WHO team in Baghdad to probe depleted uranium
Date: 29-Aug-01
Country: IRAQ
"The visit is a follow-up of the meeting which was held in Geneva between Iraqi and WHO experts," Abdelaziz Saleh, the deputy head of WHO's regional office in Cairo, told reporters.
He said the seven-member team would meet officials from the health and foreign ministries as well as experts in other U.N. agencies based in Iraq.
WHO and Iraqi officials met last April in Geneva, where they agreed to cooperate more in technical and scientific fields.
The team will launch WHO's first comprehensive attempt to assess the state of public health 11 years after a U.S.-led coalition bombed Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait.
Baghdad has repeatedly accused Western powers of inflicting a creeping environmental disaster on the country's southern provinces by firing shells made with depleted uranium, which is used to harden them so they can pierce tanker armour.
Official Iraqi figures show an increase in cancer cases from 6,555 in 1989 to 10,931 in 1997, mostly in areas bombed by U.S.-led forces during the war.