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| Iraq | |
| Chemical Officers Help With Iraq Cleanup | |
| 2003-04-26 | |
| When the U.S. Army officer faced a crowd of Iraqi men and boys and drew his finger across his throat, it wasn't a threat, but a gesture of concern. ``You could die if you stay here,'' Capt. Bryon Galbraith told the crowd, many of them barefoot, who were standing in a pool of pesticide. Hundreds of gallons of toxins lay on the ground outside a warehouse Friday after looters broke in and stole about 200 barrels, emptying the contents before they lugged away the drums. Residents said the looters wanted the drums for transporting gasoline. A bad two-fer — they need the pesticide for the fields. Galbraith, the 101st Airborne Division's chemical planner, is part of the Army's effort to ensure that Iraq's environment doesn't suffer even more in the postwar instability. The war did not trigger the natural catastrophe of burning oil fields, destroyed dams and the use of chemical and biological weapons that many had envisioned. Still, severe pollution and other environmental problems already choke the country — the results of more than two decades of war, international sanctions and mismanagement under Saddam Hussein. Wow: the Guardian didn't blame us! Dealing with environmental problems is key to rebuilding Iraq, according to a preliminary study released this week by the U.N. Environmental Program. Galbraith's job has shifted from helping protect soldiers from nuclear, biological and chemical warfare to addressing potential environmental or industrial threats, in addition to looking for chemical or biological weapons. The owner of the looted warehouse spoke no English, but understood the warning, pointing at his own nose and torso, then yelled at the crowd to leave. Won't ... say ... it ... maintain ... control ... The Iraqis didn't listen, and the crowd grew with curious passersby. Boys continued to ride bikes through the pesticide and play in it. Sounds like something my nephews would do. The soldiers left to get backup security assistance and a team to wash the area with a high-powered bleach and fill it with sand later in the day. ``The owners are smart enough to know not to go in there. The others do not,'' said Maj. Paul Haldeman, 42, of Rodman, N.Y., at one of the division's tactical operations centers in Mosul. ``People will get sick.''
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| Posted by:Steve White |