تقدير مخاطر استخدام أسلحة اليورانيوم المنضب في العراق : الجزء الأول

الملخص EN

During Gulf War 1 in 1991, and throughout the occupation of Iraq military operations in 2003, US and UK armed forces used Depleted Uranium (DU) radioactive munitions in populated residential areas specially in southern Iraq.

In this article, results of 1991-war risk assessment in a highly populated area of about 1200 km2 including the cities of Safwan, Zubair and west of Basra are presented.

Residents of these areas were exposed to high radioactive doses due to DU contamination.

Results indicated that the most important source of exposure was the inhalation of uranium and its oxides aerosols during first months of the military operations of 1991.

The calculated effective annual doses from this path were found to be 435 mSv for the armed forces and 167 mSv for the population in the city of Safwan.

The annual whole body effective dose the population of Zubair and western Basra city were exposed to is 268.6 mSv.

The second highest effective radiation dose resulted from inhalation of resuspension-emanation of (DU) radionuclides and oxides from destroyed tanks and other military artilleries sites.

With each dust and sandstorm, the population in these areas kept receiving extra doses from DU pollution.

Residents of the study area have been exposed to 200 times the annual radiation dose any person would receive from the natural background in most parts of the world, which is only 2.4 mSv.

The assessment also indicates that 90% of total annual effective dose values are resulting from the inhalation of uranium oxides and resuspended radionuclides pathways.

Doses from all other pathways account for less than 10% of the total annual effective dose.

The total cumulative dose the residents received through the period 1991-1996 was about 913.7 mSv for Safwan city, and 515 mSv for each Zubair and west of Basra cities.