By Shinya Ajima and Shinsuke Takahashi

HIROSHIMA, July 27 Kyodo - An Iraqi doctor left his war-battered country in April. His destination was Hiroshima, and the purpose of his trip was to obtain knowledge and data on radiation effects in the city once devastated by the first atomic bombing in the world.

Hussam Mahmood Salih, 34, a pediatrician from Basra, said the number of child cancer cases jumped eightfold in the southern Iraqi city between 1988 and 2002, suspecting it was caused by the 1991 Gulf War, in which U.S. forces used depleted uranium shells. There are also reports in Iraq about newborn babies lacking limbs or craniums. Depleted uranium has been long blamed for such birth defects in babies believed exposed to radiation while in the womb.

''We don't have any decent facilities (in Iraq) to check the amount of radiation in human bodies. But we can see the incidences of cancer increased greatly during the first four to five years of the 1990s,'' said Salih, now studying at Hiroshima University Hospital at the invitation of a Japanese civic group. Under economic sanctions on Iraq that followed the war, Iraqi hospitals were prohibited from obtaining essential drugs as well as new medical equipment like tools for radio therapy because the international community feared they might be used for military purposes, he said.

''So, death and disease, and death and disease…this is the life of people in Iraq. I want to save Iraqi children,'' said Salih. The U.S. military uses depleted uranium-tipped shells, known for their armor-piercing capability, against tanks and other hard military targets. Although Iraqi doctors allege DU weapons cause leukemia and cancer, U.S. authorities deny direct links between DU and the cancer on the rise in Iraq since the 1991 war. The medical community in Japan, a U.S. staunch ally, is also reluctant to admit a connection.

''Even so, it is sensible for him to visit Hiroshima, which has skills and knowledge on treating leukemia patients,'' said Atsuko Oe, a representative of Save the Iraq Children Hiroshima, the group that arranged Salih's visit. In August last year, when some Iraqi doctors visited Japan to deliver lectures, they asked Oe and other civic group members to look for Japanese medical institutions that can train young doctors from Iraq.

Universities in Hiroshima and Nagoya then agreed to accept some doctors from hospitals in Basra through the civic groups. Salih said he had never hesitated to come to Japan when chosen as a trainee due to his background as an expert on pediatric leukemia. His visit apparently exposed a new face of Japan as the sole A-bomb victim in the world.

''Hiroshima had suffered a lot from war, deaths and radiation effects, and the Japanese doctors understand about these diseases…and all strategies about detection, treatment and follow-up. I think we cold learn very much from Japan's experiences,'' said Salih.

He added there are more Iraqi doctors hoping to learn in Japan and bring back advanced techniques, knowledge and equipment that have been unavailable to Iraqis. ''This is a great chance, a very nice chance. They could do better to save patients,'' he said.

Another civic group invited two other Iraqi doctors for training at Nagoya University Hospital, as well as a young patient whom Salih has treated.

The United States attacked Hiroshima with an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, and dropped another on Nagasaki three days later. Japan surrendered to Allied forces Aug. 15. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima contained high quantities of highly enriched uranium. There are reports that a number of microcephalic babies were born in the western Japan city after the bombing, Oe said.

Salih is learning from Japanese professors at the university hospital, mainly about chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplants.

He has been given access to data stored in many facilities and organizations in this city, and has opportunities to talk with radiation victims as well as their families. He is also going to attend the ceremony for the 59th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima next month.

''We wish Mr. Salih could learn something by referring to the stored data and comparing them with those kept in Iraq,'' Oe said. Salih will stay in Japan until the fall and return to Iraq, where his wife and two children live.

Governments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are concerned about the aging of A-bomb victims. Their average age was 72.2 as of March, and thousands of the registered radiation victims die every year.

Both cities are forced to take measures to leave the victims' messages and experiences of the atrocities to succeeding generations. Salih's stay in Hiroshima shows how Japan should be the first and hopefully last country of A-bomb victims in the world by taking on new roles no other country can undertake, Oe said.

''Each of us has our own role,'' she said, adding, ''If we did not act, there would be a third following Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is important for us to think how individuals can be involved in peace or antinuclear activities.'' July 27, 2004 09:38:32