The Associated Press
Thursday, December 3, 1998

By LEON BARKHO

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq presented a former American soldier at a medical conference yesterday to back its claim that U.S. shelling during the 1991 Gulf War unleashed a radioactive substance that is causing widespread cancer among Iraqi civilians.

Her voice wavering and her hands shaking, former Sgt. 1st Class Carol Picou urged about 600 Iraqi scientists and doctors to help explain what she said were ailments relating to her wartime service.

"I have numerous illnesses, brain damage, neurological disorders," said Picou, a 42-year old native of Toccoa, Ga., who served as a nurse and truck driver in the U.S. Army.

Iraq also sponsored two former British soldiers to attend the two-day conference. They stood in a row with five Iraqi officers. All claim they suffer from similar neurological illnesses.

Picou and the Britons, Raymond Bristow and Colin Dursell-Lee, said they had defied their governments' orders to attend the conference.

The meeting will address what Iraq claims is the high incidence of cancer among civilians in southern Iraq who were exposed to depleted uranium from shells fired by U.S. forces during the Gulf War.

Depleted uranium is a metal residue left when natural uranium is refined. It is used in artillery shells and bombs designed to penetrate the armor of tanks. On impact, the shells create an airborne dust, which if inhaled or ingested, can be poisonous.

Sami Raoof, who heads a newly-formed Iraqi agency on the Gulf War impact, said Iraqi scientists had found that cancer cases in southern Iraq have increased by almost 200 percent since the war.

There have been no independent studies to confirm that claim, and a Western scientist attending the conference said it is premature to blame depleted uranium for the illnesses.