IRAQ SANCTIONS MONITOR Number 187
Friday, January 12, 2001
The daily Monitor is produced by the Mariam Appeal.
Tel: 00 44 (0) 207 403 5200.
Website: www.mariamappeal.com.
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MoD backtracks on cancer report: Advice on shells came from
senior officers, ministry admits
>From THE GUARDIAN, January 12th, 2001
Attempts by the Ministry of Defence to dismiss a leaked report
highlighting increased risks from exposure to depleted uranium
in shells backfired spectacularly yesterday when it emerged that
not only was it written by an experience military officer but it was
endorsed by senior officers.
With defence ministers coming under renewed pressure to say
what they knew of the health risks of depleted uranium (DU),
officials first tried to discredit the report as the work of a 'trainee'.
But the MoD admitted last night that the report had been written
by an 'experienced officer'. It added: 'He was new to the post,
with no experience of that particular area'.
The report was then given more credence by a second internal
MoD document. It emerged yesterday that the report - stressing
long-term health risks from DU contamination - was attached to
a covering letter from the office of the army's quartermaster
general recommending its distribution to military and civilian
personnel likely to come into contact with the armour-piercing
shells.
The letter was signed by a senior retired officer on behalf of the
quartermaster general's chief of staff. Dated April 1997, it warns
that on impact 'toxic and radioactive dust can be spread inside
and outside of the [target] vehicle'.
A further army document, dated August 1999, warns soldiers not
to 'enter or climb a damaged hard target or loiter within 50
metres', adding: 'do not eat, drink, or smoke near the damaged
vehicle.
'When an AFV [armoured vehicle] is penetrated by a DU round,
the core becomes molten and may spread radioactive particles
in the air.'
In a letter to Geoffrey Hoon, the defence secretary, his shadow
minister, Iain Duncan Smith, demanded to know if ministers
were advised of the concerns about DU-tipped shells or told that
the warnings were wrong.
Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman,
said: 'The government's efforts to explain away documents
relating to depleted uranium lacks credibility.'
Faced with a growing prob lem of credibility, the MoD yesterday
promised to publish the leaked documents with what it called a
'suitable commentary' as soon as possible.
'Whilst accurate in the main, they contain some significant
errors of scientific fact,' it said. It referred to the warning in the
1997 document that uranium dust had been shown to increase
the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain cancers. 'It has
not,' the MoD said.
Its chief scientific adviser, Sir Keith O'Nions, said the report
contained 'many, many scientific errors' and did not form any part
of the advice given to ministers.
Mr Hoon told Channel 4 News last night that he had not seen
the document before it was leaked. 'That document is not a
document that was passed down the chain of command.' He
added: 'What we are saying is that the risks are very small and
have not led in any case that we have been able to establish by
the best scientific evidence to any illness for any soldier.'
John Spellar, the junior defence minister, infuriated Gulf war
veterans earlier this week by announcing voluntary screening for
Balkans veterans, without referring to them. Yet some 900,000
DU-tipped shells were fired in the Gulf, most by US aircraft,
compared with 40,000 in the Balkans.
The Guardian has found that defence ministers claimed in 1993
that the shells did not produce 'soluble depleted uranium'. The
MoD now says the risk is more from soluble DU than insoluble
radiated dust.
The UN yesterday stepped up pressure for a survey of the areas
hit by DU-tipped shells in Bosnia - and raised the prospect of a
similar mission to Iraq - after traces of radioactivity and pieces of
DU were found during a preliminary assessment of sites in
Kosovo.
Special report on DU at www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/ uranium
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Clinton says US pilot thought killed in Gulf War may be alive
BOSTON, Jan 11 (AFP) - President Bill Clinton said in a radio
interview Thursday that Washington has information that a US
pilot shot down and presumed killed on the opening night of the
1991 Gulf War may be alive.
"We've already begun working to try to determine whether, in
fact, he's alive and if he is where he is and how we can get him
out," Clinton told CBS News radio in an exclusive interview,
warning: "I don't want to raise false hopes."
