WASHINGTON, 3 April 2003 — American humanitarian aid groups complained yesterday that attempts to force them to operate under the Pentagon in Iraq would complicate their ability to help the Iraqi people and jeopardize aid workers. In an unusually tough statement, InterAction — which with 160 members is the largest US alliance of non-governmental relief groups — expressed deep concern about military-driven plans for bringing humanitarian aid to Iraq.
“The Department of Defense’s efforts to marginalize the State Department and force non-governmental organizations to operate under DOD jurisdiction complicates our ability to help the Iraqi people and multiplies the dangers faced by relief workers in the field,” said InterAction CEO Mary McClymont. She said relief professionals at the State Department and the US Agency for International Development, not the Pentagon’s military establishment, know best how to conduct emergency assistance operations.
“Having been deeply involved for decades with non-governmental organizations that provide humanitarian assistance around the world, US AID and State are familiar with the principles of independence and impartiality under which we must operate,” she said.
For months, in private meetings with senior US officials and in letters to President George W. Bush, InterAction urged that civilian authorities be given responsibility for relief activities in Iraq. Instead, retired US Gen. Jay Garner was named to oversee the postwar Iraq administration through the Pentagon’s new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. The Pentagon said the program was under civilian supervision since Garner and his top aides were no longer on active military duty but McClymont said her alliance rejected that assertion.
Aid groups fear that close association with the US military in a country where the Americans have waged war would jeopardize the safety of relief workers and compromise their freedom to decide which communities receive aid. “People are upset. They do not want to report to the military,” one agency official said. “If some of their staff gets hurt in the field they could never look themselves in the mirror again,.”
An AID spokeswoman insisted the teams “report to (AID chief Andrew) Natsios and he reports to Secretary Powell.” But asked if the dispute over military versus civilian control was resolved, she told Reuters on Tuesday: “I wouldn’t go that far. There are ongoing discussions.”
Meanwhile, one of two ships carrying Australian wheat for Iraq headed for Kuwait yesterday and the aid will be delivered by road instead of waiting for an Iraqi port to be declared safe, Australian officials said. The ship carrying 50,000 tons of wheat will be the first major delivery of bulk food aid to southern Iraq since the start of the war 13 days ago. It was expected to arrive at the weekend after an urgent request from the United Nations’ World Food Program, Christine Gallus, parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs, told Reuters in Adelaide.
The second ship, also carrying 50,000 tons of wheat and now off Oman, was waiting for US and Australian Navy divers to clear Iraq’s sole deep water port at Umm Qasr of mines, she said. “After an urgent request from the WFP, we are now taking one of the ships to Kuwait,” Gallus told Reuters. The two ships were heading for Iraq when they were diverted to an anchorage off Oman just days before the fighting began. Australia has deployed 2,000 military personnel to help the US-led attack. The shipment, originally contracted for purchase by Iraq, was acquired by the Australian government agency AusAID for humanitarian relief.
