PLEASE NOTE:
*
REPORT FROM THE OECD NEO WORKSHOP
>From Stefan Michalowski <Stefan.MICHALOWSKI@oecd.org>
Dear Benny,
In recent months, several CCNet postings have made reference to
the NEO workshop that was convened under the aegis of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The
workshop, entitled "Near Earth Objects: Risks, Policies and
Actions" was held in Frascati, Italy,on January 20-22,
2003, It brought together leading NEO experts and
government officials to examine the NEO issue as it relates to
public safety. The final report from the workshop, containing
findings and conclusions for OECD governments, is now available
at www.oecd.org/sti/gsf.
This site also contains the paper commissioned from Dr. Clark
Chapman, entitled "How a Near-Earth Object Impact Might
Affect Society".
The final report underwent extensive review and revision by the
workshop participants. It is being submitted to government
officials, who will consider whether they wish to implement its
recommendations, based on their priorities and procedures. The
report will be discussed at the next meeting of the Global
Science Forum at the end of June. Forum Delegates will then
decide whether further actions under the aegis of OECD are
warranted.
Best regards,
Stefan Michalowski, PhD
Executive Secretary, Global Science Forum
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Paris, France
tel. 33 1 45 24 92 89
*
CCNet, 37/2003 - 1 April 2003
-------------------------------
"By and large, conservationists agree that war is a bad
thing. Surprisingly, however, armed conflict - or the threat of
it - can sometimes be good for the environment."
--The Economist, 27 March 2003
"Most of the thousands of American soldiers crossing the
desert of southeastern Iraq on their way toward Baghdad probably
don't know they are crossing the location of the biblical Garden
of Eden -- and the site of a present-day environmental tragedy.
As soon as the war ends and humanitarian relief begins, a band of
scientists and environmentalists is poised to attempt to save a
priceless ecosystem and a treasure of human history."
--Dan Whipple, UPI Science News, 29 March 2003
"The drainage was part of Mr Hussein's repressive anti-Shia
measures... These measures
included the poisoning and napalming of the marshes and anybody
living there. Only 7% of
the original marshland remains. If the drainage continues, the
rest is likely to vanish
within five years. Open-water areas are now dusty salt-pans. A
productive ecosystem, which
supported hundreds of thousands of people and supplied 60% of the
country's fish, has
almost vanished. A coalition victory could change that. Ed
Maltby, a researcher at Royal
Holloway, a college in the University of London, says that
getting the marshes back to the
state they were in 15 years ago will be a challenge - but it
could be done."
--The Economist, 27 March 2003
(1) AIR POLLUTION FROM BAGHDAD FIRES POSES RISKS FOR HUMAN HEALTH
AND THE ENVIRONMENT, SAYS UNEP
United Nations Environment Programme, 30 March
2003
(2) IRAQI OIL WELL FIRES NOT A MAJOR HEALTH THREAT
Fox News, 14 March 2003
(3) NUCLEAR GENOCIDE? PIERCING THROUGH THE DEPLETED URANIUM MYTHS
Reason Online, 26 March 2003
(4) THE SPOILS OF WAR
The Economist, 27 March 2003
(5) PARADISE LOST - AGAIN
UPI Science News, 29 March 2003
(6) EDEN AGAIN: THE RESTORATION OF THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHLANDS
Iraq Foundation
(7) THE IRAQI GOVERNEMNT ASSAULT ON THE MARSH ARABS
Human Rights Watch, January 2003
(8) WAR FLUTTERS: SORTING THE REAL STORIES FROM THE ALARMISM
Reason Online, 31 March 2003
(9) WMI IDENTIFIED!
John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
(10) AND FINALLY: "IRAQ BOMBING CAN TRIGGER
EARTHQUAKES"
ITAR-TASS, 31 March 2003
==============
(1) AIR POLLUTION FROM BAGHDAD FIRES POSES RISKS FOR HUMAN HEALTH
AND THE ENVIRONMENT, SAYS UNEP
>From United Nations Environment Programme, 30 March, http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?ArticleID=3935&DocumentID=309
Nairobi, 31 March 2003 - Toxic smoke from burning oil wells in
southern Iraq and from oil-filled trenches and bomb-ignited fires
in Baghdad are the clearest evidence so far that the current
conflict may further damage Iraq's already highly stressed
environment, according to the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
"The black smoke that we see on television and in satellite
pictures contains dangerous chemicals that can cause immediate
harm to human beings - particularly children and people with
respiratory problems - and pollute the region's natural
ecosystems. There is an urgent need to monitor air quality in the
affected areas as soon as possible," said UNEP Executive
Director Klaus Toepfer.
"Meanwhile, although the oil fires in southern Iraq are much
smaller than what we saw in 1991, they too remain a potential
concern for human health and the environment," he said.
Satellite images reveal that smoke plumes from the Rumailah oil
fields near Basra have weakened over the past several days but
continue to threaten inhabited areas with smog. Smoke from oil
fires contains a range of contaminants such as sulphur, mercury,
dioxins and furans. Fortunately, only three of the seven oil
wells originally set on fire are still burning.
UNEP is currently monitoring events in Iraq in an effort to
identify potential environmental risks. Aside from the smoke, the
other major evidence so far of environmental stress is the
increase in plankton productivity in the Shatt Al Arab estuary
and surrounding waters.
The above-normal level of activity may be due to the larger
quantities of nutrients draining into the Gulf as raw sewage from
Basra through canals and the various waterways associated with
the Shatt Al Arab. Wastewater and garbage from the unusually
large number of ships in the area are likely to also contribute
to the phytoplankton blooms. In the past, increased plankton
productivity in shallow waters such as the Kuwait Bay has led to
large die-offs of fish.