But "we have enough information that makes us believe that at
least he survived his crash, that that's a possibility, and that he
might be alive," the outgoing president, who leaves office
January 20, told the network.
Lieutenant Commander Michael Speicher, an F-18 Hornet pilot
and the first American lost in the Gulf War, was shot down in a
dogfight over Iraq territory on January 17, 1991, the first day of
the conflict.
Earlier, US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said
Washington delivered diplomatic notes to Iraqi diplomats in
three cities beginning Wednesday demanding Baghdad turn
over information about Speicher's fate.
"We believe that the Iraqis hold additional information that could
help resolve the case of Commander Speicher and they are
obligated to provide that information to us," Reeker told
reporters.
"The Iraqis owe us information," a defense official added. "We
think they know more than they told us."
Speicher was first listed as "missing in action," a status later
changed to "killed in action, body not recovered."
But on Wednesday, citing additional review of the scant
evidence available, the Navy reinstated the "missing in action"
listing, the defense official said.
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NATO's use of DU munitions a 'crime against humanity': China
BEIJING, Jan 12 (AFP) - China said Friday that NATO's use of
depleted uranium (DU) munitions in the Balkans was a crime
against humanity.
An editorial in the official China Daily said US and British
denials that DU munitions were responsible for illnesses
including cancer had been shown to be hollow.
And the commentary scoffed at NATO's military intervention in
Kosovo in 1999 on humanitarian grounds, a move China
strongly opposed, and questioned NATO's concern for the new
"humanitarian crisis" emerging over DU shells.
It said U-238, the main component of depleted uranium, was
"intrinsically nuclear" and therefore DU munitions used by the
United States in the 1991 Gulf War and the Kosovo conflict
should not be considered conventional weapons.
"Because of the indiscriminate harm it has caused to all lives in
the hit areas long after combat, random use of such weapons
amounts to a crime against humanity," said the editorial.
Fears over the side-effects of DU munitions has emerged
following the deaths of some 16 NATO peacekeepers from
illnesses such as leukemia after they served in either Bosnia or
Kosovo.
The United States has said its aircraft fired 31,000 DU rounds
during the 1999 Kosovo campaign and that another 10,800
rounds were fired during 1994/5 in Bosnia, where many of those
afflicted were stationed.
The China Daily editorial said NATO owed its peacekeepers a
"thorough and honest" investigation, but it questioned whether
the alliance cared about the impact of DU shells on civilians in
the Balkans and Iraq.
"It is both hypocritical and bizarre that the whole fuss over
DU-related health risks in NATO countries has occured without
regards for the larger number of victims in other communities,"
said the paper.
"Where is the 'humanitarian concerns NATO so fervently cited to
justify its aggression in Yugoslavia. Where is the altruist NATO
committed to the prevention of a 'humanitarian disaster' now
that a real such disaster is
before its eyes," it said.
China opposed NATO's intervention in Kosovo on the grounds
the humanitarian crisis in the region was the internal affair of
Yugoslavia.
Official Chinese media did not report atrocities by Yugoslav
forces against Kosovar civilians during their coverage of the
conflict.
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Saudi `hypocritical` in call for Baghdad to stop threatening
language: Iraq
BAGHDAD, Jan 12 (AFP) - Iraq on Friday described Saudi
Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal as hypocritical for calling
on Baghdad to stop using threatening language towards its
neighbours in order to be welcomed back into the Arab fold.
"It is our right to tell Prince Saud and other similar slaves to
America that this political hypocrisy fools no one and doesn't
hide the fact that the Saudi regime is complicit in attacks on
Iraq," an information ministry spokesman said.
"The Saudi regime is the last Arab regime entitled to speak of a
reconciliation and reunification of the Arab ranks since its
complicity in the attacks on Iraq only serves to widen the
divisions," the spokesman said, quoted by INA news agency.
