BAGHDAD, 3 June 2003 — Iraqis began receiving yesterday their first food rations since the war to topple Saddam Hussein, as the newly appointed UN special envoy for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, arrived in Baghdad.
But the UN’s World Food Program said just 1,000 people in six districts in the Iraqi capital received the food package, adding it would take some two weeks to deliver all the food.
The WFP, which ran the ration program under Saddam’s regime, is charged with buying and shipping the food to the Iraqi Trade Ministry, using money from Iraq’s prewar oil revenues which until recently were under UN management.
The food program, now supervised by the US-led occupation administration, was launched after international sanctions were slapped on Baghdad for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and provides a monthly package of basic goods including flour, rice, tea and sugar.
De Mello claimed a broad mandate for his mission upon arrival here yesterday and said the Iraqi people must rule themselves as soon as possible. “The sooner the Iraqi people govern themselves, the better,” he told reporters as he touched down in the battered city after months of tension between the world body and the US-led coalition over the war to oust Saddam Hussein.
“Perhaps the most important task will be to ensure that the interim, transitional Iraqi administration is put in place as quickly as possible as a first step toward a representative and legitimate government of Iraq,” he said. De Mello shrugged off questions that he would be a lame duck, with only a four-month mission and no executive power to counter the weight of the US-led occupation administration.
Instead he insisted he had been given a wide brief to coordinate “a number of areas ranging from reconstruction to economic development, civil administration, police and justice.” He said that the UN resolution which created his post had given him the opportunity to achieve as much as possible in his 120-day stint.
The United States, meanwhile, is preparing to set up a handpicked political council for Iraq, scrapping plans for a national conference. US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged yesterday to stick by Iraq as the country struggles to rebuild. At a breakfast meeting at the French lakeside resort of Evian, where leaders of the Group of Eight are holding their annual summit, Blair briefed the US leader on his lightning visit to southern Iraq on Wednesday.
He told Bush the country needed massive assistance to repair the neglect after decades of Saddam’s rule, an official with Blair’s delegation said. “They both supported the work that is being done to help Iraq rebuild, and said they would do whatever it takes on this,” he said.
Highlighting the dire situation in the country, WFP head James Morris said the food program would last until the end of the year, but added he hoped it would be replaced by the free market or “a scaled-down rationing system for the most vulnerable.” About 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people were entirely dependent on the rations before the war. The oil-for-food program launched six years ago allowed Iraq to use money from oil exports to buy limited quantities of medicine and food.
Thousands of sacked Iraqi soldiers threatened yesterday to launch suicide attacks against US troops as leaders of the country’s squabbling tribes told the Americans they could face war if they did not leave soon. “The entire Iraqi people is a time bomb that will blow up in the Americans’ face if they don’t end their occupation. We refuse to deal with the occupation,” tribal leader Riyadh Al-Asadi told Reuters after meeting a senior US official for talks on the future of Iraq.
“The Iraqi people did not fight the Americans during the war, only Saddam’s people did. But if the people decide to fight them now, they are in big trouble.” As tribal leaders were meeting Ambassador Hume Horan of the Coalition Provisional Authority, more than 3,000 sacked soldiers marched on the US-led administration’s headquarters vowing violence unless they were paid wages and compensation. “All of us will become suicide bombers,” said Khairi Jassim, a former warrant officer. “I will turn my six daughters into bombs to kill the Americans.”
Paul Bremer, the US civil administrator for Iraq, dissolved Saddam’s armed forces, several security bodies and the Defense Ministry last month, firing 400,000 people. Many protesters said they could no longer feed their families.
“I have only 750 dinars (60 US cents) in my pocket. How can I feed my family? I have a crippled child who needs medicine,” said Sabah Abdullah, also a former warrant officer. The protesters dispersed after they were promised talks on Tuesday to try to resolve their grievances.
US plans to appoint a political council of Iraqi leaders, rather than have it selected by a national conference as previously expected, also fuelled anger among some Iraqis. Bremer unveiled the plan on Sunday to leaders of seven major Iraqi political groups, many of which opposed Saddam from exile during his rule. The groups met yesterday to discuss the US- British ideas and are due to see Bremer on Friday.
Hamid Al-Bayati of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq said the seven groups still wanted a national conference to pick the council. “A national conference should decide the mechanism for choosing this council,” he told Reuters.
As part of the effort to win over skeptical Iraqis, the US-led administration also arranged a meeting with leaders of the country’s disparate tribes yesterday. Tempers soon frayed.
The tribal chieftains, members of a council of clans they say represents 80 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, criticized the United States for failing to restore law and order and essential services to Iraqis after the war. Leaders of the heavily armed clans also disagreed with a recent US decision to strip Iraqis of heavy weapons.
