FOR RELEASE FEATURE IRAQ-IRAN-CHEMICAL, 2002-12-15 (photo)

Esmail Khoshnevisan, 65, a victim of an Iraqi mustard gas attack during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war lies in a bed at Tehran's Sassan hospital on December 15, 2002. Khoshnevisan, a former truck driver for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, is one of an estimated 100,000 Iranians affected by Iraqi nerve and mustard gases during the conflict. Of those some 5,000 to 6,000 are under medical surveillance of whom around 1,000 are moderately to critically ill. Doctors said practically all of Khoshnevisan's lungs had been eaten away by the poisonous gas. FOR RELEASE FEATURE IRAQ-IRAN-CHEMICAL REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi PJH