He also slammed Prince Saud's call for Baghdad to release
around 600 prisoners-of-war (POWs) Kuwait says were taken
from the emirate during Iraq's seven-month-long occupation that
ended with the 1991 Gulf War.
"The Saudi minister must not ignore the fact that Iraq has
announced it is not holding any Kuwaiti POWs or POWs of other
nationalities," the spokesman said.
Prince Saud, with his Egyptian counterpart Amr Mussa, on
Tuesday called for a pan-Arab reconciliation that would include
Iraq as long as Baghdad could "prove its peaceful intentions and
stopped using threatening language towards its neighbours".
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Oil guru warns against hasty supply cuts: Sheikh Yamani urges
Opec to watch Iraq before decreasing output
>From THE GUARDIAN, January 12th, 2001
Cuts in oil production, coupled with Iraqi political machination,
could drive world energy prices to a new peak, members of
Opec were warned yesterday. The cartel of 11 oil-producing
countries is expected to agree quota cuts next week in an
attempt to reverse the slide in world oil prices, which have
dropped by more than Dollars 10 ( pounds 6.70) a barrel below
their peak last autumn. The move comes as the US economy
threatens to fall into a recession.
Prices surged yesterday after Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest
producer, said it was preparing to cut February deliveries,
hardening the expectation that the cartel will agree a cut of 1.5m
barrels at its meeting in Vienna next week.
Qatar, a small producer by comparison, urged Opec to cut
output by 2m barrels a day or more.
But the man who masterminded Opec's dominance of the world
economy in the 1970s warned that his successors' calculations
were likely to be thrown out of line by President Saddam
Hussein's continuing fight to get the UN to withdraw its
sanctions against Iraq.
Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister, said:
'Opec's cut will be too much unless the Iraqis come back into the
picture. If they cut production, prices could go to Dollars 30-35 a
barrel.'
When crude soared above Dollars 30 ( pounds 19) a barrel in
the autumn, the rise in petrol prices brought consumer protests
throughout Europe and demands from western capitals for Opec
to increase production.
Sheikh Yamani said Opec should wait to see what Iraq decided
to do before implementing any production cuts. 'If they don't cut,
Iraq will think twice and may come back to the market,' he said.
Iraq slashed its production last month, the latest move in its
battle with the UN, and is demanding that its customers pay a
premium of 40 cents a barrel into an account controlled by the
regime , outside the UN's oil-for-food programme.
The UN sanctions committee threatened to prosecute oil
companies if they paid the premium. In protest, Iraq halted oil
production, which had been running at 2.3m barrels a day. It
resumed production a few days later, but at only 600,000 barrels
a day.
Reputable oil companies have refused to pay the premium and
are no longer buying Iraqi oil.
'The companies lifting it at present are from the Ukraine, Sudan,
South Africa and Malaysia,' Sheikh Yamani said. It is not known if
they are paying the premium.
He said that if Iraqi production had continued normally there
would be a real surplus of oil and production cuts would be
necessary next month. 'But Iraq's cuts in December will be felt in
the market only in January, because of the time the tankers take
to deliver. There is a shortage in the market.
'Saddam Hussein wants to break the embargo and there is a
good chance he will succeed. The price will jump . . . It can go
way above what it was. It depends on how long he will be
absent.
'Then the oil companies will come running. They will definitely
pay the 40 cents under the table. This is exactly what he wants.'
He added: 'Who will detect the payments?'
Sheikh Yamani said a new rise in prices would not be a
problem for Opec. 'They're happy with a high price but, longer
term, they will pay very heavily. If I were in the Opec meeting I
would say: 'Don't take action until we see what is the Iraqi
situation, then take action accordingly'.'
Saudi Arabia ought to bring prices down to prevent other
suppliers and alternative energy sources undercutting it, he said.
'If Saudis looked at their long-term interests, they would definitely
bring prices down below Dollars 20 a barrel to delay new
exploration.