Other potential risks that typically need to be monitored during
conflict include the possible destruction of petrochemical plants
and factories and storage facilities of industries that employ
hazardous chemicals and generate toxic wastes. Among others,
these could include the foam, fertilizer, paper and
pharmaceutical industries.
UNEP is currently conducting a background study to gather data
and information on the Iraq environment. This study will
facilitate any future field investigations aimed at identifying
pollution "hotspots" threatening human health and the
environment.
UNEP is also prepared to provide technical advice in the
post-conflict period on reducing environmental risks and
rehabilitating damaged sites. This work should be integrated into
humanitarian assistance programmes involving water, sanitation,
refugees and displaced persons, shelter and so on.
"Rapid action to repair environmental damage can often
support humanitarian relief efforts in vital ways," said Mr.
Toepfer. "For the longer term well-being of Iraq's people,
it is essential that environmental concerns be incorporated into
any future rehabilitation programmes."
Funding for environment-related activities has been included in
the United Nations' recent US$2.2 billion appeal for emergency
assistance to Iraq and neighboring countries over the coming six
months. Additional funding has been provided to UNEP by the
Government of Switzerland.
===========
(2) IRAQI OIL WELL FIRES NOT A MAJOR HEALTH THREAT
>From Fox News, 14 March 2003
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81045,00.html
By Steven Milloy
Part of anti-war-think is the possibility Saddam Hussein might
set Iraq's 1,500 oil wells ablaze. It's not unlikely since Saddam
did just that to 600 Kuwaiti oil wells in 1991.
The anti-warriors forecast such sabotage would have catastrophic
consequences.
"No one anticipated that Saddam Hussein would burn Kuwaiti
oil fields, causing an epic health and environmental disaster. No
one knows what he could do now," shrieked Physicians for
Social Responsibility in a recent media release.
Greenpeace claims, "Fires from 600 deliberately damaged
Kuwaiti oil wells ... created a blanket of soot, gases and
aggressive chemicals [that] led to immediate respiratory problems
in local populations and generated serious long-term risks of
birth defects and cancer in exposed people."
The media have also jumped on the oil fire-scare bandwagon.
The Associated Press reported, "The wind-borne pollution
[from Kuwait] touched off health and environmental problems far
beyond the Gulf." The AP failed to elaborate further on what
the health problems were.
Agence France-Presse reported, "The release of oil and smoke
from [Iraqi] fires would likely have long-term health
effects." Again, the alleged health effects were
unspecified.
A Missouri newspaper even found a Gulf War vet who "suspects
his exposure to fuel and chemicals from the burning oil wells may
have contributed to his memory loss, blurred vision, throat
problems, nerve damage and muscle damage."
Would burning oil wells cause health calamities?
First, there's no question the Kuwaiti oil well fires produced
much pollution.
Peak soot emissions were equivalent to 3 million heavy-duty
diesel trucks being driven at 30 miles per hour, according to a
1992 study in the journal Science. A May 1991 report estimated
the then-526 burning wells emitted 3.8 million pounds of
particles into the atmosphere per hour.
That said, virtually all published studies of people exposed to
those emissions haven't reported significant health effects.
A U.S. Army health risk assessment in December 1991 characterized
the long-term health effects for exposed troops and civilian
employees as "minimal."
The risk of cancer - based on many worst-case assumptions - was
estimated to be about 3 "extra" cancers per 1,000,000
people exposed to the emissions. Even if true, this
"extra" risk would not be detectable given about
300,000 to 400,000 of those people will develop cancer anyway.
The Army reported the risk of health effects other than cancer to
be above levels considered acceptable by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. The EPA standards, however, are set far below
levels known to cause health effects.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted surveys
of workers in Kuwait City and firefighters in the oil fields in
October 1991. Blood samples were tested and compared with a group
of people living in the U.S. Although the median concentration of
certain substances (volatile organic compounds or VOCs) was quite
elevated among firefighters, VOC concentrations in
non-firefighting personnel were equal or lower than levels found
among people in the U.S. survey.
A May 2002 study published in the American Journal of
Epidemiology compared postwar disease incidence between veterans
exposed to the oil well fires and veterans not exposed - a total
of 405,142 study subjects. "These data do not support the
hypothesis that Gulf War veterans have an increased risk of
postwar morbidity from exposure to Kuwaiti oil well fire
smoke," concluded U.S. Navy researchers.
A November 2002 study published in Environmental Health
Perspectives considered 1,560 Gulf War veterans, 94 percent of
whom were in the Gulf theater during the oil well fires and 21
percent who remained for more than 100 days during the fires.
"These findings do not support speculation that exposures to
oil fire smoke caused respiratory symptoms among veterans,"
concluded the University of Iowa researchers.
Harvard School of Public Health researchers reported in 1999 the
acute toxicity of particles from the Kuwaiti fires were no more
"toxic" than particles collected from the air of St.
Louis, Mo., or Washington, D.C.
A postwar survey conducted in Kuwaiti clinics and emergency rooms
reported an increase in visits for upper respiratory irritation,
but there was no documented evidence of an increase in visits for
acute upper and lower respiratory infections or asthma, reported
the World Federation of Public Health Associations in 1997.
Faced with the lack of evidence of health effects, anti-warriors
might counter that it has only been 12 years since the Kuwaiti
oil well fires and health effects like cancer may take 20 or more
years to develop.
Perhaps. On the other hand, there's no persuasive evidence that
air pollution - regardless of its magnitude - has ever caused a
single case of cancer.
