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.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Oh brilliant. One last way for the administration's influence on Iraq to fuck the country up. And just when things were starting to get better!

[Sriad]

I was adamantly opposed to the flimsy pretext for Operation: Iraqi Liberation, but I'm glad the trillion dollars we've spent has been able to establish a stable and respectable government, free of corruption and self-serving tribalists, which will stand as a beacon of Democracy, Stability, and Human Decency for the rest of the Middle East.

[ray245]

Ah...the US government being less effiecient than Saddam? That's a surpirse right ?

I wonder how much worse can Iraq become when the US pull out.

[The Guid]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

Nope, this is pure insanity. The military has nearly won the war in all possible respects, so now it's time to encourage the Iraqi government to privatize!, because it's always good to privatize! and the market always makes things better. Guaranteeing a resurgence in violence, of course, in the sane real-world rather the fantasy one that free marketeers inhabit.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

Not in the ruined economy we've created there. You can't "buy things freely" if there nothing to buy, or if you don't have any money.

[Aaron]

Is there even any food production in country or is it all aid?

[SirNitram]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

Given that they explicitly state that this is because the price of food has doubled in the past year in Iraq... Nope. Not unless you're huffing paint.

This will be glossed over though. The glorious American army has destroyed the insurgency. The insurgency is committing suicide at the gates of Baghdad. There are no insurgents in Iraq.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

Nope, this is pure insanity. The military has nearly won the war in all possible respects, so now it's time to encourage the Iraqi government to privatize!, because it's always good to privatize! and the market always makes things better. Guaranteeing a resurgence in violence, of course, in the sane real-world rather the fantasy one that free marketeers inhabit.

I'm convinced that these people are more of a crazed band of ideologue fanatics than the original neoconservatives.

[Broomstick]

Is there no way this can be a reflection of a better situation? With Iraqis now being able to buy things freely?

Nope, this is pure insanity. The military has nearly won the war in all possible respects, so now it's time to encourage the Iraqi government to privatize!, because it's always good to privatize! and the market always makes things better. Guaranteeing a resurgence in violence, of course, in the sane real-world rather the fantasy one that free marketeers inhabit.

I'm convinced that these people are more of a crazed band of ideologue fanatics than the original neoconservatives.

I dunno... can't have a "free market economy" if people are dependent on the government dole, right? So let's end such dependence by simply ending entitlements - the poor? They'll damn well find a way to survive using private industry!

What a fucking mess.

[Uraniun235]

I dunno... can't have a "free market economy" if people are dependent on the government dole, right? So let's end such dependence by simply ending entitlements - the poor? They'll damn well find a way to survive using private industry!

The worthy will survive, and the un-worthy will perish, as God intended.

[The Spartan]

Well, we can expect an uptick in violence next year just in time for the mission to be "extended" because of instability. The Iraqi government just needs more time of course.

Goodie...

[Fleet Admiral JD]

Tomorrow's headline:

President Bush Announces "Surge" Strategy of Food Supply to Iraq.

[SirNitram]

Tomorrow's headline:

President Bush Announces "Surge" Strategy of Food Supply to Iraq.

It will be a massive contract to Halliburton. Several years after, we'll find out it's full of shit. Literally. Just like the bathing water they supplied.

[Surlethe]

I dunno... can't have a "free market economy" if people are dependent on the government dole, right? So let's end such dependence by simply ending entitlements - the poor? They'll damn well find a way to survive using private industry!

The worthy will survive, and the un-worthy will perish, as God intended.

No, this will simply provide a very strong incentive for people to survive; instead of becoming lazy asses dependent on the government's food ration, they'll now all become hardworking, productive citizens. If they don't survive -- well, I guess they just didn't want to respond to the incentive.

[K. A. Pital]

Welcome to Iraq, the stable and peaceful country... or a warzone where food rations get halved by a beggar-poor government which can't supply it's own people with even the very basic necessities.

43% in extreme poverty? Great work, I say. How's that for income distribution? I bet the US will be modelling Iraq after it's own putocratic proportions where a miniscule percent of people wields most of the resources in the country

[Alyrium Denryle]

Oh for fuck's sake. Not only could a tyrant dictator maintain this rationing system on an eighth of what is needed now (probably because he was a tyrant dictator) but his maintaining it showed that he actually cared more about the people of Iraq (or at least was more competent) than the current crop of idiots and toadies that run it now!

For hell's sake, with that these people are getting now, they cant meet their basic nutritional needs, fuck, they cant even make easily stored hard tack. They get to make a rice and flour paste. The Iraqis will be eating paper mache' paste!

And you know what, the 7.2 billion they requested, even if it is over-inflated and the result of corruption to a large degree, is pocket change when compared to the rest of what we spend on this fucking war. Maybe instead of concentrating on military action (because we cant actually kill every terrorist when we create more every day) we should concentrate more of our resources on building up their civilian infasctructure. I know we cant do it with our military after cuts made during the clinton administration, but we can at least... I dont know... let the "free market" work and allow in A COMPANY THAT ACTUALLY BID ON THE FUCKING RECONSTRUCTION CONTRACT!

[Wanderer]

Is there even any food production in country or is it all aid?

After we saturated the Farms with cluster munitions, blew dams, and bulldozed what we didn't get in reprisals against insurgent action, no their food production is kaput.

In order to get food production up, we need to clear all the cluster munitions we dropped, fix the dams we blew, and rebuild the topsoil we destroyed.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Is there even any food production in country or is it all aid?

After we saturated the Farms with cluster munitions, blew dams, and bulldozed what we didn't get in reprisals against insurgent action, no their food production is kaput.

In order to get food production up, we need to clear all the cluster munitions we dropped, fix the dams we blew, and rebuild the topsoil we destroyed.

Show me evidence of any dams being intentionally destroyed in Iraq or topsoil being "bulldozed" (which wouldn't hurt it, sheesh).

[Wanderer]

Show me evidence of any dams being intentionally destroyed in Iraq or topsoil being "bulldozed" (which wouldn't hurt it, sheesh).

Give me a day to find it all again as this information was collected on a now defunct site. Which means I have get old Time Magazine Articles from a year ago detailing a an operation in the Tigris Valley where both sides were wrecking dams to trap each other.

As for the topsoil, well if you can set it back to rights without the U.S. coming and wrecking it again, or insurgents using it as a temporary fire base before bugging out from the useless American Counterbattery fire that wrecks the field and scatters cluster munitions and unexploded ordinance, then by all means risk you life to reorder the field, replant, put down fertilizer, and fix the sprinklers, then perform regular maintenance.

Source, well one right from memory.

US Soldiers Bulldoze Farmers' Crops

[Beowulf]

Prove the source of the article is reputable.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Damns are huge objects, which if breached would kill at least dozens of people in a country like Iraq, and would be in no way covered up, as they cause large variations in river level caused "flash floods". If you are referring to levees, that is a different matter entirely, and most of those can be easily fixed by sixty guys with shovels over a weekend when the water is low.

[Wanderer]

Prove the source of the article is reputable.

Right above the title it lists the Independent/UK as where the original article is from even says "Published on Sunday, October 12, 2003". Little over four years ago, the original along with other articles from 03 to 04 seem to have disappeared into cyberspace where even the way back machine can't find them...

Ah probably a hiccup on the server. I'll try again tomorrow to track the original. Right now its nearly midnight here in Michigan and I have a pre arranged combat engagement for nine tomorrow on the new EB mod for RTW. Goodnite.

[Ryan Thunder]

Damns are huge objects [...]

Can I sig that?