The cancer rate in Iraq has more than doubled in 10 years — and health officials place the blame on radioactivity from spent munitions fired by British and U.S. forces during the Gulf War.
“There is no other reason to justify this increase apart from what had happened during the Gulf War, and depleted uranium has been found definitely related to this increase,” Abul-Hadi al-Khalili, deputy head of the Iraqi Cancer Board, said yesterday after the start of a Baghdad conference on the issue.
According to Iraqi government statistics, the number of cancer cases registered in the country rose to 6,158 in 1997 from 4,341 in 1991 — while a 1998 United Nations document showed a 55 percent increase in cancer there between 1989 and 1994.
The allied forces estimated they had used 300 tons of depleted-uranium munitions, according to Iraqi sources.
Other researchers put the figure at 700 to 800 tons.
Depleted uranium, which is extremely heavy and melts on impact into a penetrating stream of white-hot metal, is the main component of armour-piercing munitions.
Iraq’s health services have been devastated by nearly 10 years of U.N. economic sanctions. The areas with the highest rates of cancer, especially leukemia, are in the south, where most of the depleted-uranium munitions were used, officials said.