Food and Water Begin Flowing into Iraq

DOHA, Qatar, April 7, 2003 (ENS) - Humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people are starting to be met, even as the battle rages in Baghdad and in southern Iraq. Of the seven southern oil wells set ablaze by the Iraqis late last month, only one is still burning, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, Deputy Director of Operations of the U.S. Central Command, told reporters today. Contractors designated by the U.S. Army have successfully extinguished six of the seven and are working on the last one.

One of the oil fires set in southern Iraq (Photo courtesy UK Department of Defence)

U.S. humanitarian assistance in Iraq has "increased in importance," General Brooks said. Needs resulting from "years of oppression, and some resulting from the ongoing combat actions," must be met, but the humanitarian emergencies are not on the scale of recent conflicts anywhere in the world, the general said.

Returning power and running water to the cities of Najaf, Samawa, Nasiriyah, and Basra is the next task at hand, the general said, and in most cases, power has to come first in order to get self-sustaining water supplies in. "We continue our efforts to push water in bulk wherever we can by way of water pipelines and water trucks," he said, "but there's also an ongoing effort to get power up in each one of those locations to have self-sustaining water."

British forces are in command of most of the southern Iraqi city of Basra and of the sole Iraqi port of Umm Qasr on the Gulf, although as a result of heavy fighting in and around Basra, aid workers were not able to move about freely. Still, it was possible to install water bladder tanks in Basra hospitals, said a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Air Marshal Brian Burridge, UK National Contingent Commander said today in Doha that British forces are beginning to set the conditions for the NGOs such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent and UNICEF to conduct aid projects for the longer term.

Iraqi women near Basra are delighted with a box of bottled drinking water. (Photo courtesy UK DOD)

To provide some short term emergency humanitarian assistance, UK engineers have built a three kilometer (two mile) long pipeline to pump supplies of water to Umm Qasr. It is pumping two million liters of fresh water every day - enough for 160,000 people.

The British ship RFA Sir Galahad has delivered over 200 tons of humanitarian aid which is being distributed in an orderly way. Today, the RFA Sir Percivale is docking at Umm Qasr with another 300 tons of emergency humanitarian assistance.

Since April 1, the British have delivered over a million liters of bottled water and over 100,000 humanitarian daily rations by truck from Kuwait to people in southern Iraq.

Baghdad Inhabitants Struggle to Survive

U.S. Army and Marine Corps units have conducted an advance on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, have seized the international airport and conducted patrols into the city center.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers say, the national and local electricity grids are mostly not working, and less than 20 percent of households are receiving limited power during the night. Most Baghdad hospitals visited by the aid workers had been hooked up to emergency feeder lines, providing power for at least a few hours a day.

ICRC workers report that all Baghdad hospitals are under extreme pressure, with the influx of injured at Al-Yarmouk hospital reaching 100 people an hour Sunday. The water situation generally remained critical in the city as pressure in the network drops.

The ICRC has supplied Baghdad's five main surgical hospitals with emergency drinking water (80,000 liters by water tanker and 23,000 one-liter plastic bags). Four additional water storage bladder tanks were installed at three hospitals to serve emergency units and services such as laundries and kitchens.

In addition, the ICRC finished installing steel ground storage tanks at two hospitals, increasing by 50 percent the amount of water available for operating theatres and emergency units. The ICRC continued to assist several hospitals with maintaining and repairing backup generator systems.

The ICRC provided additional drinking water to several suburbs in central and northern Baghdad that are not connected to, or only poorly supplied by, the piped water network. About 70,000 people in the affected areas benefited from the ICRC's help, with nine tanker trucks supplying dozens of water distribution points.

The ICRC technical team carried out a number of rapid assessments of Baghdad water and sanitation facilities such as water-treatment plants, reservoir stations and sewerage pumping stations. A number of these structures were only operating at minimum capacity owing to the absence of plant engineers and operators and because of the intermittent power supply, the aid agency said.

U.S. airmen on the flightline as a C-130 Hercules prepares to take off from a forward deployed location. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Quinton Burris courtesy U.S. Air Force)

Painting a grim picture of hardship and horror, United Nations relief agencies briefing reporters in Amman, Jordan today emphasized the massive humanitarian tasks awaiting them in Iraq.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere were overwhelmed by the numbers of injured, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said a humanitarian clock is ticking with each passing day, and the World Food Programme (WFP) predicted it would have to move in massive amounts of food next month.

"We have all seen some very disturbing pictures of child victims of this conflict - children with burn injuries, a young boy lying in a hospital bed, both his arms blown off," WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib told reporters. "And away from the cameras, these scenes are being repeated every day."

