Global Policy Forum

By Dominic Nutt*

Over the past few weeks, coverage of the looming humanitarian crisis in Iraq has been dominated by images of battle-trained British troops struggling, almost panicking, over the task of distributing food and water to populations unwilling to form an orderly queue.

Now that the war in Iraq is, apparently, coming to an end, teams of aid workers, including those from Christian Aid, hope to get into Iraq to find out what the needs of the Iraqi people are, and how best to help them. Soldiers distributing aid can never be a solution. Throwing boxes, sometimes literally, off the backs of lorries into a sea of eager arms is simply not how these things are done.

It is potentially dangerous for all involved and, more importantly, it virtually guarantees that the wrong people will get whatever is on offer. The most successful arms in this kind of situation belong to the strongest and fittest young men. The old, the weak, and women with children - those who need aid most - must either stand by and watch, or run the risk of being trampled underfoot.

Yes, there will be further sharing out within these communities. And yes, some of the aid will trickle down to those in need. But random, disorganised distributions, such as those we have seen on television, offer no way of guaranteeing this, and no way of monitoring what effect the distribution will have had. It is not unknown, for instance, for such aid end up in the hands of traders, who sell it on at inflated prices, or, indeed, in the hands of combatants.

No one is questioning the sincerity of the troops who are trying to fulfil this role. But it is not their job and, demonstrably, they don't know how to do it. Furthermore, it is impossible for a force fighting on one side of a war either to be impartial over who gets the aid, or to be seen to be impartial.

Yet impartiality lies at the heart of the "humanitarian imperative" governing the actions of all humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organisations. It is enshrined in the Red Cross/Red Crescent code of conduct, to which Christian Aid is a signatory. Quite simply, the code states that aid must be delivered at the point of greatest need, without fear or favour or any political purpose. To do this requires a lot of planning and organisation.

Firstly, those who are in greatest need must be established by careful prior assessment. Secondly, it must, through existing local community leaders, be made sure that people understand and accept that this is what is going on. Communication is essential: the agencies and recipients have to know who is giving what to whom, where and when.

It can, and does, work well all over the world. Not following these rules, as we have seen, can lead to a riot. Much has been made of the expertise of the Humanitarian Operations Centre (HOC), part of the US central command in Kuwait, which has been placed in charge of the initial relief operation. There is even a representative there from our own Department for International Development (DfID). This expertise must be put to better use before any more damage is done.

However, that is only the short-term option while the security enabling those qualified to do their job is missing. The whole humanitarian effort must be taken out of military hands and handed to the UN, with which aid agencies can unreservedly cooperate, as soon as possible. This, and the necessary secure access, must be made a priority of the US and UK forces.

As well as the question of method, there is also the question of scale. The figures are stark. Before the war, virtually the entire Iraqi population was in receipt of food aid through the UN's oil for food programme (OFF). Some 60 per cent of the population, around 16 million people, were totally dependent on the programme, which covered medical supplies and other essentials as well as food. This means that 16,000 tonnes of aid will need to be shipped into the country every day once the stocks that are thought to exist run out around Easter.

In the northern, Kurdish area, in which Christian Aid funds most of its Iraqi programmes, we are told that food could begin to run out in as little as two weeks. Already, there are shortages of kerosene, meaning that some of the large bakeries which operate using the fuel have suspended production.

A new UN security council resolution to establish a successor to OFF is something that aid agencies have been calling for since the original programme was suspended on the eve of hostilities. It would be a start. However, donor governments must match this with large, and immediate, contributions to the $1.3bn (£0.8bn) appeal launched by the UN.

The British government, through DfID, recently announced a further £30m for humanitarian work. Two days later, the Treasury announced new money for military expenditure, bringing the running total to £3bn.

This does not sound like Tony Blair's pre-war promise to give equal importance to the humanitarian effort and the military. It is a glaring discrepancy that must be addressed now.

*About the Author: Dominic Nutt is an emergencies officer for Christian Aid