The UN's Environment Programme (UNEP) will initially assess five priority environmental "hot spots", mainly industrial sites around Baghdad and Fallujah containing thousands of tonnes of toxic chemicals and pollutants that pose a direct threat to human health, officials said.

They include 5,000 tonnes of spilled chemicals at the Al-Doura refinery and a seed store where 50 tonnes of seeds coated with methyl mercury fungicide were recently looted, raising the threat of contaminated food supplies.

"We estimate that there are more than 300 sites in Iraq considered to be contaminated to various levels by a range of pollutants," said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP executive director.

Toepfer said Iraq's new government had also asked for help to deal with depleted uranium (DU), used to reinforce armour-piercing shells and bombs of the kind deployed by US and British forces in successive conflicts in Iraq.

"The request from the government of Iraq is to be available for other questions, this includes depleted uranium," Toepfer told journalists.

DU dust has been blamed for causing severe illness long after ammunition explodes, and became the focus of a propaganda battle under Saddam Hussein's regime.

Britain has handed over detailed maps of locations in southern Iraq where about 1.9 tonnes of DU was used in 2003 to help the clean-up, Toepfer said.

"We did not get additional coordinates or information from the United States so far," Toepfer said.

"We need the coordinates, otherwise a study or assessment is not possible," he added.

Iraq's environment minister, Mishkat Moumin welcomed the planned long-term cooperation with UNEP on a clean-up, which is expected to take years.

"My country is faced with a wide range of pressing issues that must be addressed if the Iraqi people are to enjoy a stable, healthy and prosperous future," she said in a statement

UNEP official Pekka Haavisto said the environmental hot spots were a "very important threat" and involved spillages of huge quantities of sulphuric acid, tetra-ethyl lead and oil and other chemicals.

The fungicide-contaminated seed stocks at Al-Suwaira were also shrouded in mystery. UNEP was told that contamination occurred in an unclear "poisoning incident" as far back as 1971-72, Haavisto said.

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