NP "a better Iraq"

[pynchonoid]

>Nevertheless the 
>actual
>outcome of the war may be "a better Iraq." 

For Bush and his war and oil and infrastructure
reconstruction profiteering cronies, perhaps, but not
for the people who are killed or injured in the war,
and those who will suffer in the humanitarian
catastrophe that would follow.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/01/05/MN198063.DTL

Wartime Iraq aid calamity feared 
Relief agencies predict humanitarian disaster 

Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer 	Sunday,
January 5, 2003  

Baghdad -- Despite the near-constant talk of a
U.S.-led invasion to overthrow the regime of Saddam
Hussein, aid officials here say there appears to be
little preparation by the Bush administration, the
United Nations or private foreign aid agencies to
handle a potential humanitarian disaster. 

Aid officials cite a litany of calamities in the
making if war comes: the expected exodus of Iraqi
refugees, either internally or across national
borders, as well as potential interruptions in food
distribution, electricity, water, fuel, waste disposal
and public health services throughout the country. 

Making matters worse, say these officials, is Iraq's
already weakened condition -- a result of the
eight-year Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 U.S.-led Persian
Gulf War and 12 years of international economic
sanctions that have ruined the economy of this
once-flourishing nation. 

"Iraq is already in crisis," said Christopher Klein
Beekman, program coordinator for UNICEF in Iraq. "The
capacity for withstanding shortages is very light.
Malnourished children, pregnant women have suffered
the most," he added, referring to the effects of
U.N.-imposed economic sanctions. "And those are the
ones who will suffer the most during war, that's
clear." [...] 

The lessons from the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War
are sobering. After allied troops withdrew, Iraqi
Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north revolted
against Hussein's government and its Sunni Arab
allies, unleashing ethnic and religious bloodletting.
After the United States refused to intervene,
Hussein's troops brutally crushed the revolts and
restored his hegemony. The postwar fighting killed at
least 30,000 and sent 1.1 million refugees fleeing to
Iran and Turkey. [...] 

Twelve years after that war, Iraq is even more
vulnerable. The country retains little capacity to
produce food, medicines and other basic supplies.
Under the U.N. food-for-oil program, revenues from
Iraq's oil exports cannot be spent on domestic
products or domestic labor costs. As a result, food
production has collapsed since 1996, when the program
was adopted. 

Instead of buying Iraqi-grown wheat for the rations
program, for example, the government must import
Australian wheat. Flour is the largest item in the
rations program because bread is the main item in the
Iraqi diet. 

Neither can oil revenues -- upon which Hussein's
government is entirely dependent -- be spent on
domestically produced medicines. Partly as a result,
aid officials say, more than 50 percent of pregnant
Iraqi women are anemic. Thirty percent of babies are
born with a low birth weight of 5.5 pounds or less,
and there has been a sharp rise in birth defects and
infant deaths. UNICEF estimates that the sanctions
regime has caused a net increase of 500, 000 deaths of
children under 5 since the international restrictions
were imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. 

A new war is bound to make matters worse, aid
officials say. They expect an immediate cessation of
government food distribution, affecting an estimated
65 percent of the population -- about 14 million
people -- who rely on food rations. [...] "


-Doug






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