-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein on April 9, there were no functioning reactors to bomb.

But throughout the various raids, the "yellow cake factory" - named after the stores of uranium peroxide used as a raw material to make nuclear fuel - was undamaged. Experts say it would take significant enrichment to make nuclear weapons.

Hisham Abdel-Malik, an Iraqi nuclear expert who has worked alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 1988, said looting began as soon as officials fled the facility when the US troops reached Baghdad.

"In the neighbouring village, they are simple people, they don't know about radiation and uranium. They went to what is called the 'yellow cake factory'... They took these barrels and emptied these barrels with the yellow cake," he said.

He said they then rolled the barrels to the nearby village of al-Wardiyah.

The IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said yesterday it wanted to investigate reports that Iraqis living near the facility were showing signs of radiation sickness.

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters in Vienna the agency could not verify the reports since the United States had so far refused to let it back into Iraq.

"The agency has experts in treating radiation sickness," she said, who could be sent to Iraq to investigate and alleviate the sufferings of anyone exposed to radiation.

Abdel-Malik said many people were still keeping tainted barrels in their homes, with water inside. "We gave them the advice. It is up to them if they accept it or not. But we told them that they will get cancer by this year."

He said he had not heard of radiation cases yet, but cancer cases could occur in a few months. Doctors in the area made similar forecasts.

The "yellow cake" warehouse - a dusty building with a broken fence - now has warnings sprayed on the walls, such as "Radiation, Do Not Enter". But they are in English, apart from one small Arabic sign scrawled on cardboard.

"We had interpreters tell the locals to stay out," said US army Staff Sergeant Alex Evelyn, adding that most looting had stopped.

Inside the main perimeter, US soldiers guard the disused Russian and French reactors and watch for looters. "A lot of them are doing it to get money for food," said Staff Sergeant Robert Gasman.

Looters are not the only problem. Technician Ali Hassan Aziz said water levels covering radioactive material in the old Russian reactor were falling as summer temperatures climbed, pushing up radiation levels.

The spent fuel from the reactor was sent to the former Soviet Union for processing years ago, experts said.

The IAEA has said Iraq has nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium as well as a thousand other radioactive sources at the country's numerous nuclear facilities.

IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei has been urging a quick return of UN arms inspectors, who left Baghdad days before US-led forces invaded to strip Saddam of his alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes.