A comparison of the location of cancer victims to the spread of air raids and military action across Iraq leaves no doubt that dust from depleted uranium (DU) weapons has compounded the suffering of the Gulf War.

Bill Hartley, Media Officer of the Australian-Iraqi Friendship Bureau, said in a Melbourne radio broadcast that attempts by the United States and Britain to deny responsibility for unexplained leukemias in Iraq and the Balkans were now in absolute disarray. The pollution caused by toxic and radioactive DU shells had caused a storm of protest.

The seriousness of the situation was compounded in Iraq by a ten-year-old sanctions regime which denied health authorities adequate money and medical supplies for proper treatment for the consequences of DU use.

Mr Hartley said maps of cancer and leukemia clusters around Basra which had been covered in DU dust and aerosols from exploding shells showed a seven-fold increase.

He said Iraq with wide international support had requested a full investigation by the UN-based World Health Organisation (WHO). But the investigation had been vetoed by the United States and Great Britain - the principal users of DU. Mr Hartley said in his broadcast that many members of the US Congress had supported the concept of a WHO probe and had protested the US veto as a cover-up. Now anger was widespread that demands for a full inquiry probably could no longer be avoided.

Daily illegal air raids in both the north and south so-called "no-fly" zones were continuing. Mr Hartley said they were originated by US aircraft from Turkish bases to attack the Kurdish region in the north while UK aircraft based in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait bombed Southern Iraq. It was quite probable that these aircraft were still using DU-armed missiles and bombs. The US and UK had refused to give any undertakings to forego the use of DU weaponry - either in the daily bombing of parts of Iraq or by NATO forces in the Balkans - despite the popular anger.

Mr Hartley said that the Australian Government had claimed that all DU-armed weaponry had been removed from the Australian arsenal in 1995. This action, virtually an admission that DU was a dangerous substance, raised serious issues about its continuous use to this day by the US and UK. The Australian Navy used DU shells during the Gulf War and had to carry responsibility for its share of the damage caused then.

(The Australian-Iraqi Friendship Association said in its submission to a Parliamentary Committee on the Middle East in November, 2000, that Australia was partly liable for the cost of the clean-up in those areas where the Kuwait War fighting took place. The medical consequences of DU was another reason why sanctions should immediately be lifted.).