It's no wonder the anti-warriors attempt to alarm the public with
vague warnings of health effects from potential oil well fires -
one look at the Kuwaiti evidence and their scare goes up in
smoke.
Copyright 2003, Fox News
============
(3) NUCLEAR GENOCIDE? PIERCING THROUGH THE DEPLETED URANIUM MYTHS
>From Reason Online, 26 March 2003
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb032603.shtml
By Ronald Bailey
"The United States has conducted two nuclear wars. The first
is against Japan in 1945, the second in Kuwait and Iraq in
1991." So declares activist Helen Caldicott in a half-page
ad placed by a Japanese anti-nuclear group in the March 24 New
York Times. If you didn't hear about the Persian Gulf Hiroshima,
it's because she's actually referring to depleted uranium (DU)
munitions. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark says that
these "are an unacceptable threat to life, a violation of
international law and an assault on human dignity." Using
them results in a "deterioration of genetic health" and
"genocide," declares anti-nuke activist Tim Judson. The
Green Party claims that they are "the likely cause of
numerous health problems in thousands of Gulf War veterans and
their families, including cancer, leukemia, tumors, and high
rates of birth defects because of genetic damage."
DU is 1.7 times denser than lead, and munitions encased in it are
self-sharpening, enabling them to drill 25 percent further
through armor. (Armor-piercing tungsten alloy munitions, by
contrast, blunt and mushroom when they hit.) This self-sharpening
process produces DU dust, most of which falls to the ground
within 50 yards of its impact.
Such weapons are used most frequently against enemy tanks. DU is
also used to clad many U.S. armored vehicles, thus making them
largely impenetrable to conventional anti-tank munitions. It is
also used for counterweights in airplanes to help keep them
level, and as radiation shielding to protect health care workers
from exposure to medical X-rays.
DU is a by-product - activists would say a waste product - of the
process of separating the highly fissionable U-235 isotope out of
uranium to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. It is called
"depleted" because most of the lighter uranium
isotopes, U-234 and U-235, are removed from natural uranium,
leaving behind uranium consisting of 99.8 percent of U-238. The
result is 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium.
Is it as dangerous as Caldicott and Clark claim? A Department of
Defense-sponsored review of the scientific literature by the RAND
think tank concluded that "there are no peer reviewed
published reports of detectable increases of cancer or other
negative health effects from radiation exposure to inhaled or
ingested natural uranium at levels far exceeding those likely in
the Gulf." One need not be a conspiracy theorist to believe
that the Defense Department's analysis and reporting on the
substance's health and environmental consequences might be
biased. But many independent organizations and scientists find
little to worry about either.
What happens to DU if someone eats it? According to a European
Union study released in 2001, "most of the ingested DU
(between 98% and 99.8%, depending on the solubility of the
uranium compound) will be rapidly eliminated in the faeces."
The vast majority of any remaining uranium will be "rapidly
cleared from the blood" in a few weeks. Similarly, the
majority of inhaled DU dust will also be cleared via the
bloodstream and kidneys. The EU report concluded that
"exposure to DU could not produce any detectable health
effects under realistic assumptions of the doses that would be
received."
That said, DU is a heavy metal; and like lead, nickel, and other
heavy metals, it is chemically toxic when consumed in large
quantities, especially harming the kidneys. However, studies
looking at likely exposures to DU during and after battles have
found that its effects on the kidneys of soldiers and civilians
are mild and transient.
Another 2001 report to the European Parliament compared exposures
to DU to those experienced by uranium miners and concluded,
"The fact that there is no evidence of an association
between exposures-sometimes high and lasting since the beginning
of the uranium industry-and health damages such as bone cancer,
lymphatic or other forms of leukemia shows that these diseases as
a consequence of an uranium exposure are either not present or
very exceptional."
The World Health Organization agrees that DU is not a great
health risk. Its 2003 fact sheet on the topic declares that
"because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts
of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the
additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed
group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including
leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung
cancer." Another WHO report found, "The radiological
hazard is likely to be very small. No increase of leukemia or
other cancers has been established following exposure to uranium
or DU."
What about those military reports? Dan Fahey, a former naval
officer who served in the first Gulf War and is a long-time
anti-DU activist, asserts that Defense Department spokespeople
"have lied about the health of US Gulf War veterans exposed
to DU and exaggerated the importance of DU rounds." What was
the alleged lie? The Pentagon has said that no veterans in a
small follow-up study of Gulf War soldiers who had been exposed
to DU have contracted cancer. Fahey cites a memo that states that
one veteran who had been recently added to the study has had
lymphatic cancer. Fahey does acknowledge that "it is
possible that this veteran's cancer is not linked to his
confirmed exposure to DU."
Fahey thinks the Pentagon exaggerates the importance of DU
munitions and points out that DU rounds probably took out only
one-seventh of the Iraqi tanks destroyed during the first Gulf
War. But Fahey also admits that there is very little evidence
that DU is severely toxic. He also refutes other activists'
alarmist claims that civilians have been severely harmed by
depleted uranium. "There are no credible studies linking
exposure to DU with any cancers or illnesses among people in
Iraq, the Balkans, or Afghanistan," he declares.
If DU is not notably harmful to human health or the environment,
why the fierce opposition to it? A lot of it has to do with
conventional anti-nuclear activism: Some people automatically
object to anything that hints of nuclear radiation. Second, some
of the opposition is the result of a successful Iraqi
disinformation campaign claiming that exposure to DU had caused
thousands of cancers and birth defects to innocent civilians.
When the WHO offered to investigate the claims, Iraqi officials
flatly refused the offer. Other than trying to gain international
sympathy, Pentagon officials argue that one of the real aims of
the Iraqi campaign was to get DU munitions outlawed
internationally so they would not have to face them again.
