European delegation sees results of sanctions on Iraq

The Iraqi health minister Omid Medhat Mubarak on Wednesday discussed with a delegation representing Europeans the health situation in Iraq because of the sanctions imposed on Iraq since 1990.

The Iraqi health minister briefed the European delegation on the health and environmental problems in Iraq and the effects resulting from depleted uranium on increasing in disease conditions in Iraq.

He explained that the oil-for-food program did not meet the humanitarian requirements of Iraq because of the veto position of the British and American representatives at the UN sanctions committee in their deliberate obstruction of delivering medicines and necessary medical requirements to the Iraqi health establishments.

Meantime, the Iraqi minister of information Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf stressed to the delegation during his meeting the development of the relations between Iraq and the UN and "the reasons behind the threats and crimes committed by the US against Iraq, especially the US use of uranium depleted weapons which are internationally banned."

The delegation which arrived in Baghdad on Sunday is composed of 120 persons including Belgian figures, parliamentarians, doctors, journalists, men of letters, university students, and French and British soldiers who took part in the Gulf war in 1991.