Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=4/4/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ/AID (L-Only)

NUMBER=2-301759

BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK

DATELINE=GENEVA

INTERNET=

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The World Food Program is preparing to provide the people of Iraq with what it says will be the most significant aid operation in history. V-O-A's Dale Gavlak reports from Geneva.

TEXT: World Food Program spokeswoman Christiane Bertiaume says, once the United Nations is given the green light to bring aid into Iraq, a huge, complex operation will begin.

/// BERTIAUME ACT ///

The humanitarian operation for the Iraqi crisis is going to be the most important humanitarian operation in all history. Can you imagine bringing inside the country 480-thousand tons of food per month for 27 million people? We have launched an appeal of one-point-three-billion dollars. We have never at W-F-P launched an appeal so important for one country.

/// END ACT ///

Some U-N staff members went back into Iraq Friday to assess whether security conditions are right for aid to begin to flow again. The relief workers were recalled from the country just before the war started.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross say they are trying to help Iraqi civilians cut off from electricity in Baghdad and from water in parts of southern Iraq. Ian Simpson of the World Health Organization reports that one and a-half million Iraqis in the south are without access to clean, safe drinking water, making them prone to sickness.

/// SIMPSON ACT ///

An average person needs something like nine liters of water a day for drinking, for health and for hygiene. If they don't get that supply, then there are serious risks to health. When water is cut off, and temperatures start to rise to 30-degrees (celcius) or more, as they are now in Iraq, the health outlook is very poor. There will be outbreaks of disease, and diarrheal disease will be the first to come.

/// END ACT ///

The U-N children's agency says it is trucking tens-of-thousands of liters of water into Umm Qasr, and the towns of al-Zubair and Safwan, south of Basra. But it says distributing the supplies is not easy. Coalition forces are providing security for the shipments, and have also built an emergency pipeline to bring water into southern Iraq from Kuwait.

/// REST OPT ///

The relief agencies are also expressing concern about the mounting numbers of civilian causalities, some attributable to cluster bombs. Antonella Notari of the Red Cross says, although such munitions are not illegal, they pose a serious danger to civilians.

/// NOTARI ACT ///

A large part of the bomblets do not explode and that causes long-term consequences. We have seen that in places like Kosovo, where, in fact, you can compare the long-term damage that cluster bombs do to mines, because they continue threatening the civilian population.

/// END ACT ///

The relief agencies report that four-thousand Iraqi civilians were killed or injured by unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs after the first Gulf war. Coalition spokesmen say they are only using cluster bombs in military areas, and that they will send out teams to try to ensure that all the bombs have exploded or are destroyed. (Signed)

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