Iraq hosts Gulf War DU conference
BAGHDAD (South News, Nov 30)--A conference on the devastating
effects of depleted uranium shells used by Western forces during
the Gulf war opens in Baghdad on Wednesday.
The conference this week focuses attention on an enduring
health and environmental disaster caused by depleted
uranium munitions used by the United States and Britain
in the 1991 Gulf War.
The two-day conference, brings together Iraqi researchers with 50
foreign doctors, scientists and veterans of U.S. and British forces
suffering from so-called Gulf War syndrome.
The debate between doctors and scientists will focus on the environmental
and health consequences of the missiles, used during the 1991 Gulf War,
health ministry undersecretary Shawki Murkos said.
Depleted uranium (DU) is used to harden ammunition,
making it highly effective in piercing tank armour.
Iraqi studies have been carried out to establish a link between
increased cases of cancer and the presence of the remains of spent
missiles, Murkos said, quoted by the official INA news agency.
Iraq will give details of what it says is a dramatic jump in
cancer cases since the Gulf War, especially in the south.
"There is massive radioactive contamination in southern
provinces, in addition to the exposure of the people to
radioactive and chemical toxicity," said Sami al-Araji, who
serves on a government committee studying the war's
aftermath.
Araji said allied forces had estimated they had used 300
tonnes of DU munitions against Iraqi forces, but said
other researchers put the figure at 700 to 800 tonnes.
"There has been an alarming increase in cancers and
other unusual diseases," he said, citing genetic
deformities and abnormalities in Iraqi children born after
the Gulf War.
"Among military personnel, lymphomas and leukaemia
have risen five to six times in the last five years. Among
children and civilians the rise has gone beyond that
number," he added.
The southern Shi'ite Moslem provinces are some of Iraq's
poorest, regularly scoring badly in surveys of health care,
malnutrition, school attendance and water sanitation.
With its health services devastated by eight years of
sanctions, Iraq says it cannot afford expensive cancer drugs to
treat the afflicted, let alone the huge cost of decontaminating
DU-polluted areas.
Sadoon said particles from DU munitions had found their
way into food and water chains, causing cancer and other
diseases.
"The conference will also discuss the link between Gulf
War syndrome and similar effects in Iraq, which we
believe are caused by depleted uranium," she added.
Iraqi officials say they hope to spur scientific debate on
what they see as a deadly legacy of the conflict, while
acknowledging that more research needs to be done.
"We are seeing a good number of patients coming from
the area of heavy bombardment, especially in the south,"
said Selma Haddad, head of the oncology unit at the
Mansour Children's Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, one of
the two main centres to which child cancer cases are
referred from all over Iraq.
"It might be related to the effect of that (DU)
pollution, but I think we need a more wide epidemiological and
statistical study to be sure of that," she said.
Iraq sent a formal complaint to U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan in May, reserving its right to compensation for
the "appalling damage" caused by allied use of DU tank
shells.
Britain rejected Iraq's charge that its use of DU weapons
violated the U.N. Charter and international agreements. It
said its Challenger tanks had fired fewer than 100 new
120-mm rounds with a DU core against Iraqi forces and
its armoured forces had been operating well away from
population centres.
In October a preliminary report by the World Health
Organisation proposed sending a WHO mission to
southern Iraq to research radiation levels and reportedly
higher cancer rates.
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