345 Killed in Raids, Iraq Tells U.N. : War toll: Letter to Perez de Cuellar charges allies with ‘heinous, premeditated crimes’ in bombings of cities.

Iraq presented a detailed inventory of damage and casualties to the United Nations on Monday, claiming that allied air raids during the first days of the Persian Gulf War killed 345 Iraqi civilians and wounded almost 450 others.

The worst damage, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz said, took place in the Shiite holy city of Najaf where 130 civilians were killed. Iraq also claimed that valuable Babylonian archeological artifacts were damaged in Baghdad, along with the city’s chief sports stadium, factories and a large post office. Residential neighborhoods had been attacked, as well as mosques, the Iraqis said.

“The attacking forces have been committing heinous, premeditated crimes against Iraqi citizens and against the economic, cultural, scientific and religious assets of our great people,” stated the letter addressed to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

The secretary general declined Monday to respond to the letter, which held him personally responsible for “indiscriminate and deliberate bombing.”

“I am not a man to answer quickly,” Perez de Cuellar said.

But others were less reticent.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas R. Pickering called Iraq’s castigation of Perez de Cuellar “reprehensible.”

And Britain’s Ambassador David Hannay indicated that the letter served to strengthen sentiment in the Security Council against an early debate over the conduct of the war. Several North African nations and Cuba and Yemen have been pressing for such a debate but so far have been unable to muster enough votes to control the council’s agenda.

“The extremely intemperate and unacceptable letter that the Iraqi foreign minster sent . . . to the secretary general and the council has, I think, brought home to all members of the council how very far we are from seeing any sort of change of policy in Iraq,” Hannay said after council consultations Monday on the war.

“It is clear, of course, that a change in the policy of Iraq has to be a first step toward any peaceful solution. I think that letter had a very salutory effect which is to bring all of us against the fact, alas, there is no sort of change at all in the policy of Iraq.”

A complete version of Iraq’s nine-page letter to Perez de Cuellar, described earlier on Baghdad Radio, was made public Monday. In it, Aziz presents a detailed inventory of alleged air attacks by the alliance against Iraq from Jan. 17-21.

Within Baghdad, Aziz claimed, several factories have been bombed, including pasteboard, vegetable oil and plastic foam and baby formula plants. The letter said that on Jan. 18, a clinic was bombed, killing one person and wounding 10, as was Baghdad’s main sports stadium.

The next day, Aziz stated, six people were killed and 10 wounded when the Iraqi museum was bombed. He said there was “large-scale damage” to the museum. The letter also detailed bombing in residential neighborhoods of Baghdad.

The letter said that in the opening phase of the war, the loss of life was most severe in Iraq’s Najaf region. It said the greatest number of casualties took place on Jan. 21--four days after the war began.

Aziz said that residential neighborhoods in the central Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kufa were bombed. The letter said “a number of homes were destroyed and damaged in the Amir quarter of Najaf, where 130 citizens were killed.”

The letter indicated that that allied bombers had struck almost every provincial capital. It said that several museums were hit, along with a church and a mosque. Aziz claimed a train traveling from Baghdad to Basra was attacked on Jan. 18, killing three people and wounding 21.