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Parliament: Defence - Labour MPs warn of `Star Wars' protest
>From The Independent January 11th, 2001
LABOUR BACKBENCHERS warned yesterday that Britain could
face waves of Greenham Common-style mass protest if it
agrees to play an active role in the United States' "Star Wars"
missile defence scheme.
George Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin, and an outspoken
opponent of the military campaigns against Iraq and Yugoslavia,
claimed the Government's support of President Clinton had
reduced the UK to a "little echo" of America.
Following British approval of American policies condemned by
many other countries, it was now seen as "the tail being wagged
by an increasingly out of control dog".
George Bush, the president-elect, is known to be in favour of the
scheme and he has appointed Donald Rumsfeld, one of the
most vociferous supporters of the National Missile Defence
scheme to create a missile shield around the US, as his
prospective Defence Secretary.
If approved, the scheme would rely on a radar early-warning
station which could be built on the North Yorkshire moors at
Fylingdales. But Mr Galloway said participation would risk a "fatal
rupture" with our EU partners, breach arms limitation treaties
and provoke major public dissent.
He said: "Just like the cruise missile deployment at Greenham
Common, we who will have no protection from the missile shield
will have placed ourselves in the front line as an important target
in any nuclear conflagration. And just like Greenham Common, I
predict a massive wave of protest and political turmoil if this
ultimate act of obeisance is made.
"British agreement to this would be a fatal rupture with our
European partners, all of whom oppose and fear this
development and would mark us forever as veritable slaves of
American policy."
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10 years on, Iraq feels vindicated by Balkans Syndrome
BAGHDAD, Jan 11 (AFP) - On the eve of the 10th anniversary of
the Gulf War, Iraq feels its long-ignored protests over America's
use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons may finally be given a
hearing thanks to the Yugoslav conflict.
In the dock itself over weapons of mass destruction and with its
credibility in tatters ever since the war over Kuwait, Baghdad has
turned the tables by demanding Washington and London both
face a war crimes tribunal.
Amid the clamour in Europe over a rash of cancer deaths
among soldiers who served in the Balkans, NATO on
Wednesday bowed to demands for an investigation into the
health effects of DU munitions.
NATO chief George Robertson said the calls for a probe into the
US use of DU in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 were
"legitimate demands", but added he was "confident that there is
little risk in NATO ammunitions."
DU munitions are able to penetrate heavy armour, and experts
say, the danger comes not from the low-level radiation they emit,
but from pulverised dust created on impact.
Iraq has long argued that US and British use of DU weapons a
decade ago caused "irreparable damage" to its people and
environment, pointing to previously unknown congenital
deformities among Iraqi infants.
Dr. Sami al-Araji, a scientist on a government panel studying
the war's aftermath, has said radioactivity levels in bombed
areas of southern Iraq were 10 times higher than the rest of the
country.
Contamination from at least 300 tonnes of DU weapons fired at
or dropped on Iraq, mostly by the US military, has entered the
food and water chains, causing "indiscriminate harm to
non-combatants," according to Iraqi doctors.
Ahead of a international conference on DU munitions which
was hosted by Baghdad in December 1998, Britain rejected as
"baseless" Iraqi charges that contamination from DU shells had
polluted Iraq.
UN cancer statistics for 1989-1994 in southern areas like
Missan and Thi-Qar show up to seven-fold increases in cancer
over the five-year period. In Thi-Qar, cases rose from 72 in 1989
to 489 in 1994.
"Iraq requests the creation of an international tribunal to put US
and British officials on trial for crimes against humanity and the
genocide carried out by the Americans and British in Iraq and
Yugoslavia," the foreign ministry said Wednesday.
Baghdad, which itself has been condemned for using chemical
weapons during a 1980-1988 war against Iran, has called for
compensation.
With the Balkans Syndrome, Europe is now paying the price for
having ignored the Gulf War Syndrome, Iraq's ruling Baath
party's newspaper, Ath-Thawra, said earlier this week.
