"Iraq will probably need the biggest aid operation ever to feed its entire 27 million population for six months -- once the war is over."
Aid Trickles Into Iraq, Water Into Basra
Wed March 26, 2003 12:50 PM ET
By Angus MacSwan
UMM QASR, Iraq (Reuters) - Aid trickled into Iraq on Wednesday, with Kuwait sending food to the border port of Umm Qasr and trucks braving a dangerous trip over the western desert to get medicines to Baghdad.
In Basra, the country's second city and the scene of heavy recent fighting, Red Cross workers managed to get the water supply partly working again as they strove to avert a crisis for up to two million people trapped in the city.
The World Food Program (WFP) said Iraq will probably need the biggest aid operation ever to feed its entire 27 million population for six months -- once the war is over.
"We are envisioning an enormous program, probably the biggest humanitarian operation in history," a spokesman said.
Trucks from Kuwait rolled into Umm Qasr, short of supplies after days of fighting, and the food and water was to be distributed over the next few days by U.S troops now in control.
The U.S. Navy said minesweepers had cleared a channel up the Gulf to the port so aid ships could arrive "soon" -- but not as soon as had been promised. U.S. President George Bush said at the war's start that massive aid would be pouring in by now.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) sent tons of surgical kits, generators and other aid from Jordan heading to Baghdad to treat burns and broken bones, having told the American military they were going but receiving no assurances for their safety.
MSF hopes the route could become a vital land link to Baghdad. The trucks left before dawn, decked with banners which said they were transporting humanitarian supplies.
BASRA
Basra, near Umm Qasr, remained in dire straits, with water and power supplies damaged for a city that has U.S.-British forces outside and Iraqi defenders inside.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had partly restored water supplies from the main pumping station damaged by the fighting but said more work needed to be done to ensure clean water for all.
"The ICRC estimates that 50 percent of the city's approximately 1.5 million inhabitants now have access to drinking water," it said in a statement from Geneva.
Three out of six back-up generators at the water plant were running again now. Its small team was pulling out, leaving local staff behind.
An ICRC spokesman in Baghdad told Reuters the water station was now under the control of British and American forces.
UMM QASR
U.S.-led invasion forces are keen to pump aid into Iraq to show they want to look after civilians and to win over locals.
U.S. officials say the food situation in parts of southern Iraq they now occupy is not desperate yet.
Three trucks of food, three of water and one of other supplies drove over from Kuwait after a heavy sandstorm forced organizers to cut back an originally planned 30-truck convoy.
"We want to be first in to prove to the Iraqi people that we have no hard feelings," said General Ali al-Mumin, head of the Kuwaiti government humanitarian operation.
Small groups waved at the convoy as it passed through the dilapidated Umm Qasr, with some men wanting cigarettes, others holding out their hands. The aid -- tinned tuna, cheese, bread, crackers -- was handed over to U.S. marines.
A British ship carrying 231 tons of food, medicine, blankets and water was expected to arrive in a day or two.
This should be the main aid route into Iraq. The fighting may be largely over but the port still has no power or water.
NOT SAFE ENOUGH
U.S. soldiers in Umm Qasr said there was still some fighting at night, but Iraq's only deep-water port there was firmly in Anglo-American hands seven days into the war.
However, few of the agencies ready in Kuwait with money, food and supplies look set to follow the Kuwaitis even to here, the easiest place in Iraq to reach.
"We need an environment free of combat operations and a reasonable expectation of security," said Michael Marx, of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Some agencies say they cannot send aid via the military, as this could make civilians targets and be seen as taking sides.
Humanitarian agencies say they believe that Iraqi families have enough food to last for several weeks and that their main concern is about supplies of fresh water, particularly in Basra.
The WFP's Iraqi staff is handing out food in modest quantities in the north, south and center of the country in areas where there is no military activity.
The agency has some 30,000 tons of food stockpiled in neighboring countries for an initial contingency plan.
Some 50,000 tons of U.S. government-held wheat should arrive in Iraq by early May, U.S. officials said, the first of a series of such shipments.
Some 18,000 tons of food already at sea has been diverted to Iraq and should get there in a month, they said.
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