Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2000 5:07 PM

Subject: Letter to Editor

 

The Editor,

The Globe & Mail

Toronto

Dear Editor:

Svend Robinson deserves full credit for his timely and courageous report on Iraq "We are killing the innocent" {Jan. 19}. His accurate report on the appalling conditions inflicted by the 10-year sanctions, on the innocent children and civilians in Iraq, deserves full attention.

The soaring leukemia and cancer rates among children, caused by the U.S. and British use of depleted uranium ordinance, has been well documented by various U.N. and international agencies. The unborn, too, are rvaged by the astonishing rise in congenital deformities. Over 5000 Iraqi children die every month as a result of the starvation, deprivation of adequate health care and the infectious diseases related to the destruction of water and sewage facilities, a simple example of biological warfare.

The former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, and Dennis Halliday, the former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, amongst others, described these sanctions as genocidal and blatant war crimes.

Our leaders are calling for the prosecution of war criminals in the Balkans and elsewhere, yet we condone these war crimes and genocide orchestrated by the U.S. and Britain against innocent civilians in Iraq. It is time that our government and leaders put an end to this hypocrisy and call this travesty by its real name.

Yours sincerely

Ismail Zayid,M.D.