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Apres Saddam, le
deluge
By David Isenberg
Despite all the reporting on the various aspects
of a probable US invasion of Iraq, one aspect has
received almost no attention, that of humanitarian
relief in war's aftermath. Perhaps that is because it is
a disaster in the making and the Bush administration
prefers not to emphasize negative things. But among the
small community of those who do deal with such issues,
people are increasingly worried.
For example, a
recent report "A Wiser Peace: An Action Strategy for a
Post-Conflict Iraq" by the Washington, DC-based Center
for Strategic and International Studies, noted, "As the
United States and its allies intensify military
preparations for a war with Iraq, it becomes more
important each day to step up preparations to address
post-conflict needs. Indeed, recent experience in Haiti,
the Balkans, East Timor, Afghanistan and elsewhere has
demonstrated that 'winning the peace' is often harder
than fighting the war.
"So far, however, signs
of military buildup and humanitarian contingency
planning have not been matched by visibly concrete
action by the United States, the United Nations or
others to position civilian and military resources to
handle the myriad reconstruction challenges that will be
faced in a post-conflict Iraq. This situation gravely
threatens the interests of the US, Iraqis, the region
and the international community as a whole."
Even before a war, Iraq is already in a
dangerous way as a result of the eight-year Iran-Iraq
war, the 1991 US-led Persian Gulf War and 12 years of
international economic sanctions. UN officials have
warned that the impact of a US air and ground invasion
in Iraq would likely be worse than the humanitarian
crisis caused by the Persian Gulf War in 1991 because a
decade of UN sanctions has made the Iraqi population
almost totally dependent on government handouts for
survival.
Consider what Ken Bacon, a former
Department of Defense spokesman, and now president of
Refugees International, wrote in the current issue of
the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:
"An attack on
Iraq, starting with an air assault against Baghdad and
other strategic targets, would generate huge flows of
refugees and a serious nutritional and public health
crisis. More than a million people fled Iraq during and
after the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis, when Saddam Hussein
crushed ethnic rebellions that the United States refused
to support. Surrounding countries, the United Nations,
and relief agencies are bracing for flows at least as
great this time. There could also be massive internal
movement, with people fleeing cities for the country.
Many of the roads that US and allied troops would need
to bring troops and equipment into Iraq could be clogged
with people fleeing for their lives. Most of Iraq's 24
million people depend on food rations provided under the
UN Oil for Food Program. Any break in the food pipeline
would create a nutritional crisis, forcing hungry Iraqis
to besiege invading troops for food."
A January
4 article in the Washington Post reported that water
would be among the most serious concerns in the early
days of any new war in Iraq, but hardly the only one.
Iraq's food distribution system, dependent on
UN-administered oil sales, likely would collapse.
Casualties could overwhelm hospitals, already short of
medicine under UN sanctions. Diarrhea and measles could
spread. And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis could flee
the fighting.
Late last year a draft internal UN
document called "Likely Humanitarian Scenarios" on
possible scenarios for a war on Iraq, dated December 10,
was made public by the Campaign Against Sanctions on
Iraq. It said as many as 500,000 people in Iraq could
suffer injuries and require medical treatment. It also
found that the population in need of humanitarian
intervention and that are expected to be accessible, ie,
those in the south, would total 5.4 million to which
must be added a further 2 million internally displaced
persons and refugees, a part of the estimated 900,000
destined for Iran and 50,000 to Saudi Arabia, from
Baghdad and the Central Governorates. Accordingly, the
total caseload beneficiaries would total 7.4 million.
That is over a quarter of the Iraqi population.
Iran said on Sunday it would provide shelter for
up to 200,000 Iraqi refugees on its own soil should a
war take place in Iraq. "The policy of the Islamic
Republic remains a policy of closed doors, but we are
ready to provide shelter to as many as 200,000 refugees
in 10 border camps if their lives are recognized to be
threatened," Ahmad Hosseini, deputy interior minister
for refugees, told a news conference. Iran has also
agreed to open another border crossing where
humanitarian goods could be brought in by truck.
The UN Children's Fund, the World Food Program
and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees are
stockpiling food, blankets, tents and other equipment in
warehouses in Iran and other countries along Iraq's
border for more than half a million people inside Iraq
and perhaps 160,000 nearby. In mid-December, UN relief
agencies requested $37.4 million to cope with the
expected crisis. Tents, blankets and medical kits have
been stockpiled in places such as Amman in Jordan to be
shipped in at a moment's notice.
The World Food
Program has started to move food supplies sufficient for
900,000 people for one month.
Tents and blankets
available through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
would help keep only 100,000 people warm and dry. The
1991 Persian Gulf War and its aftermath prompted more
than a million Kurds alone to flee the conflict.
The extent of the humanitarian challenge
following any war will depend, on large part, on tactics
taken by both the US and Iraq during a war. For example,
some suggest that Saddam Hussein is going to do is a
"scorched-earth policy", ie, destroy his own oilfields
and destroy his food supplies.
In that regard,
it is worth noting that on January 24, the Pentagon gave
a background briefing on oil as a weapon of terror. The
briefer said "with respect to Iraq, we think that he has
a potential to double that disaster from Kuwait [about
20 times the disaster - the damage - of the Exxon
Valdez]. The oil fields in Iraq are about 1,500 well
heads, roughly 1,000 in the south and roughly about 500
in the north. And he also, because of the oil manifolds
in the Al-Faw Peninsula, has a capability to
deliberately release up to two [million] to three
million barrels a day of oil into the Gulf."
The
economic costs of that scenario, should it come to pass,
are staggering. It is thought it would cost in the $30
billion to $50 billion range to repair and reconstruct
the Iraqi oil infrastructure.
According to a
report in the Miami Herald, the administration recently
set up a Pentagon-based office to help rebuild Iraq's
schools, roads, hospitals and other critical building
blocks of a civil society.
The office,
consisting of two dozen to three dozen federal experts
and headed by retired Army Lieutenant General Jay M
Garner, may be deployed to the Persian Gulf in advance
of any conflict and would move into Iraq almost
immediately after the fighting stops.
It is
still unclear who will assume the lead responsibility.
On January 17, the Washington Post reported that US
military commanders will likely rule Iraq for at least
several months in the aftermath of the ouster of Saddam,
according to Bush administration blueprints for Iraq's
future that outline a broad and protracted American role
in managing the reconstruction of the country. Yet this
is not a role that the Pentagon seeks. The magnitude of
the reconstruction task is arousing concern in the
Defense Department, which has no desire to assume
control of Iraq as it did in Japan and part of Germany
in 1945.
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