In addition, many U.S. veterans who returned from the Gulf War
believe that they are suffering from "Gulf War
Syndrome," a constellation of disparate medical problems
that they think can be traced to their service in that war. One
suggested explanation for their problems might be exposure to DU
dust. But as we've seen, no credible studies show that exposure
to DU is likely to be causing their problems.
Finally, there is always a claque of activists who simply will
pick up any stick with which to beat and demonize the United
States. For them, the myth of severe DU toxicity is just another
handy stick.
--
Ronald Bailey, Reason's science correspondent, is the editor of
Global Warming and Other Eco Myths (Prima Publishing) and Earth
Report 2000: Revisiting the True State of the
Planet(McGraw-Hill).
Copyright 2003, Reason Online
=========
(4) THE SPOILS OF WAR
>From The Economist, 27 March 2003
http://www.economist.co.uk/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1666489
What can the past tell about the effect of military conflict on
the environment?
DURING the 1991 Gulf war, the snowy-white peaks of Iraq's
northern mountains turned black. Soot from burning oil created a
biblical rain that stained everything from houses to
mountainsides. In Afghanistan, a country devastated by more than
a quarter of a century of warfare, people still fish with rocket
launchers. It seems obvious that military conflict takes a
dreadful toll on the environment. Yet previous wars suggest that
the connection is not so obvious as one might suppose.
The main environmental problems that conflict in Iraq may bring
are the pollution of water by sewage, the felling of trees to
meet energy shortages, the physical degradation of the land, and
pollution from materials such as oil. The seriousness of any of
these problems will depend largely on the length and severity of
the war, and on how quickly aid agencies can get in afterwards.
In Iraq, the chief worries are pollution from oil spillages and
burning oil wells. In the 1991 war, some 6m-8m barrels of oil
were spilt into the sea, producing an oil-slick that cost more
than $700m to clean up. That was bad. But it was not the
environmental apocalypse that many had feared. And although it is
still early in the current conflict, there is some ground for
optimism that this level of pollution will not happen again. In
Iraq's southern Rumaila oil fields, which produce 60% of the
country's oil, only nine out of 1,000 wells are reported to be
alight. In 1991, 600 Kuwaiti wells were set on fire, 76 wells
were uncapped and 99 wells were damaged.
Another cause for concern, the use of ordnance tipped with
depleted uranium (DU), may also be less of a problem than many
fear. A report on the use of DU in the fighting that racked
Bosnia in the mid-1990s was published on March 25th by the
post-conflict assessment unit (PCAU), a branch of the United
Nations. It finds that no medically significant levels of
radioactivity can be measured there. Of 15 sites inspected by the
PCAU, only two have airborne radioactive particles, and these are
within safety limits.
Fight and flight
Oil fires are visible, and radioactivity is scary. But the worst
environmental problems associated with warfare are more subtle.
The biggest is the displacement of large numbers of people. The
PCAU has found that even though bombs, troop movements and
landmines caused awful problems in Afghanistan, the most serious
long-term consequences have resulted from the uncontrolled use of
resources, particularly the cutting of forests for firewood, by
6m cold, hungry and often well-armed refugees. After three
decades of conflict, the forests are almost gone, lakes have
dried up and topsoil is blowing away. The productivity of the
land, in other words, has been destroyed.
In Palestine, too, the most visible kinds of environmental damage
may not be the most threatening. Bulldozers and tanks chew up the
scenery. But another report by the PCAU suggests that the biggest
environmental concerns should be the quality and scarcity of
water. Pekka Haavisto, who chaired the UNEP taskforces in
Afghanistan, Palestine and the Balkans, is particularly worried
about the declining quality of fresh water in Gaza. Here,
continuing conflict prevents the Palestinian Authority from
building sewerage and water-cleaning systems. As a result,
groundwater is being polluted by agricultural chemicals and by
waste from landfills and the burning of refuse. The same applies
in Iraq, where conflict over the past decade has caused
widespread damage to water and sewerage infrastructure, and
reduced the amount of water available by more than half.
After the fall
In Iraq, much of this damage is deliberate. A few years ago, the
government decided to drain the marshes of lower Mesopotamia, in
what amounted to an act of environmental warfare. These marshes,
which some scholars believe are the area referred to in the Bible
as the Garden of Eden, are inhabited by people who have had the
temerity to oppose Saddam Hussein. The marsh Arabs are Shia
Muslims, who are suspected of sympathising with the Shia
government of Iran. The drainage was part of Mr Hussein's
repressive anti-Shia measures.
According to the AMAR foundation, which works to assist marsh
Arabs and other refugees, these measures included the poisoning
and napalming of the marshes and anybody living there. Only 7% of
the original marshland remains. If the drainage continues, the
rest is likely to vanish within five years. Open-water areas are
now dusty salt-pans. A productive ecosystem, which supported
hundreds of thousands of people and supplied 60% of the country's
fish, has almost vanished.
A coalition victory could change that. Ed Maltby, a researcher at
Royal Holloway, a college in the University of London, says that
getting the marshes back to the state they were in 15 years ago
will be a challenge-but it could be done. Last month, he and his
colleagues in the Eden Again project, a scientific collaboration
financed by an Iraqi human-rights group, met to work on a
restoration plan. The idea is to start with pilot areas,
thousands of hectares in size, and then expand them. There are
huge problems ahead, including salt and pesticide contamination,
the need for additional water flow from Turkey, and, of course,
money. But Dr Maltby says it is an opportunity and a test of the
world's ability to respond to one of the worst environmental
disasters for a generation.
Eden again?
