[ RadSafe ] Al Jazeera English - Cancer in Southern Iraq and Depleted Uranium

[Roger Helbig]

Please, join me in complaining to Al Jazeera for the extremely poor quality
of their reporting in this now widely circulating piece.
Press.int at aljazeera.net

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091012122745236765.ht
ml

Doctors in Iraq are recording a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims
south of Baghdad. Sufferers in the province of Babil have risen almost
tenfold in just three years.

Locals blame depleted uranium from US military equipment used in the 2003
invasion. Some 500 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2004 alone. That figure
rose to almost 1,000 two years later.

	
	

In 2008, the number of cases increased sevenfold to 7,000 diagnoses. This
year, there have so far been more than 9,000 new cases, and the number is
rising.

Mosab Jasim reports that Iraqi researchers believe radiation is responsible
for the increase in cancer and birth defects in the country, but he says the
US and British militaries have sent mixed signals about the effects of
depleted uranium. 

However, Christopher Busby, a British scientist and activist who has carried
out research into the risks of radioactive pollution, said there is proof of
a definitive link between cancer and depleted uranium.

"I made this link to a coroner's inquest in the West Midlands into the death
of a Gulf War One veteran ... and a coroner's jury accepted my evidence," he
told Al Jazeera.

"It's been found by a coroner's court that cancer was caused by an exposure
to depleted uranium.

"In the last ten years, research has emerged that has made it quite clear
that uranium is one of the most dangerous substances known to man, certainly
in the form that it takes when used in these wars.

Includes interview: Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of Uranium in Iraq.