Iraq halves food rations.

[SirNitram]

Link

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."

Yep, this could be a problem.

[LadyTevar]

Everytime I wonder if the US govt could fuck up Iraq more... I find out that yes, yes we can. :thewall:

Someone bring up the Bush Admin. on War Crimes? Please?

[Ace Pace]

From what I understand, this month has been reletively quiet and that generally theres been a reduction in the chaos there during the U.S. troop surge.

So why did the U.S. gov have to fuck it up now?

[LadyTevar]

So why did the U.S. gov have to fuck it up now?

You answered your own question.

From what I understand, this month has been reletively quiet and that generally theres been a reduction in the chaos there during the U.S. troop surge.

[SirNitram]

The only 'encouraging' data is that the US casualties have dropped, unless there's been data released on Iraq casualties for a change. If you are now determining victory not by your strategic goals(The goal of the surge was political reconciliation.. Didn't happen), nor by the defense of those you're defending, but by your own losses.. Yea, it's improving.

[Cynical Cat]

Let's not read too much into low December casualties (and the month isn't over folks). frigid has pointed out that Sep and Oct drop puts them in the midline for the war, with June, July and Aug being the most bloodiest months for US troops since invasion. December could be just a blip and we know that some of the official body counts have been unreliable. We need enough data to show a serious trend, not just a one month drop in deaths during a time of year where there is less killing.

[frigidmagi]

The only 'encouraging' data is that the US casualties have dropped, unless there's been data released on Iraq casualties for a change.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Are you talking by month or by year? Because by month is meaningless unless you plug it into the whole war's statistics. I can't say I would be surprised if certain groups were only looking at the month without context but that is a separate issue.

Iraqi causalities are believed to be lower then 2006 by UN and Iraqi government counts. I should point out however that 2006 was one of the deadliest years ever to be an Iraqi. From what records we have it might have been the deadiest year for Iraqi, since the modern founding of country. Might be.

Everytime I wonder if the US govt could fuck up Iraq more... I find out that yes, yes we can

Okay there is a long list of mistakes, assumations, fuck ups and outright criminal actitity by the US government within Iraq. This isn't one of them. It's an Iraqi government mistake. We don't run the Iraqi government anymore. Yes, I list that as one of the mistakes we made, but frankly you can't pin blame on the US government for a separate government's fuck ups. It's like blaming Clinton or the UN for Iraq.

[SirNitram]

The only 'encouraging' data is that the US casualties have dropped, unless there's been data released on Iraq casualties for a change.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Are you talking by month or by year? Because by month is meaningless unless you plug it into the whole war's statistics. I can't say I would be surprised if certain groups were only looking at the month without context but that is a separate issue.

By month. Hence encouraging being in quote marks; there's absolutely no reason to believe it's not a seasonal drop-off.

Iraqi causalities are believed to be lower then 2006 by UN and Iraqi government counts. I should point out however that 2006 was one of the deadliest years ever to be an Iraqi. From what records we have it might have been the deadiest year for Iraqi, since the modern founding of country. Might be.

I'm not aware of any recent counts, but I do know the IBC has started admitting their numbers are underestimating the true fatality rate. That's kind of worrying.

[frigidmagi]

I'm not aware of any recent counts, but I do know the IBC has started admitting their numbers are underestimating the true fatality rate. That's kind of worrying.

Most agree that attacks in Baghdad and fatalities from them have dropped off. As has secretion violence. The amounts of deaths is something no one agrees on. This in my mind is partly due to the politicization of the number by all sides the lack of decent record keeping by anyone and the difficulty of counting excalts deaths from a bomb blast or deciding if the mob killed someone or a death squad.

[SirNitram]

I'm not aware of any recent counts, but I do know the IBC has started admitting their numbers are underestimating the true fatality rate. That's kind of worrying.

Most agree that attacks in Baghdad and fatalities from them have dropped off. As has secretion violence. The amounts of deaths is something no one agrees on. This in my mind is partly due to the politicization of the number by all sides the lack of decent record keeping by anyone and the difficulty of counting excalts deaths from a bomb blast or deciding if the mob killed someone or a death squad.

The violence in Baghdad has definitely dropped. Unfortunately, there's alot of Iraq that isn't Baghdad, and it's been drifting back into Anbar at times.

Then of course there's the military ops Turkey is running. Do we include 'Turkey bombing the crap out of Kurds' in this? There's a puzzler.