By and large, conservationists agree that war is a bad thing.
Surprisingly, however, armed conflict - or the threat of it - can
sometimes be good for the environment. The demilitarised zone
between North and South Korea is a 250km-long strip of mountains,
jungle and wetlands untouched by humans since 1953. It is now
home to wildlife extinct elsewhere on the peninsula. Landmines
laid in civil wars in Africa have discouraged hunters and allowed
game to flourish in areas from which it had previously
disappeared. In Congo, anarchy has prevented mining companies and
timber firms from spreading into the country's remaining wild
areas. Although many large animals have been killed by gun-toting
soldiers, recent aerial surveys suggest that Congo's rhinos have
survived the conflict well; some 6,000 elephants remain too.
The people of Congo would doubtless prefer less anarchy, even if
it meant fewer elephants. But the fact remains that when men are
busy killing each other, nature sometimes gains.
Copyright 2003, The Economist
================
(5) PARADISE LOST - AGAIN
>From UPI Science News, 29 March 2003
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030327-065227-6183r
By Dan Whipple
Most of the thousands of American soldiers crossing the desert of
southeastern Iraq on their way toward Baghdad probably don't know
they are crossing the location of the biblical Garden of Eden --
and the site of a present-day environmental tragedy.
As soon as the war ends and humanitarian relief begins, a band of
scientists and environmentalists is poised to attempt to save a
priceless ecosystem and a treasure of human history.
Mesopotamia -- literally, the "Land Between the (Tigris and
Euphrates) Rivers" -- is the cradle of civilization. The
area is thought by archaeologists to be the spot where
agriculture was first practiced, allowing humans to abandon
hazardous hunting and gathering for the more stable pursuit of
farming. As far as scholars can tell, it is the traditional land
where Adam and Eve dwelt.
The area of southern Iraq bordering Iran -- the "Fertile
Crescent," as it is known still -- was not always the
trackless desert waste now seen on TV and described in news
reports. In fact, as recently as 1991, according to the United
Nations Environmental Program, the marshlands extended over their
original area of 15,000 to 20,000 square kilometers (5,800 to
7,700 square miles).
"When the soldiers crossed the bridge at An Nasiriyah, 15
years ago, you would have seen an endless sea of water, green and
blue," Suzie Alwash, project director of the Eden Again
Project of the Iraq Foundation, told UPI's Blue Planet. "On
TV today, you see an endless sea of desert -- it's
heartbreaking."
Extensive damming by Iran and, especially, by Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein has led to the drying of over 90 percent of these
ancient marshes, leading to what UNEP has described as "one
of the world's greatest environmental disasters."
The organization's executive director, Klaus Toepfer, said UNEP
has a unit ready to aid Iraq with marsh restoration efforts as
soon as the coalition military commanders permit it. But while
the U.S. State Department has supported some studies on the marsh
region, the UN's role in post-war Iraq remains unclear, given the
tensions between the United States and that international body.
In a written statement, Toepfer said UNEP's Post Conflict
Assessment Unit, which has carried out successful environmental
studies and drawn up action plans for the Balkans and, more
recently, Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,
stands ready to assist in any project to restore the wetlands.
State department officials were not available to comment on the
future of the marsh restoration.
"The loss of the Mesopotamian marshlands is one of the
world's worst human-engineered environmental disasters,"
Adlai Amor, spokesman for the World Resources Institute, told
UPI. "This was historically what Biblical scholars looked at
as the likely site of the garden of Eden."
The marshlands were the home to the "Marsh Arabs" --
the Ma'dan group of tribes -- inheritors of a culture that
stretches back more than 5,000 years toward the dawn of human
history.
In addition to the millennia-old culture, the marshlands are
critical habitat for numerous endangered and threatened species.
Yet a UNEP study released at the World Water Forum on March 22 in
Kyoto said 3 percent of the marshes have disappeared in the last
two years.
They actually are composed of three marsh systems -- al-Hammer
marsh, Central marsh and al-Hawizeh marsh. According to satellite
images, only a small portion of al-Hawizeh marsh, which straddles
the Iran-Iraq border, remains and it could disappear completely
within five years, according to UNEP.
WRI's Amor said wildlife experts fear three species native to the
area have gone extinct: a subspecies of the smooth-coated otter,
the bandicoot rat and the gunther. Threatened by the decline are
the African darter and sacred ibis, the only populations in the
Mideast, along with the Iraqi populations of the pygmy cormorant
and goliath heron.
"Since the marshes are important as a staging and wintering
area for migratory birds on the Western Siberia-Caspian-Nile
flyway from the Arctic to southern Africa," Amor told UPI,
"it has put at risk at least 66 species of birds. The global
population of the endemic Iraq babbler, the endemic Basra reed
babbler and the Dalmatian pelican may have already crashed."
Other wildlife threatened by the war include the cheetah,
ferruginous duck, spotted eagle, imperial eagle and Euphrates
soft shell turtle.
Draining the marshes has been under way since at least the 1950s
as the upper basin nations -- primarily Turkey, Iran and Iraq --
have dammed the tributaries for water and power. But the problem
reached crisis proportions after the 1991 Gulf War. When U.S.
forces withdrew, President George H.W. Bush urged local
dissidents to rebel against Saddam Hussein.
The Marsh Arabs did. When Bush failed to follow through on his
promise of assistance, they were brutally crushed by the regime
and the desertification of their homeland began in earnest.
According to Human Rights Watch, "Numbering some 250,000
people as recently as 1991, the Marsh Arabs today are believed to
number fewer than 40,000 in their ancestral homeland. Many have
been arrested, 'disappeared,' or executed. Most have become
refugees abroad or are internally displaced in Iraq as a result
of Iraqi oppression. The population and culture of the Marsh
Arabs, who have resided continuously in the marshlands for more
than 5,000 years, are being eradicated."
