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Dear list members, This will be a mercifully short posting: 1. I apologise for the harshness of my posting on Omar Al-Taher's article. I wrote quickly, and sent it off with rough edges. I apologise for that. Thank you, Judith, for your question about our civility. 2. I don't think that I'd seen the article that Rahul cited, in which the Deputy Director of the UN humanitarian programme in Iraq was quoted linking the pencils and graphite. My guess is that he is mistaken, possibly in large part because the Sanctions Committee operated in such secrecy: he would more likely have read the Foreign Affairs article making this link than have heard from someone on the Committee. I tried to see whether the Distribution Plan from the time of the article (Phase V) mentioned pencils. It didn't, which leaves the issue open. I think that Conlon, who claims that the pencils concern was about excessive quantities rather than graphite, is probably right: he worked on the Committee from its start until 1994, so knew it as few others did. 3. In response to Rahul's question whether anybody "outside Iraq has generated new data since that 1999 UNICEF report", my sense is "no" as well: I've not heard of any. 4. In response to Dai's question about "data that distinguishes between illnesses and mortality due to sanctions ... versus chronic health effects that may be associated with depleted uranium exposure, either genetic or from ongoing exposure to contaminated environments", there is not, to my knowledge. The Unicef 1999 survey did collect "cause of death" information, but that was not released in the "preliminary" report. Regional variation in mortality rates were reported on in the Lancet version of the article; there's a link to this on CASI's website, under the Unicef heading. On the 'toxic environment', my understanding of this situation is that there is not yet a good understanding of how the mix of chemicals unleashed in the Gulf War is contributing to it. Thanks, everyone, for being here, Colin Rowat work | Room 406, Department of Economics | The University of Birmingham | Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK | web.bham.ac.uk/c.rowat | (+44/0) 121 414 3754 | (+44/0) 121 414 7377 (fax) | c.rowat@bham.ac.uk personal | (+44/0) 7768 056 984 (mobile) | (+44/0) 7092 378 517 (fax) | (707) 221 3672 (US fax) | colinrowat@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk CASI's website - www.casi.org.uk - includes an archive of all postings.