Iraq Demands US, British Compensations for Depleted UraniumIraq on Wednesday demanded compensations from the United States and Britain for the damages caused by their use of depleted uranium shells in their air attacks against Iraq.In a statement carried by the official Iraqi News Agency, an Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iraq has the right to demand compensations because the depleted uranium has caused harm to the health of Iraqi people and contaminated the environment. The spokesman called on the United Nations and other world organizations to study the impact of the depleted uranium shells in Iraq, so that the world can get acquainted with "the crimes and genocide committed by the US and Britain against humanity." The Iraqi authorities have repeatedly condemned the US-led Western allies for dropping hundreds of tons of depleted uranium shells in the south and other parts of Iraq and causing an environmental disaster. Iraq has blamed the depleted uranium for the sharp increase of cancer patients since the 1991 Gulf War, in which the US-led multinational alliance drove Iraqi occupation troops out of Kuwait. Addressing a cancer conference last March, Abul-Hadi al-Khalili, deputy head of the Iraqi Cancer Board, said Iraq's cancer cases rose from 4,341 in 1991 to 6,158 in 1997. According to Khalili, there are more cancer patients, especially leukemia or blood cancer patients, in southern Iraq because most of the depleted uranium shells were dropped there during the Gulf War. Iraq filed a formal complaint to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1998, reserving the right to demand compensations from the US and Britain for the use of depleted uranium shells during the Gulf War. |
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