"It's the turn of the Europeans to pay the price for their
follow-the-leader attitude towards the American bull," it said.
Ath-Thawra said the symptoms in Europe were "no more
serious than the damage inflicted by the Americans and the
British on the Iraqi people" during the war of January-February
1991.
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Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets With Joint Chiefs
>From NEW YORK TIMES, January 11th, 2001
George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to
the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs
of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might
have to send American forces into harm's way.
About half of the 75-minute meeting in the secure conference
room where the military chiefs conduct their most sensitive
business, focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian
Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed
because ''it's the most visible and most risky area'' Mr. Bush will
confront after he takes office, one senior officer said.
Mr. Bush did not say how he would deal with Iraq, the
participants said, but asked several questions about President
Saddam Hussein and American allies in the region, before the
generals briefing him addressed other possible flashpoints,
including the Balkans and the Korean peninsula.
''Iraqi policy is very much on his mind,'' one senior Pentagon
official said.
''Saddam was clearly a discussion point.''
Iraq looms large among the national security challenges Mr.
Bush will face.
During the campaign, he criticized the Clinton administration as
allowing the international coalition against Iraq to erode, and for
permitting sanctions against Iraq to loosen.
But it was the president-elect's father, President George Bush,
who left Mr.Clinton with what critics say was unfinished business, by
defeating Mr. Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but not
dislodging him.
In the past year, Mr. Bush and his advisers have talked about
strengthening the sanctions and bolstering the fragmented Iraqi
opposition groups, but the president-elect has been careful not
to lay out a specific strategy.
Mr. Bush arrived at the Pentagon this morning surrounded by a
cast familiar with the building: Vice President-elect Dick Cheney,
who was secretary of defense under Mr. Bush's father; Gen.
Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state-designate and former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Donald H. Rumsfeld, a former
secretary of defense who is Mr. Bush's choice for the same job;
and Condoleezza Rice, the president-elect's pick for national
security adviser.
Defense Secretary William S. Cohen held a 45-minute briefing in
his office for the group, touching on a variety of issues, including
the nation's nuclear arsenal, before the session with the Joint
Chiefs.
Hours after his meeting with Mr. Bush, Mr. Cohen gave a speech
that was part valedictory and part rebuttal to Mr. Bush's repeated
criticisms against the Clinton administration's military policies
during the campaign.
On Iraq, for instance, Mr. Cohen argued that sanctions had
worked.
''Saddam Hussein's forces are in a state where he cannot pose
a threat to his neighbors at this point,'' he said. ''We have been
successful, through the sanctions regime, to really shut off most
of the revenue that will be going to rebuild his military.''
In a courtly manner, without mentioning Mr. Bush or his
supporters by name, Mr. Cohen time and again suggested that
the Republicans had oversimplified defense issues like
peacekeeping in the Balkans and building a ballistic missile
defense system, a subject that did not come up at today's
Pentagon briefings.
In the campaign, for instance, Mr. Bush asserted that Mr.
Clinton's defense policies had caused military morale to
plummet and weapons systems to fall into disrepair.
But Mr. Cohen argued today that policies supported by the
Clinton administration and approved by Congress in the past
two years would lead to an increase in Pentagon spending of
$227 billion by the year 2007.
Much of that increase will be for personnel costs, including pay
increases and improved pension and health care benefits. But
much will also go toward maintaining and modernizing weapons
systems.
The increase outlined by Mr. Cohen today is actually significantly
more than what Mr. Bush proposed during the campaign, which
was $45 billion over 10 years. Though Mr. Cohen did not lay out
that contrast, he seemed to be suggesting that the Clinton
administration had already achieved more than anything Mr.
Bush had even proposed during the campaign.
Mr. Cohen also took issue with suggestions by Ms. Rice that it
might be necessary to set up international police forces to carry
out peacekeeping functions that are now the responsibility of
soldiers.
