By Ruth Gidley
AlertNetFebruary 10, 2003
Few international agencies are operational in President Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the aid community is concerned that Iraqis will be left without assistance if U.S.-led military action leads to a humanitarian emergency. Some NGOs have been active in the Kurdish-controlled north, but they say this makes it virtually impossible to enter government-controlled areas in the centre and south.
Joel Charny of U.S. advocacy organisation Refugees International told AlertNet: "As the war progresses, even zones that become relatively secure could face a vacuum of humanitarian assistance created by the lack of funding for humanitarian preparations and the paucity of NGOs with existing capacity in Iraq."
Since the start of the year, a few international NGOs have received permission to open offices in Baghdad and suggest more will flood in if there is a change of government. Many more have set up base across the Jordanian border, although U.S. agencies are restricted by their own government's sanctions.
"This is not like Kosovo and Afghanistan, where you had several hundred NGOs working in the region and border countries, with knowledge of the countries themselves. We just do not have that type of access in Iraq," said Sandra Mitchell, vice-president for government relations at the Washington office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The Iraqi government views humanitarian work in northern Iraq as support for the Kurds, making it virtually impossible for NGOs to operate on both sides, and forcing them to seek access to the north via neighbouring states.
"Anyone who works with us has been threatened with death," said Sean Sutton of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a UK-based landmine awareness and clearance NGO that has worked in northern Iraq since 1992. Other NGOs active in northern Iraq include Save the Children Fund UK (SCFUK), Norwegian People's Aid and Peace Winds Japan.
NOT MANY OPERATIONAL
Numerous international NGOs carried out assessment missions to Iraq in December and January, but few are operational at the moment. NGOs currently active in the Baghdad-controlled centre and south include Germany's Architects for People in Need (APN), CARE International, Caritas Iraq, Enfants du Monde, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins du Monde (MDM)-France and Premií¨re Urgence.
The U.N. Children's Fund operates in Iraq, as do the U.N. Development Fund, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. British-based agencies Islamic Relief and Merlin said they were starting work in Iraq.
"We have developed a partnership to work in central Iraq and we intend in the future if necessary to work in northern Iraq as well," Alex Brans, Merlin's operations manager for central Asia, Russia and the Middle East, told AlertNet.
"A number of NGOs have come in the last two weeks," said Moustafa Osman, head of Islamic Relief's emergency relief department. He said the Iraqi government had set aside three buildings that would be allocated to international NGOs.
Bran said: "If one is just sitting waiting there until something happens and then comes in, together with the allied forces or after the allied forces, that's one thing. If you're there during and after, it's much more a statement of neutrality." Islamic Relief is opening an office in Baghdad, after three years of talks with Iraqi authorities.
Médecins sans Frontií¨res' (MSF) British press officer Petrana Nowill told AlertNet that MSF was negotiating an agreement with the Iraqi Red Crescent -- a requirement for work in Iraq -- but was not currently operational. Osman said that, in his personal opinion, many more would follow if there were a change of government in Baghdad. "I think people would be flooded with funds. Everybody would go there. It would be another circus -- like Bosnia, Kosovo." A series of NGOs have set up shop across the border in Jordan, where international staff will seek refuge from Iraq if necessary.
U.S. CONSORTIUM
A consortium of large U.S. agencies -- International Medical Corps, IRC, Mercy Corps, Save the Children (SCFUS) and World Vision -- was set up in Amman last month as a non-operational body to facilitate information-sharing and coordination.
Restrictions resulting from U.S. sanctions mean that it is difficult for U.S. organisations to operate in Iraq, Iran and Syria. Rudolph von Bernuth, vice-president and managing director of the children in emergencies and crisis division of SCFUS -- the lead agency in the consortium -- said: "We have no indication that the government of Iraq would allow us to work there, (or) that the government of the United States would allow us to work there. So it'd be a tough road to hoe."
