Iraqi Minister Says West's Depleted Uranium a Killer 10 Years on
http://www.centraleurope.com/news.php3?=265680

MOSCOW, Jan 24, 2001 -- (Reuters) Thousands of Iraqis die each year because of UN sanctions and the legacy of the West's bombardment of the desert state with depleted uranium (DU) munitions, Baghdad's health minister said on Tuesday.

Umid Mubarak said in Moscow that deaths in Iraq from cancer and a range of resurgent diseases had rocketed since sanctions were imposed 10 years ago and the 1991 Gulf War which brought the tank-busting DU ammunition raining down on Iraqi targets.

NATO denies its use of the weapons in Kosovo and Bosnia caused cancer among peacekeepers serving there, but Mubarak said Iraq's civilian health problems supported a link and asked the West to send medical and environmental aid to Baghdad.

"As the Pentagon and representatives of the UK admit, the number of such (DU) bombs used in Iraq numbered 970 and in Kosovo and Bosnia the total used was only 100," he said.

"American use of depleted uranium is linked with lots of diseases which appeared especially in the regions which directly suffered bombardments," he said, adding that leukemia was six times more common in Iraq today than in 1989.

He said infectious diseases had become six to 20 percent more prevalent, depending on the illness and time of year, and diseases almost eradicated before 1990 like cholera and malaria were now back with a vengeance.

"We have proof of traces of DU in samples taken for analysis and that is really bad for those who assert that cancer cases have grown for other reasons," Mubarak said.

Mubarak said the West's fear of facing the consequences of its DU bombing campaign was partly behind its failure to fulfil its commitments under a deal allowing Iraq to sell some of its vast oil reserves in return for food and medical supplies.

"The Americans and British are really scared of the possibility we will be able to diagnose cancers and identify their causes. So they don't agree to provide apparatus to help us, despite it being in the food for oil program," he said.

"And the food for oil program in general, which began in 1996, has done nothing to improve the overall picture of Iraqi health," Mubarak said, bemoaning crippling food shortages.

News agencies quoted on Tuesday Alexander Yakovenko, a Foreign Ministry official, as reiterating Russia's long-held support for an end to sanctions against Iraq.