US congressional team meets with Tareq Aziz

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Tuesday visited the US team currently visiting Iraq with the objective of discussing the health and humanitarian conditions that have come about since sanctions were imposed on Iraq in 1990.

Phyllis Bennis, a participant in the team and a member of the Political Studies Institute in Washington, said: "We have discussed Iraq's viewpoints and the impact of the sanctions, especially the ability of the US to change its policy." She added following the meeting with Aziz, "We held an interesting meeting."

Upon their arrival in Baghdad on Sunday, members of the team said they were not to hold talks with Iraqi officials, but they met with the Iraqi health secretary, Shawqi Murqus, and reviewed with him the health conditions in Iraq, and the shortage in medicine and medical equipment.

The UN team on Tuesday headed, in UN cars, for the cereal silos in northern Baghdad in the course of their investigation on how the oil-for-food program is being implemented. The team, over which the US State Department announced disapproval for the visit, includes five congressional assistants and two representatives of institutes in Washington.

It is the first US team to head for Baghdad since 1990.

Meanwhile, the director general at the Iraqi Health Ministry, Abdul Jabbar Abdul Abbas, said some 29 Iraqis died as a result of cholera, which has been spread in various parts of Iraq within the past few weeks.

Abdul Abbas said that some 705 cholera cases were reported recently in the country, adding the average number of cholera cases in Baghdad is higher than other parts of Iraq.