The IRC's Mitchell said: "The American government has put itself in the rather silly position of being bound by its own sanctions." "If we were able to do so -- with or without a change of government -- and it were conducive to providing assistance to the people of Iraq, we would plan on moving in," said von Bernuth.
The consortium is funded entirely by the U.S. government's Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), for a four-month period. Even agencies such as the IRC, which accepted U.S. State Department funding more than six months ago to work in northern Iraq, are only now completing the necessary bureaucracy to begin operations.
In July, the State Department made $6.6 million available for humanitarian relief in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq and for Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries. Martone said there was a debate in the humanitarian community over whether taking funding from a potential aggressor government implied complicity with an occupying force.
"We've reached deep into our consciences, and we feel that as long as the source is consistent with our humanitarian values we will take whatever money is possible as long as it's intended for the right purpose. "We also feel that we incur an added moral burden to advocate, and not merely say that now we've taken this money we don't have a voice." Martone said IRC had greater access to government bodies to raise humanitarian concerns about a U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It's a Trojan horse. It allows us to enter territory we couldn't otherwise."
TAKING THE MONEY
Von Bernuth said that Save the Children would not take money from the State Department but contingency planning was essential to provide a substantial response in the event of war but was not contributing to the war effort.
"We don't think the U.S. military gives a damn if we take money from OFDA or not," he said. Refugees International's Charny said there was no real difference between money from the State Department and OFDA, which is an office of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
"The U.S. government is generally politically coherent with all its funding, and there is no fundamental difference between pots of money and funding sources," he said. Although British agencies such as Oxfam and SCFUK have a significant presence in Iran, some European agencies consider they are likely to be dwarfed by U.S. agencies, which they believe will roll into Iraq on the heels of U.S. forces.
Islamic Relief's work in Iraq is funded by private donations. Brans said it was difficult to find funding from traditional donors and Merlin was looking at alternatives. Brendan Paddy, emergencies media officer for SCFUK, said half of the agency's funding for work in northern Iraq came from Britain's Department for International Development, but it was not emergency money.
"It's public money from taxpayers to pay for humanitarian and developmental work, so as long as there are no political strings attached, we can use it to make a difference," Paddy told AlertNet. NGOs said there was insufficient funding for U.N. agencies in the area.
Von Bernuth said: "If a conflict takes place, in the post-conflict period there will be a fair amount of money floating around for NGOs of whatever stripe, as is always the case in these sorts of things." The U.N. World Food Programme said that a collapse in the oil-for-food programme, currently administered in central and southern Iraq by government authorities, would aggravate hunger as about 60 percent of the country's 24.5 million people depended on it.
"There would be a disruption in that pipeline that would require a boost to restart it," the IRC's Mitchell said. Charny said the existing network of "food agents" should be the primary distribution channel for emergency food assistance in the aftermath of a conflict. Osman said Islamic Relief did not plan to give out food, which he believed would be available locally, but the organisation might provide an alternative distribution network if necessary.
DIFFICULT ASSESSMENTS
A Merlin assessment completed last month found that most hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere had emergency generators. Brans said that wells had been drilled in some parts of Baghdad. "They're definitely preparing for a siege scenario."
NGOs said that the Iraqi government had given out two- to-four months of food rations in advance, while continuing with regular supplies. Brans said that many NGOs based their humanitarian analyses of Iraq on information that was two or three years old. However, he said that living conditions could deteriorate very quickly. "Within a month of conflict starting, they could be accurate again."
"What we can get is only a snapshot," Brans said. "If you want to do a proper assessment, you need three or four weeks with unlimited and free access." George Joffe of London University's King's College said that damage to Iraq's electricity network would cut off vital irrigation systems.
At a seminar at the Overseas Development Institute last month, he said: "Iraq depends on irrigation channels that are 5,000 years old. If the land salinates, it could cease to be available for agricultural production. "So a long war would have serious consequences."
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