World Health Organization and Iraq

The World Health Organization WHO on Thursday approved with Iraq on a plan for joint discovery of possible links between the depleted uranium and the diseases that spread among the Iraqi people following the Gulf war in 1991.

News reports quoted the spokeswoman for WHO Milinda Henry as saying that an Iraqi delegation and experts from FAO had laid a cooperation work framework during the talks they held on April 9 through11 in Geneva. The framework includes three parts which are to be acquainted with the diseases, especially cancers, measuring the rate of the depleted uranium in the infected persons as well as researches and prevention.

Worthy mentioning that cancer cases increased for four folds in the areas of south Iraq which were exposed the bombardment of the allied groups during the Gulf war, as the US and Britain had fired more than 940,000 shells containing depleted uranium during that phase.