Contents

1. Introduction
2. Fallback
3. The Secretary-General's Report
4. Lack Of Transportation
5. Official Lies

1) INTRODUCTION Return to top

‘Saddam... now hoards vast quantities of medical supplies rather than distributing them to his people’. So says Defence Secretary George Robertson in a letter to The Times. (6 March 1999) Minister of State at the Foreign Office Derek Fatchett complains of ‘Iraqi obstruction’ of the UN-managed ‘oil-for-food’ programme. Fatchett cites a report from Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, which ‘points out that only 15 per cent of medical equipment has been distributed, of which only 2 to 3 per cent has been installed’. (Letter, Independent on Sunday, 7 March 1999) According to Ministers, it is this ‘obstruction’ by Baghdad which is causing the extraordinary humanitarian crisis in Iraq. This is conscious and deliberate deceit.

2) FALLBACK Return to top

Note that a bolder claim was made a few months ago, by no less an authority than the Prime Minister. On 16 November, Tony Blair said, ‘I think I am right in saying that, of aid for medicines, only 30 per cent has gone anywhere near the people who should have received that medical assistance. The rest of it, and a large part of the money for the food programme, has gone to that small number of elite people around Saddam Hussein who are keeping the rest of the Iraqi people in repression.’ (Hansard, 16 November 1998, col. 613)

Without a word of explanation, the government has now retreated from this extraordinary claim to a lesser charge, claiming that the flow of medicines is being obstructed and stockpiled in warehouses, not diverted to members of the elite.

3) THE SECRETARY-GENERAL'S REPORT Return to top

The UN Secretary-General’s February 1999 report on the progress of ‘oil-for-food’ does indeed identify the build-up of medicines in Iraqi government warehouses as a major problem, and reports that ‘as of 31 January 1999, approximately $275 million worth of medicines and medical supplies had accumulated in warehouses’. This constitutes ‘more than half of all supplies’ of medicines so far imported under oil-for-food. (paragraph 30)

Kofi Annan describes ‘the slow pace of distribution’ from central government warehouses to regional warehouses in each ‘governorate’, and from regional warehouses to hospitals and health centres, as ‘a matter of serious concern’ . (para. 107) However, nowhere in his detailed explanation of this problem, does the Secretary-General suggest that there has been ‘obstruction’ by the Baghdad government:

‘The delays in distributing medical supplies, resulting in accumulations in warehouses, are due in part to the lack of modern managerial tools, poor working conditions within the warehouses and the lack of transport for moving the supplies to health centres. ‘They are also due, in part, to the rigid hierarchy in the Ministry of Health administration which makes it difficult for functionaries to approve deliveries without approval of superiors, and this takes time. ‘A variety of sources, including WHO, suggest that stockpiling seems to have increased following September 1998, when tensions mounted, and superiors may have deliberately withheld supplies in anticipation of emergency needs.’

Note that those supplies mentioned at the end of this explanation - which may have been withheld by the Iraqi authorities - were (a) additional to the quantities already building up in the warehouses, and (b) intended to overcome the humanitarian problems caused by Western bombardment. This portion of the stockpile could not, therefore, be described as ‘obstruction’ of oil-for-food, but, if UN sources are to be believed, were an attempt to make oil-for-food work efficiently in the event of a national crisis. Similarly, one cannot describe the ‘rigid hierarchy’ of the Iraqi Ministry of Health as a deliberate ‘obstruction’.

4) LACK OF TRANSPORTATION Return to top

One of the key factors identified by the Secretary-General is the lack of transport for distributing medical supplies. This has been a constant refrain of Kofi Annan’s reports on the progress of oil-for-food. In September 1997, he wrote that ‘lack of transportation has emerged as an unexpected impediment to the efficiency of distribution, as has the inadequate continuity of the cold chain for supplies requiring temperature control. Hospitals and health care centres not only lack functioning vehicles but also the funds to hire them. Because of the lack of sufficient transport, several facilities have been unable to collect urgently needed supplies until weeks after they were ready for collection.’ (para. 46) In November 1997, ‘Transport problems continue to hamper the regular flow of medicines and medical supplies from the Kimadia [central government] warehouses to the governorates and on to health facilities, which may take up to several weeks.’ (para. 56) In March 1998 ‘Inadequate transport [was] still causing delays in the distribution of drugs and medical supplies at every level of the distribution chain; the delivery of commodities from the central warehouses in Baghdad to the warehouses in the rest of the country takes an average of five to six weeks.’ Another problem was ‘Poor communications and feedback between health-care facilities and Department of health warehouses at the governorate level’. (para. 53)

In June 1998, the Secretary-General reported that, ‘Bottlenecks in distribution remain despite the Ministry of Health’s removal of the requirement that supplies which have passed quality control must obtain approval from a weekly drug committee before release... distribution continues to be hampered by lack of communication facilities between central warehouses, governorates and health facilities.’ (para. 62)

In September 1998, Kofi Annan reported that the ‘low delivery rate to end-users’ - ie health care facilities - was ‘due to delays in quality testing, the retention of stocks for emergency needs, time required for drawing up allocation plans for newly arrived supplies, inadequate information on actual requirements of end-users, poor communications between health facilities and warehouses, and shortage of transport, labour, materials, and funding to install equipment.’ (para. 25)

We should note that in June, the ‘delays in quality testing’ had been attributed to ‘shortages of laboratory animals and biological reagents’ at the central quality control laboratory, and ‘a shortage of specialized equipment that has yet to be approved’ for importation by the UN Sanctions Committee, ‘as well as an insufficient number of trained staff’. (para. 61) All of these are consequences of the economic sanctions, rather than of Iraqi government obstruction.

We should note in particular the report’s reference to a ‘shortage of transport, labour, materials, and funding to install equipment’. According to Robert Fisk (citing Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF’s representative in Baghdad) oil-for-food provides funds ‘only for supplies. It provides no funds for distribution, training, participation.’ (Independent, 16 October 1998) It is in this context that we should evaluate the slow pace of distribution, and the undoubted fact that, as Fatchett points out, only a few per cent of imported medical equipment has been installed so far.

5) OFFICIAL LIES Return to top

In his February 1999 report, the Secretary-General places responsibility for solving the distribution problem on both Baghdad and the Security Council’s Sanctions Committee. Kofi Annan notes that ‘it is important for the [Sanctions Committee] to acknowledge that a humanitarian programme of such magnitude requires a commensurate level of transport, communications and material-handling equipment and to be ready to act favourably on requests for essential logistic support.’ In his 25 February introductory statement to the Secretary-General’s report, the Executive Director of ‘oil-for-food’ comments that ‘few of these essential prerequisites have been made available in an efficient and timely manner’ (emphasis added).