damage to the infrastructure:
food and agriculturehow food is distributed [excerpt]
Ken Freeland
Delegates of the Iraq Sanctions Challenge met with Dr. Mohammed Mahdi Saleh, Iraq’s Minister of Trade, who turned out to be quite an engaging speaker. He spent a great deal of time with us and answered all the questions we put to him—despite the fact that we were late in arriving. According to Dr. Saleh, Iraq’s annual imports prior to the Gulf War totaled $20 billion. At that time, Iraq depended on the operation of the free market, and on some price subsidies, to assure distribution of necessary items to the populace.
Since the imposition of the sanctions regime, Iraq has instituted a rationing system which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has determined to be so fair and equitable that it has proposed to use it as a model for other countries where food shortages necessitate a similar approach. The system is fully computerized, contains many checks and balances which protect against potential abuse, and emphasizes the principle of equality of quantity, quality, and price of all rationed items throughout the country.
The ration itself fluctuates from month to month, based on availability of various items and price fluctuations. The monthly ration is announced publicly over radio stations at the start of each month. The per-person ration for the current month was set at 9 kilograms of wheat flour, 2.5 kilos of rice, 2 kilos of sugar, 1 kilo of cooking oil, 2.7 kilos of baby milk, 150 grams of tea, 250 grams of salt, and 350 grams of detergent. The cost of all this for a family of fifteen would be 1,500 dinars per month, or about one U.S. dollar. This comes to less than a dime (U.S.) per person.
In urban areas the retail centers that get government contracts to distribute rations to local residents are within easy walking distance. The retailers are kept honest by a system in which any complaint lodged by a consumer against a particular retailer leads to a plebiscite of local consumers. If 51 percent agree with the allegation, the retailer loses his franchise and is replaced.
During the Gulf War, agricultural centers in thirteen Iraqi provinces were targeted. In all, forty-eight flour mills were bombed, for a loss of productive capacity of 5,000 tons per day of flour, and 123,000 square meters of grain storage capacity. One way the Iraqis coped was by creating a kind of ersatz flour to replace the pure wheat flour they were accustomed to. They used a combination of wheat, barley, and corn flour, and the result was termed "sanction bread."
excerpt from CHALLENGE TO GENOCIDE
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