CORRUPTION EATS INTO FOOD RATIONS FOR IRAQIS WHO ARE STARVING

IRAQ: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations

By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

FALLUJAH, May 2 (IPS) -
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42216

Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration – much of it already eaten away by official corruption.

Iraqis survived the sanctions after the first Gulf War (1990) with the support of rations through the Public Distribution System (PDS). The aid was set up in 1995 as part of the UN's Oil-for-Food programme.

The sanctions were devastating nevertheless. Former UN programme head Hans von Sponeck said in 2001 that the sanctions amounted to "a tightening of the rope around the neck of the average Iraqi citizen." Von Sponeck said the sanctions were causing the death of 150 Iraqi children a day.

Denis Halliday, former UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq who quit his post in protest against the sanctions, told IPS they had proved "genocidal" for Iraqis.

During more than five years of U.S.-occupation, the situation has become even worse. The rationing system has been crumbling under poor management and corruption. From the beginning of this year, the rations delivered were reduced from 10 items to five. "We used the PDS as counter-propaganda against Saddam Hussein's regime before the U.S. occupation of Iraq began in 2003," Fadhil Jawad of the Dawa Party led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told IPS in Baghdad. "But then we found it necessary to maintain basic support for Iraqi people under occupation. We blamed Saddam for feeding Iraqis like animals with simple rations of food -- that we fail to provide now."

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