''Some people say, 'Why don't we just train people to be
peacekeepers, a certain segment of our military to be
peacekeepers, and the others will be the warriors?' '' Mr. Cohen
said in his address at the National Press Club here.
''It doesn't work that way. We have to train our people to do
everything, all the way from being peacekeepers to
peacemakers to humanitarians to diplomats to being war
fighters, because the situation on the ground can change like
that.''
Throughout the campaign, Republicans also accused the
Clinton administration of dragging its heels on building an
antiballistic missile defense system. Mr.
Cohen, who supports building a limited missile shield, said Mr.
Clinton had been deliberate about building support for a system
among American allies.
And he strongly warned Mr. Bush to do the same and not rush
into deploying something that might trigger a new arms race or
alienate America's friends.
''Working with our allies, persuading them that we're doing the
right thing and the reasonable thing, is going to very important,''
Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen also warned Mr. Bush about cutting spending on
three expensive fighter plane programs that Mr. Cohen strongly
supported during his tenure.
Those programs could cost well over $300 billion over the next
two decades, and advisers to Mr. Bush have suggested that the
new administration would take a hard look at cutting or canceling
one of them, investing the money instead in futuristic
skip-a-generation technology.
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Iraq starts distributing ration cards for 2001
BAGHDAD, Jan 11 (AFP) - Iraq's commerce ministry on
Thursday began handing out ration cards to its citizens for 2001,
the eleventh straight year of sanctions.
A ministry official told AFP at one of the distribution centres that
it would take around one month to provide all 22 million citizens
of sanctions-hit Iraq with their ration cards.
The government has distributed ration cards since sanctions
were imposed upon Iraq in August 1990 after it invaded Kuwait.
The ration cards have provided Iraqis with basic needs amid a
dramatic plunge in their living standards.
Each month, Iraqis receive their rations, which consist of small
quantities of flour, rice, tea, sugar, vegetable oil and infant milk,
along with soap, salt, detergents, razors and matches.
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Iraq demands punishment for use of DU weapons in Iraq.
CAIRO, January 11 (Itar-Tass) - The Iraqi Foreign Ministry has
circulated a statement on Thursday which says that top state
officials of the United States and Great Britain who authorized the
use of DU weapons on the Iraqi territory in 1990-1991 must be
put on trial.
Iraq reserves the right to demand a compensation for damages
"caused to the Iraqi gene fund and environment as a result of
use of such weapons", the statement said.
It was pointed out that the use of DU weapons in Iraq has led to
a sharp increase of cancerous diseases, inborn infantile
diseases and development of diseases earlier unknown to
science, Around 300 billion dollars are needed for rehabilitation
of the ecological situation in Iraq, the Iraqi foreign ministry said.
A medical conference with the participation of experts from Iraq
and other Arab states is expected to open in Baghdad on
Saturday. The conference will be devoted to problems of
hazardous effects of depleted uranium on human health.
________________________________________________
IRAQ: Baghdad says UN blocks 31 oil-for-aid deals Dec. 26-29
By BridgeNews Amman--Jan. 11--The UN committee in charge
of enforcing the Iraq embargo suspended, in the last week of
December, 31 contracts concluded by the Iraqi government over
the past two years under the oil-for-aid program, a Trade Ministry
spokesman was quoted by the official Iraq News Agency (INA)
as saying Thursday.
He said that the deals were concluded in the fifth, sixth, seventh
and eighth six-month episodes of the oil-for-aid plan that went
into operation in December 1996.
"Under the behest of the U.S. and U.K. representatives, the
Committee 661 blocked the contracts during its sessions on
Dec. 26, 28 and 29," the official added.
He said that the deals involved spare parts for rehabilitation of
the oil industry and the power networks, irrigation equipment,
education appliances, vehicles, pharmaceuticals and medical
supplies.
The contracts were signed with manufacturers from France, Italy,
Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, Germany, Austria, Turkey, India,
Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan, he added.
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