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Iraq Urges UN Investigation on Depleted Uranium Arms
Iraq on Thursday called on the United Nations to investigate the use of depleted uranium shells by the United States and Britain in the 1991 Gulf War, as well as the harmful impacts on the health of Iraqi people.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf urged the world's leading body to dispatch "trusted scientific and medical parties," in cooperation with Iraq, to make a "quick" investigation in this regard.
"Many US and British officials have admitted the use of depleted uranium shells against Iraq during the Gulf War," al-Sahaf said in the letter.
Following the Gulf War triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, many international medical and scientific organizations warned the serious consequences of the depleted uranium shells, as strange diseases that did not exist in Iraq before the war emerged in the country, al-Sahaf said.
Iraqi children have paid a particularly heavy price for this, the Iraqi foreign minister said, adding that 75 percent of the depleted uranium-related diseases, such as leukemia, deformity and cancer, occurred among the children.
Iraq has charged that the U.S. and Britain dropped a total of 940,000 depleted uranium shells during the Gulf War and caused great damage to its people and the environment.
Iraq has also demanded compensations from the two countries for their use of the depleted uranium shells in their air raids against the country.
In the early morning of January 17, 1991, the US-led multinational coalition launched fierce air strikes against Iraq and its occupation troops in Kuwait, marking the start of the Gulf War.
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