Postwar Radiation Cases Blamed on West

Iraq accused Western powers of inflicting a health and environmental disaster on its southern provinces by firing radioactive munitions during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Officials at a conference to highlight the effects of depleted uranium ammunition used by the U.S. and Britain said that cancer cases had soared in parts of southern Iraq and that radiation levels were unusually high. The conference in Baghdad drew Iraqi researchers, foreign scientists and doctors as well as U.S. and British war veterans seeking answers to ailments that range from memory loss to leukemia.