Saddam
Provided More Food
Than The U.S.
By
Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail
28 December,
2007
Inter Press Service
BAQUBA,
Dec 27 (IPS) - The Iraqi government announcement that monthly
food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they
can survive.
The government
also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing
system by five million by June 2008.
Iraq's food
rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein government in 1991
in response to the UN economic sanctions. Families were allotted basic
foodstuffs monthly because the Iraqi Dinar and the economy collapsed.
The sanctions,
imposed after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait, were described
as "genocidal" by Denis Halliday, then UN humanitarian coordinator
in Iraq. Halliday quit his post in protest against the U.S.-backed sanctions.
The sanctions
killed half a million Iraqi children, and as many adults, according
to the UN. They brought malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicines.
Iraqis became nearly completely reliant on food rations for survival.
The programme has continued into the U.S.-led occupation.
But now the
U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the essential
items in the ration because of "insufficient funds and spiralling
inflation."
The cuts,
which are to be introduced in the beginning of 2008, have drawn widespread
criticism. The Iraqi government is unable to supply the rations with
several billion dollars at its disposal, whereas Saddam Hussein was
able to maintain the programme with less than a billion dollars.
"In
2007, we asked for 3.2 billion dollars for rationing basic foodstuffs,"
Mohammed Hanoun, Iraq's chief of staff for the ministry of trade told
al-Jazeera. "But since the prices of imported foodstuff doubled
in the past year, we requested 7.2 billion dollars for this year. That
request was denied."
The trade
ministry is now preparing to slash the list of subsidised items by half
to five basic food items, "namely flour, sugar, rice, oil, and
infant milk," Hanoun said.
The imminent
move will affect nearly 10 million people who depend on the rationing
system. But it has already caused outrage in Baquba, 40 km northeast
of Baghdad.
"The
monthly food ration was the only help from the government," local
grocer Ibrahim al-Ageely told IPS. "It was of great benefit for
the families. The food ration consisted of two kilos of rice, sugar,
soap, tea, detergent, wheat flour, lentils, chick-peas, and other items
for every individual."
Another grocer
said the food ration was the "life of all Iraqis; every month,
Iraqis wait in queues to receive their food rations."
According
to an Oxfam International report released in July this year, "60
percent (of Iraqis) currently have access to rations through the government-run
Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004."
The report
said that "43 percent of Iraqis suffer from absolute poverty,"
and that according to some estimates over half the population are now
without work. "Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living
standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before
the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now."
While salaries
have increased since the invasion of March 2003, they have not kept
pace with the dramatic increase in the prices of food and fuel.
"My
salary is 280 dollars, and I have six children," 49-year-old secondary
school teacher Ali Kadhim told IPS. "The increase in my salary
was neutralised by an increase in the price of food. I cannot afford
to buy the foodstuffs in addition to the other necessary expenses of
life."
"The
high increase in food prices led people to condemn the delays in the
ration every month," Salah Kadhim, an employee in the directorate-general
of health for Diyala province told IPS. "The jobless just cannot
afford to buy food."
"The
food ration still represents a big part of the domestic budget,"
Muneer Lafta, a 51-year-old employee at the health directorate told
IPS. Without the ration, she said, families have to go to the market.
Because Iraqi families are large, usually six to 12 people, shopping
for food is simply unaffordable.
"I and
my wife have five boys and six girls, so the ration costs a lot when
it has to be bought," 55-year-old resident Khalaf Atiya told IPS.
"I cannot afford food and also other expenses like study, clothes,
doctors."
People in
Baquba, living with violence and joblessness for long, are now preparing
for this new twist.
"No
security, no food, no electricity, no trade, no services. So life is
good," said one resident, who would not give his name.
Many fear
the food ration cuts can spark unrest. "The government will commit
a big mistake, because providing enough food ration could compensate
the government's mistakes in other fields like security," a local
physician told IPS. "The Iraq will now feel that he, or she, is
of no value to the government."
(*Ahmed,
our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration
with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported
extensively from Iraq and the Middle East)
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