Alwash's Eden Again Project is dedicated to restoring the
Mesopotamian marshes in a post-Saddam Iraq. But she said this
means doing more than simply flooding the area again. The group
has convened a number of wetlands experts to consider the
problem. They have developed a plan for "the first couple of
years," she said.
"First, we need to make it safe for humans," she told
UPI. "There are going to be ordnance and poisons and toxins
that have been introduced into the marshlands," some
deliberately and some because the rivers have served as an open
sewer for the past 15 years.
"Some former lakes have turned into salt pans and there may
be a two-foot-thick salt crust," Alwash continued. "If
you put water back in there, you're just creating a saline lake
that nothing can live in. And some (lakes) have been desiccated
for over a decade and may not react properly when they are
rehydrated."
In addition, there will not be enough water available, because of
upstream damming, to return the area to its original state. That
poses an interesting philosophical question: What, exactly,
constitutes the "original state" of a 5,000 year old
culture that stemmed from Eden?
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
=============
(6) EDEN AGAIN: THE RESTORATION OF THE MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHLANDS
>From Iraq Foundation
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/projects/edenagain/index.html
A New Project Sponsored by the Iraq Foundation
The Iraq Foundation is sponsoring a new project, Eden Again, for
the restoration of the southern marshes which were the target of
a campaign by the Iraqi government in the early to mid nineties.
The environmental and military campaign desiccated the
marshlands, destroyed the environment, burnt villages, and drove
hundreds of thousands of the indigenous ma'dan population into
external exile or internal displacement. This project is
significant for its human, environmental and historical impact.
THE "EDEN AGAIN" PROJECT: RESTORATION OF THE
MESOPOTAMIAN MARSHLANDS
The Mesopotamian Marshlands, historically covering over 20,000
square kilometers of interconnected lakes, mudflats, and wetlands
within modern-day Iraq and Iran, have disappeared. In what the
United Nations has declared "one of the world's greatest
environmental disasters," over 90% of the marshlands have
been desiccated through the combined actions of upstream damming
and downstream drainage projects undertaken by the regime of
Saddam Hussein.
BACKGROUND ON THE MARSHLANDS
The extensive marshlands of Mesopotamia represent a unique
component of our global heritage and resources (UNEP, 2001). They
play a key role in the intercontinental flyway of migratory
birds, support endangered species, and sustain fisheries of the
Persian Gulf. Biblical scholars regard the marshes as the site of
the legendary "Garden of Eden." Historically they
nurtured the culture and civilization of the Sumerians who
produced the first alphabet and the earliest epics.
The current marsh-dwellers, the Ma'dan, are our only link with
this rich cultural past. Following the end of the Gulf War in
1991, the Ma'dan were important elements in the uprising against
Saddam Hussein's regime and the marshes offered a safe haven for
the resistance. To end the rebellion and punish the freedom
fighters, the regime implemented an extensive system of drainage
and water diversion structures that have resulted in the almost
complete desiccation of the marshes. This has resulted in (UNEP,
2001):
* destruction of a 5,000 year old cultural heritage that
represents the modern world's link to the roots of its
civilization
* extinction of several endemic animal and botanical species that
depended on the habitat of the marshes;
* disappearance of the way-station for migratory birds, with
adverse effects potentially spanning the continents of Eurasia
and Africa;
* saltwater intrusion into the Shatt al-Arab, causing disruption
of fisheries in the Persian Gulf;
* higher soil salinity in the marshes and adjacent areas,
depriving Iraq of much needed agricultural land
* considerable disruption to the agricultural and food supply of
the whole of southern Iraq, especially in the loss of dairy
products, fish, and rice cultivation;
* desertification of more than 20,000 square kilometers, and
adverse indirect climatic impacts to adjacent land, and
* displacement of the Ma'dan population of over 300,000, forced
to flee the marshes and become refugees in Iran or internally
displaced in Iraq.
THE IRAQ FOUNDATION PROJECT
The Iraq Foundation, with funding by the U.S. Department of
State, has undertaken a project to determine a viable method of
restoring the Mesopotamian Marshlands. The EDEN AGAIN project
includes development of a hydrologic model of the marshes to
determine the quantity of water necessary to restore various
areas of the marshlands. Initial results suggest that enough
water is present in southern Iraq to partially restore the
marshlands, if the water diversion structures constructed by the
regime of Saddam Hussein are removed. Additionally, the project
will analyze remote sensing data to define habitat types within
the marshlands and their extent and distribution in the past.
These data will be used to prioritize specific areas of the
marshlands for a phased restoration and to determine the desired
water coverage and habitat type within each area. A stakeholders
meeting with expatriate Ma'dan (the indigenous people of the
marshland) is currently being planned to assess the needs of
indigenous people returning to the marshlands so that these needs
can be incorporated in the plan. The study will also evaluate the
anticipated challenges to restoration and determine solutions to
problems such as high salinity, an aging seed bank, the need to
emplace upstream and downstream hydraulic connections, and how to
re-introduce a flood pulse. The anticipated work product is a
framework restoration plan that establishes a vision of the
wetland restored in its entirety, with more detailed plans for
the areas prioritized for the initial phase of restoration.
The Iraq Foundation staff will be assisted in the development of
this plan by a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) composed of
international experts in wetlands restoration, and Iraqi
expatriate scientists and engineers with local knowledge. The TAC
is to meet in early 2002 to review initial results. A draft plan
will be created in early 2003 and a final framework restoration
plan will be produced by mid-2003.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Additional technical information on the status of the
Mesopotamian Marshlands can be found in the United Nations
Environmental Program report at http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/marshlands/.
