A Humanitarian Catastrophe in the Making

By Nick Cater

War in Iraq risks creating a horrific humanitarian crisis because governments have left relief charities starved of funds, held up vital decisions, and allowed military priorities to override efforts to ensure food, water, shelter and health care for the inevitable victims of conflict.

International-aid charities say the delays, underfinancing, secrecy, political infighting, legal obstacles, and military interference — especially by the United States and Britain — have undermined what should have been the world’s best-prepared response to a crisis that the United Nations predicts will force millions of Iraqis to flee and leave millions more hungry, injured, or sick.

Months ago, having threatened war against a country whose people have been brought to their knees by external sanctions, conflict, and internal oppression, the U.S. government seemed ready to organize a significant preparedness operation and, if necessary, a well-financed humanitarian response.

Even while the British government stonewalled charities’ requests for meetings on Iraq and other governments refused to offer humanitarian funds, in the United States, prominent international-relief charities started regular discussions with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handles most humanitarian programs run by the government, and with other American government agencies.

In what charities hoped was to be an all-out effort to protect Iraq’s innocent citizens from yet more hunger, death, and disease, the relief groups provided detailed information on humanitarian needs, how much it would cost to help Iraqi citizens harmed by the war, and what charities could handle on their own, and where they would need extra manpower and other help.

U.S. government officials took notes but apparently little notice. No one will say the word betrayal, but that’s what many charities feel.

“Fundamentally, there was no effort to separate the political and military from the humanitarian,” says Sandra Mitchell, government relations vice president of the International Rescue Committee, who chaired the meetings for the InterAction network of 160 U.S. relief and development charities. “Coordination with humanitarian agencies has been inadequate, the U.N. should have been given a greater role, there are insufficient resources, and there was no need for this delay. Many more people could end up suffering far more because of this.”

The contrast with military spending is stark. By early March, the United States and other governments had directly or through the United Nations invested little more than $100-million in disaster preparedness, just 0.1 percent of the $100-billion likely to be spent invading and occupying Iraq this year, with U.N. agencies receiving only 25 percent of what they said was essential.

It wasn’t until late February that the United States unveiled its Disaster Assistance Relief Team of 60 experts who will follow the troops into Iraq and offer on-the-spot funds for relief charities. Around the same time, it also announced that it had been stockpiling supplies in the region, from three million daily meal rations to tents, blankets, and water containers. In addition, it provided $900,000 to a consortium of U.S. charities to run a crisis information clearinghouse and logistical planning center, initially from Jordan, perhaps later from Baghdad.

But almost no charities anywhere in the world that have the expertise to provide on-the-ground aid to people harmed by conflict have received any government funds to plan, hire and train staff, or buy supplies, equipment, and vehicles. And despite claims of relaxing the rules in late January, travel controls imposed by the United States mean that almost no American aid workers can visit Iraq to assess needs.

One reason that such small amounts of money are going into humanitarian efforts so late is that President Bush is including funds for relief operations and reconstruction work in the overall war budget that he apparently plans to send to Congress for approval after fighting starts. That may be politically shrewd, but it is almost guaranteed to mean more suffering for Iraqi civilians.

Other governments are doing even less than the United States, either holding back aid funds until civilians start to die or suggesting that investing in preparedness in some way endorses plans for war, while the world’s biggest humanitarian-aid spender, the European Union, has rules blocking emergency grants until casualties occur.

Even if governments suddenly start offering extra funds, a small but growing number of charities have made it clear that while hostilities are under way they will not take money from governments with troops on the ground in Iraq. They fear that taking the government aid might undermine their humanitarian principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality.

Those declining aid include some big humanitarian hitters, such as Oxfam International and Médecins Sans Frontières. Other organizations, such as International Rescue Committee and Care International, have said that any government funds must come without strings. Some nonprofit groups have started fund raising, while others are using reserves to establish operations that they hope will secure funds later.

International-aid organizations’ fear that they will be manipulated to suit military interests has been heightened by the presence of serving or retired officers in every U.S. agency they will deal with on the ground, from a few soldiers within the Disaster Assistance Relief Team, to the U.S. Army-controlled Humanitarian Operations Center in Kuwait, to the ex-generals put in charge when the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance was suddenly established at the Pentagon in January.

Those are the people who will assess humanitarian needs, decide on solutions, and offer money to charities, helped by the civil affairs and humanitarian officers of fighting forces invading the country.

Since the conflict with Iraq is fundamentally about U.S. and international security and not human rights or humanitarian needs, and since military priorities start at victory, work their way through secrecy, and end with the welfare of civilians, it’s hardly surprising that the situation has brought harsh criticism from charities.

Relief organizations say it could have been very different, if serious international dialogue between governments and humanitarian groups had been a priority, and if governments had awarded grants months ago to prepare the humanitarian response, with advance contracts for charity coalitions to manage major tasks, such as restoring water supplies, or meeting all the needs of people in a particular region. That could have allowed the United Nations to coordinate a disaster-relief effort by charities from many countries and would have assured that sufficient stockpiles and trained staff members would be on standby to respond as soon as necessary.

Supporting but not controlling an effective humanitarian response would, coincidentally, have advanced the U.S. and British governments’ political and military interests. As well as offering excellent public-relations value by emphasizing concern about the welfare of the Iraqi people, it would also have provided another way to persuade Saddam Hussein that the threat of conflict was real.

Instead, governments have betrayed both the United Nations and relief charities, and ensured that many more lives will be lost.

Nick Cater is a British journalist and a columnist for The Guardian newspaper’s Society Online section. He can be contacted at cateraiduk@yahoo.co.uk.