BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq accused Western powers on Wednesday of inflicting a creeping health and environmental disaster in its southern provinces by firing radioactive munitions in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Opening a conference to highlight the effects of depleted uranium ammunition used by the United States and Britain, officials said cancer cases had soared in parts of south Iraq and radiation levels were unusually high."Irreparable damage has hit the Iraqi people and environment which gives Iraq the legitimate right to compensation," Ministry of Health Under Secretary Shawki Murcus said.
Murcus listed a catalog of ailments including congenital defects, muscle disorders, fatigue and cancer cases, and said the two-day meeting would show they were caused by the depleted uranium used in the 1991 fighting.
"We have established a link between depleted uranium and these cases," Murcus said.
The conference brought together Iraqi researchers, foreign scientists and doctors. American and British war veterans also returned to the country they fought seven years ago, seeking answers to what they said were their own unexplained ailments.
Iraqi officials say allied forces estimated they had used 300 tons of depleted uranium munitions against Iraqi forces, but that other researchers put the figure at 700 to 800 tons.
Sami al-Araji, who serves on a government committee studying the aftermath of the 1991 war, said air, soil and water samples taken near Iraq's border with Kuwait showed abnormally high levels of radiation.
Jawad al-Ali, a cancer doctor in Iraq's southern city of Basra, told Reuters his hospital had registered 400 new cases this year, including a high proportion of lymphomas and leukemias he linked to radiation, compared to 116 in 1988. Cancer deaths jumped to 303 last year from 34 in 1988, he said.
Iraq says it cannot afford expensive cancer drugs to treat the afflicted let alone the huge cost of decontaminating affected areas -- already some of the poorest and worst-hit by the sanctions.
It has tried for years to pin the blame for the health crisis in the south on the use of depleted uranium (DU), a dense metal used to make armour-piercing projectiles.
DU emits less radiation than naturally occurring uranium but retains radioactive properties.
Britain has said DU rounds can produce small amounts of radioactive and toxic particles on impact, but it is unlikely that anyone outside the target area would be affected.
But Ray Bristow, who served in the Gulf War as a British medical operations technician well behind battle lines, said he was tested positive for depleted uranium last month.
"I didn't think for one minute I'd be affected because I wasn't in the battlefield," Bristow told reporters. "I was exposed to DU at levels 100 times normal levels. It makes me wonder what happened to those on the front line."
Colin Purcell-Lee, who served in the same medical unit as Bristow, said Britain was trying to suppress information about depleted uranium because of fears it would be held liable for illnesses suffered by soldiers on both sides.
"It is a grotesque irony that we had to come here to get information that our own government is not prepared to give us," he said.