Iraq and poverty

 

By Abdujabbar al-Samarrai

 

Azzaman, June 22, 2005

 

Those attending the current key aid conference about Iraq in Brussels will need to answer the question why Iraqis are now poorer than before the U.S.-led invasion of their country.

 

In the local newspapers we read about billions and billions of dollars gathered from oil sales, Iraqi frozen funds released after the fall of Saddam Hussein and U.S. and other countries’ contributions.

 

However, Iraqis have less food, less electricity, less job opportunities, less clean water and worsening health conditions.

 

In practice, the government has almost stopped offering public services and amenities that are available in some of the world’s most impoverished countries.

 

Even the food rationing system which has helped millions of households stave off starvation is beginning to collapse with families not getting basic food stuffs like flour, sugar and rice for months.

 

Poverty breeds discontent that is undermining the status of current government in Iraqi eyes and raising eye brows about U.S. presence in the country.

 

More Iraqis are malnourished than before, more babies die of diseases than before and there are more emaciated mothers than anytime before.

 

All this happens in a country which sleeps on massive reserves of crude oil but is forced to import at least 10 million liters of gasoline a day.

 

And the much-talked about reconstruction of post-war Iraq is a talk of the past because most of the money earmarked for that purpose has simply disappeared.

 

The 80 countries and their leaders gathered in Brussels to extend aid to poor Iraqis and rebuild their country are requested to ask the Iraqi officials attending the conference about the billions of dollars which have gone astray.

 

Iraq is in the midst of what is internationally now being described as “the biggest corruption scandal in history.”

 

Iraqis are paying a heavy price because of rampant corruption that has infected the rank and file of their government.

 

Iraqis wonder where the billions they hear about are going and whether the billions more their government is asking for will improve conditions in the violence-hit country.

 

Corruption spiraled in the months the United States administered the country and went beyond control with the establishing of the Governing Council and the first interim government and there is no sign it will be ever contained.