For more information on the EDEN AGAIN project, you can contact
the project director, Dr. Suzie Alwash, at (714) 606-2955 or
e-mail her at salwash@elcamino.edu.
============
(7) THE IRAQI GOVERNEMNT ASSAULT ON THE MARSH ARABS
>From Human Rights Watch, January 2003
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/marsharabs1.htm
A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper
January 2003
Summary
This Briefing Paper details the ongoing campaign by the Ba'athist
government of Iraq against the Ma'dan or so-called Marsh
Arabs-the mostly Shi'a Muslim population that inhabits the
marshlands (al-ahwar) in southern Iraq around the confluence of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Numbering some 250,000 people as
recently as 1991, the Marsh Arabs today are believed to number
fewer than 40,000 in their ancestral homeland. Many have been
arrested, "disappeared," or executed; most have become
refugees abroad or are internally displaced in Iraq as a result
of Iraqi oppression. The population and culture of the Marsh
Arabs, who have resided continuously in the marshlands for more
than 5,000 years, are being eradicated.
In December 2002, Human Rights Watch published a policy paper,
Justice for Iraq,1 detailing some of the serious crimes
perpetrated in Iraq during the 1980s and 1990s. It urged the
establishment of an international tribunal to bring to justice
the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes. This Briefing Paper focuses on one such crime.
For more than two decades, Shi'a Muslims across Iraq, who
collectively form at least 60 percent of the Iraqi population,
have been subjected to a violent government campaign of
persecution, the authorities fearing that Iraqi Shi'a might seek
to follow the example set by Shi'a in Iran.
Starting shortly after the end of the Gulf war in 1991, Marsh
Arabs have been singled out for even more direct assault: mass
arrests, enforced "disappearances," torture, and
execution of political opponents have been accompanied by
ecologically catastrophic drainage of the marshlands and the
large-scale and systematic forcible transfer of part of the local
population.
The repression against the Marsh Arabs since 1988 has been
motivated by a combination of factors. In addition to the fact
that Marsh Arabs are Shi'a, Iraqi authorities have targeted them
because the remote terrain of the marshlands provided refuge for
political
opponents of the regime and because, in 1991, Marsh Arabs
themselves took part in rebellion against the Baghdad government.
The marshlands also contain great wealth: they are today
recognized as the site of some the richest oil deposits in the
country.
Geographically and administratively the marshlands had remained
relatively isolated from central government control until the end
of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 - 1988. The forced resettlement plan
and brutal counterinsurgency campaign begun by the government in
the early 1990's prompted the United Nations special rapporteur
on Iraq in 1992 to voice his concerns directly to the U.N.
Security Council. The Security Council failed to act, leaving the
United States, United Kingdom and France to impose an air
exclusion zone in southern Iraq. This however, did not prevent
Iraqi government forces from conducting ground operations backed
by helicopters over the next few years. As evidence of the
widespread destruction and human suffering grew with the number
of refugees fleeing the area, the U.N. special rapporteur urged
the U.N. to place human rights monitors on the ground - a request
he repeated every year until his resignation in 1999. Both the
Commission for Human Rights and the General Assembly adopted
resolutions endorsing his recommendation and requesting the U.N.
secretary-general to authorize the necessary funding, but it was
never done. Iraq, needless to say, ignored the U.N.
Human Rights Watch believes that many of the acts of the Iraqi
government's systematic repression of the Marsh Arabs constitute
a crime against humanity. The crimes were committed as part of a
widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population
of the Marsh Arabs during the decade of the 1990s.2 The attack
involved the multiple commissions of acts in furtherance of state
policy. The underlying crimes include:
Murder of thousands of unarmed civilians following the abortive
March 1991 uprising, through summary execution and the
indiscriminate bombardment and shelling of residential areas in
towns and villages in the vicinity of Basra, al-Nasiriyya,
al-`Amara and across the marshes region;
Forcible population transfer-coercive expulsion of part of the
Marsh Arab population from their native villages to settlements
on dry land on the outskirts of the marshes and along major
highways to facilitate government control over them;
Arbitrary and prolonged imprisonment of thousands who had been
arrested during and in the aftermath of military bombardment of
residential areas in the marshes, including civilians and others
suspected of anti-government activities;
Torture of Marsh Arab detainees held in government custody, in
order to extract information from them, as punishment, and as a
means to spread fear among the local population;
Enforced disappearances of many of the Marsh Arabs arrested
during the 1990s, whose fate and whereabouts remain unresolved to
date;
Persecution of the Marsh Arabs through the intentional and severe
deprivation of their fundamental rights on the basis of their
religious and political identity as a group.
Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Iraq to immediately
release Marsh Arabs who remain in detention; to clarify the fate
and whereabouts of those who "disappeared" following
arrest; and to compensate the victims and the families of those
who were arbitrarily held, tortured, "disappeared," or
executed. The perpetrators of the crimes against the Marsh Arabs
should be brought to justice.
FULL PAPER at http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/marsharabs1.htm
============
(8) WAR FLUTTERS: SORTING THE REAL STORIES FROM THE ALARMISM
>From Reason Online, 31 March 2003
http://www.reason.com/links/links033103.shtml
By Charles Paul Freund
Looks like Peter Arnett is this week's poster boy for those who
believe the press' behavior during the war is unnecessarily
pessimistic, pointlessly defeatist, and in some cases agenda
driven. Not without reason. During an interview on Ba'thist Iraqi
TV over the weekend, Arnett, who has been covering Baghdad for
NBC and National Geographic, went from reporter to actor when he
announced that the Pentagon's "first war plan has
failed" because military planners had "misjudged the
determination of the Iraqi forces."
