13 August 1999
Iraq Blamed For Not Providing Nutritional Care For Its Children
(Jones points out Saddam's failure to protect health of Iraqis) (660) By William B. Reinckens USIA Staff Writer Washington -- The government of Iraq's failure to distribute and order nutritional supplements for the mothers and children of Iraq was cited by a U.S. government official as the reason Iraqi children are dying at twice the rate they did before Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the imposition of economic sanctions by the United Nations after the Gulf War. Elizabeth Jones, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, singled out the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as the cause of the suffering of Iraqi families today. Jones' comments came during a press briefing August 13 at USIA's Foreign Press Center after a joint United Nations-Iraqi survey was issued on child mortality inside Iraq. "Like, UNICEF, the U.S. wants very much for the government of Iraq to expedite a targeted nutritional program on an urgent basis," she said. Jones noted that Saddam Hussein's regime is "woefully lacking in placing the orders for nutritional supplements that are authorized" under the U.N.'s $5.2 billion Oil-for-Food Program. The program allows Iraq every six months to use this money to buy food and medicine and other items to meet humanitarian needs inside Iraq. Under the program, Iraq can also request items that can assist with infrastructure repair and supplies for such projects as water purification and sanitation. "We also, like UNICEF, believe that the government in Baghdad and the U.N. should give priority to supplies that have direct impact on the well-being of children," said Jones. She also called upon the international community to do more to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq. At the briefing, she announced a $1 million grant from the U.S. to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to repair and improve hospitals in Iraq. The UNICEF report centered on the heavily populated regions of central and southern Iraq where, the survey found, the mortality rate for children under the age of five has increased from 56 per 1,000 before economic sanctions to 131 per 1,000. Infants less than one-year-old are now dying at a rate of 108 per 1,000, up from 47 per 1,000 before sanctions. The report noted that the Kurdish territory of northern Iraq has a declining mortality rate for children under five. Jones pointed out that under the U.N. Oil-for Food program, the distribution of food and medicine is controlled by Iraq in southern and central Iraq, "which means that it is in their control to determine how much food is ordered, how much medicine is ordered, and how that food and medicine is distributed." In northern Iraq, the food and medicine are distributed by the United Nations "in cooperation with the peoples of northern Iraq, which means that the distribution works extremely well," Jones said. The primary reason for the program not working inside Iraq, said Jones, was "that the Iraqi regime has ordered only a fraction of the nutritional supplies that are needed for vulnerable children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers. She noted that under the U.N. program, $25 million is allotted for nutritional aid. "So far, the Iraqi government has ordered supplies and nutritional supplements that total only $1.7 million. "In other words," said Jones, "way below even the 10 percent of the money that's available to provide nutritional supplements for this very vulnerable group of people, have been ordered and provided by the Iraqi government." According to Jones, there is $287 million worth of medicine and medical supplies sitting in Iraqi warehouses. "This is half of all the medical supplies and medicines that have been ordered under the Oil-for Food program by Iraq" since the beginning of the program in 1991, she said. Benon Sevan, the head of the U.N.'s humanitarian relief program in Iraq, has raised questions about the alleged hoarding of medical supplies and equipment in government warehouses.
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