Many hospitals are reported to be running short of supplies of medicines, anaesthetics and basic equipment, she warned.

WHO is also "extremely concerned" about the psychological impact of conflict, fear, and the loss of family members or neighbors on Iraqi children, Chaib said. The physical and psychological damage of conflict could take years to heal, and are likely to leave many permanent scars.

Sacks of rice are being stockpiled at the UN's World Food Programme warehouse in Amman. (Photo courtesy WFP)

Belmonte noted that UNICEF had today sent a further convoy of 11 trucks across the border from Kuwait to towns in southern Iraq, including Basra, Safwan and Zubair, with each truck carrying urgent supplies such as thousands of liters of clean water and medical supplies.

But she warned, "With each passing day, as the conflict continues, a humanitarian clock is ticking - it's a question of access, it's a question of distribution, it's a question of time, and it's a question of the lives of Iraqi children."

In New York, WFP Executive Director James Morris told a press briefing that the needs in Iraq "will be by far the largest undertaking we've ever had."

He said that for the first 30 days of WFP's six month plan for Iraq, which will require $1.3 billion for logistics, food and communications, the agency will focus on refugees and internally displaced persons. In the second through fourth months, that responsibility will be expanded to include the entire population of Iraq.

"Within months five and six, by then the [UN] Oil for Food [Program] will be back in place, and our work will be with very much at risk people, plus the remaining refugees and internally displaced people," Morris explained. WFP has already identified about $110 million worth of supplies in existing contracts under the Oil for Food operation that can be shipped within the next 45 days.

Pakistani to Serve as UN Special Adviser

Saying he expects the United Nations to play an important role in post-conflict Iraq to bring "necessary legitimacy," with Iraqis controlling their own political future, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today named a special adviser to draw up a framework for UN involvement.

Rafeeuddin Ahmed of Pakistan is the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Iraq. (Photo courtesy UN)

Ahmed, a former Pakistani diplomat, has held numerous UN posts, including that of under secretary-general and chef de cabinet of the secretary-general, as well as assignments in the UN Development Programme, the World Tourism Organization, and the UN Development Fund for Women.

Spokesman for the secretary-general Fred Eckhard told reporters that given the pace of events in Iraq and the widespread discussions on a potential role for the UN in post-war Iraq, Ahmed will now act as the focal point in the UN system for discussions on the various scenarios for such a role.

"He will also advise the secretary-general on any role that the Security Council might eventually mandate the UN system to carry out once the current military campaign has come to an end," Eckhard said.

Later this week, Secretary-General Annan will travel to London, Berlin, Paris and Moscow to discuss Iraq and a possible UN role with British, German, French and Russian leaders.

"I do expect the UN to play an important role and the UN has had a good experience in this area, whether it is an issue of political facilitation leading to the emergence of a new or interim administration," Annan told reporters.

Noting that Iraq already had trained personnel, a reasonably effective civil service, and engineers and others who can play a role in their own country, he added, "Iraqis have to be responsible for their political future, and to control their own natural resources. And whatever one can do to help the emergence of a new leadership or a new situation is what one should focus on."

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense)

Wolfowitz stressed the need to balance two imperatives. One is the immediate need to provide food, water, medicine, and other basic services. Only the coalition forces inside Iraq can meet those needs initially, Wolfowitz said. The other imperative, he pointed out, is to recognize that the U.S. and coalition forces are not there to run the country, but to hand it over to Iraqi interim authority.

"So we need to set up a process," he said on Fox News Sunday, "and this interim authority is a bridge to that process that creates a legitimate government of Iraq."

UNEP Urges Survey of Depleted Uranium Targets

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today during the briefing in Amman that a scientific assessment of sites targeted with weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) be conducted in Iraq as soon as conditions permit.

UNEP fielded assessment teams to analyze sites struck by DU ordnance in the Balkans during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s - the first international field assessments of how DU behaves in the environment. The three studies concluded that, while radiation can be detected at DU sites, the levels are so low that they do not pose a threat to human health and the environment.

At the same time, said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, the studies identified a number of remaining scientific uncertainties that should be further explored. These include the extent to which DU on the ground can filter through the soil and eventually contaminate groundwater, and the possibility that DU dust could later be re-suspended in the air by wind or human activity, with the risk that it could be breathed in.

"Based on its experience and expertise, UNEP stands ready to conduct DU assessments in Iraq in cooperation with the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other partners," Toepfer said.

By the end of April, UNEP will publish a "desk study" on the Iraq environment that will provide the necessary background information for conducting field research. This research will examine risks to groundwater, surface water, drinking water sources, waste-management and other environment-related infrastructure, factories and other potential sources of toxic chemicals, and biodiversity.