More than 10,000 Iraqis, mostly young children, died in November because of shortages caused by the UN embargo in force since 1990, the health ministry in Baghdad claimed yesterday. It said that 7,556 children under the age of five and 3,390 adults had died last month due to illnesses such as diarrhoea, heart and respiratory problems, and malnutrition.
In July, the health ministry gave an overall death toll of 1.359 million due to the embargo imposed on Iraq for its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and kept in place with a view to eliminating the country's weapons of mass destruction.
The UN has allowed Iraq since December 1996 to sell oil under strict UN supervision to finance imports of humanitarian supplies for its 22-million population.
But two UN officials in Baghdad, humanitarian aid co-ordinator Mr Hans von Sponeck, and World Food Programme representative Ms Jutta Burghardt, resigned in February, complaining the oil-for-food programme was not doing enough to help Iraqis.
Iraq yesterday dismissed comments made by the US Secretary of State-designate, Gen Colin Powell, that he would work with US allies to breathe new life into sanctions against Iraq.
"This failed Powell is threatening Iraq and we tell him: neither you nor your statement and your new post mean anything to us," said Lieut-Gen Shaheen Yas sin, commander of Iraqi anti-aircraft defences.
Gen Powell, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff oversaw the US military operation during the Gulf War, said Iraq had not lived up to the obligations of the 1991 truce. This called for Baghdad to account for any weapons of mass destruction it possessed.
"They have not yet fulfilled those agreements and my judgment is that sanctions in some form must be kept in place until they do so," Gen Powell said. "We will work with our allies to re-energise the sanctions regime."
Lieut-gen Shaheen said even if the new American administration led by President-elect George W. Bush threatened to attack Iraq, the Iraqi air defences were ready to retaliate.
He said since December 1998 US and British warplanes had fired some 456 missiles of total weight of 960 tonnes against targets in Iraq.
Turkey's parliament yesterday extended for a further six months the mandate of US and British aircraft that patrol the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
The warplanes, flying out of a southern Turkish airbase at Incirlik in Operation Northern Watch, are a crucial part of the US policy of containing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The jets are frequently challenged by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire and respond by bombing Iraqi air defence targets.
The Turkish Defence Minister, Mr Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, told parliament in Ankara that the air patrols of northern Iraq were in the interests of Turkey, a close NATO ally of the United States.
MPs later passed the motion, extending the force's permission to operate until June 30, 2001.