He also said that "our reports about civilian casualties
here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces . . . help those
who oppose the war. . . ." That sort of thing makes it sound
as if helping protestors was a welcome result of his reports, and
it potentially undermines the credibility of other reporters. If
Hussein's regime can get American network correspondents to talk
that way on TV, it rather makes up for the destruction of Iraq's
information/propaganda apparatus.
Arnett's now been canned by both of his employers, but the
continuing din over the wartime role of the press didn't have
much to do with him anyway. The military effort to overthrow the
regime of Saddam Hussein was only a couple of days old when some
reporters, columnists, and analysts began exhibiting the first
symptoms of a chronic case of war flutters. That is, they quickly
started suggesting that the invasion of Iraq was oversold, going
badly, and perhaps entirely futile.
Similar war-flutter stories had also appeared in the early days
of the war in Afghanistan, during the extended bombing of Serbia,
and in the opening weeks of the first Persian Gulf War. Many of
these stories were ultimately misleading, to put it mildly, and
it may be tempting to dismiss the current round of critical and
negative coverage as both politically ill intentioned and
militarily ill informed.
Some negative analyses of the Iraq war may turn out to fit those
descriptions, but there are critical stories (about battlefield
surprises, for example) that have been supported by front-line
commanders, and others (that the war was based on "faulty
assumptions)" that are coming from within the administration
itself. Cautionary reports like these are, obviously, entirely
legitimate, and defenders of the war would be making a mistake by
dismissing or reacting defensively to all press skepticism about
Pentagon war claims.
The press' war skepticism may sometimes seem like an alarmist
reflex (and in some cases that's what it is), but it's also an
essential institutional duty. Far from impeding military success,
the press' challenges and skepticism force the political and
military establishments to justify the risks that they are asking
Americans to undertake. It is true that a probing press can make
political and military officials intensely unhappy, but that's
been true since the first American war reporters wandered
unwelcome into Ulysses S. Grant's command tent. (On hearing that
some of the members of the press' so-called "Bohemian
Brigade" had been killed, William Tecumseh Sherman famously
replied that "we shall have news from hell before
breakfast.")
The debates that emerge from negative press stories are not a
distraction, they are a necessity. If you want to see a medium
that is, by contrast, largely failing to do its journalistic
work, then you should find a way to catch Al-Jazeera's coverage.
Anyone in the Arab world depending on Al-Jazeera for an
understanding of the conflict is not being well served. Its
picture of the war involves a confident and courageous Iraqi
leadership, an Iraqi military that has yet to suffer casualties
or surrenders, an Iraqi populace enthusiastically supportive of
the Ba'thist regime, an international conspiracy against Arabs
that involves the U.N., a coalition force that is low on morale
and faltering badly, a bloodthirsty enemy making no distinction
between military and civilian targets, etc.
This is delusional coverage of the sort that has, in the past,
seriously damaged the credibility of Arabic-language media among
their own consumers.
However, Michael Young, Reason's Beirut-based contributing
editor, argues on his Beirut Calling blog that "while
Al-Jazeera does indeed often act like a propaganda outlet, it has
been a liberating experience for the Arab publics, providing them
with higher expectations from their own media."
"Already, Al-Jazeera has to look over its shoulder at
Al-Arabiyya, a Dubai-based station, and at Al-Hayat-LBCI, a
venture between Lebanese LBCI and the Saudi daily Al-Hayat.. In
time," he writes, "Arab stations will understand that
accuracy is a better magnet [for viewers], and the standards by
which Al-Jazeera (and others) are judged inside the Middle East
will be raised."
Young's prediction is surely right. When that happens, Arab
audiences too can watch and read war-flutter pieces, and argue
about the nature of war coverage.
Charles Paul Freund is a Reason senior editor.
Copyright 2003, Reason Online
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(9) WMI IDENTIFIED!
>From John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
Hi Benny.
In news from war-jittered New York,
"Williamsburg Bridge Reopens After Police
Investigation
(New York-WABC, March 28, 2003) - The Williamsburg Bridge has
reopened after
authorities shut it down when three drunk men were caught
wandering around on the span."
I can see it now: The Homeland Security Department announces
success in its campaign against "Weapons of Mass
Intoxication".
--
John
jwill@AstraGate.net
John Michael Williams
=============
(10) AND FINALLY: "IRAQ BOMBING CAN TRIGGER
EARTHQUAKES"
>From ITAR-TASS, 31 March 2003
http://www.itar-tass.com/english/allnews/253510.html
By Dmitry Zlodorev
MOSCOW, March 31 (Itar-Tass) -- The massive week-long air strikes
on Iraq could trigger a wave of earthquakes in the region,
Russian seismologists told Itar-Tass.
They did nit rule out that the tremors registered in Iran last
night could be caused by bombing in neighboring Iraq.
The scientists said earthquakes in Daghestan, Russia's Caucasus
republic, were not excluded shortly.
"Bombing can not only accelerate earthquakes in places where
there are ready centers and a marked increase in the seismic
activity is seen," the chief of the Russian Seismology
Committee, Alexei Nikolayev, told Itar-Tass on Monday.
"As was the case with the seismic situation after operation
Desert Storm in 1991 and after bombing in Yugoslavia in 1999, it
can be said that earthquakes begin 2-4 weeks after the activation
of air raids using powerful bombs. Tremors can be felt at a
distance up to 1,500 kilometers from an area of bombing,"
Nikolayev said.
Copyright 2003, ITAR-TASS
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