- BAGHDAD -- Despite the allocation of billions
of dollars of US government money for "reconstruction," Iraqis
are struggling to exist amidst soaring prices, unemployment, a devastated
infrastructure, and cuts in services.
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- Iraqis received a monthly food
ration during the Oil for Food programme which was set up to provide relief
during the sanctions against Iraq up to the invasion in 2003. The head
of each family was allotted monthly food coupons for commodities like sugar,
rice, tea, detergents, cooking oil, beans and baby milk.
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- But the US-backed governments,
starting with the Iraqi Governing Council, have failed to consistently
deliver the monthly food basket on time, amidst an unemployment rate estimated
at close to 70 percent.
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- Abu Ali, 66, worked until recently
as a distributor of the monthly food ration.
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- "The Ministry of Trade used
to give us sugar for the people," he said. "But not any more.
This means we have to buy it from the market at twice the price just to
achieve the same quantity. What will poor people do now to get their sugar?"
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- Abu Mushtaq, a 40 year-old father
of five lacks the money to buy products in the market, even after receiving
120,000 Iraqi Dinars (roughly 85 dollars) monthly from the government to
offset the shortfall in the food ration.
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- "Everything has gone up
in price so many times," Abu Mushtaq told IPS. "Petrol, kerosene,
even the price of bread has gone up so many times since the invasion. The
invaders only came to Iraq to fill up their own pockets."
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- The recent influx of government
money to offset the untimely delivery of food rations has raised the demand
for particular items, along with prices. This trend is disconcerting because
the government's record of keeping food supplied is getting worse.
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- "The Ministry of Trade did
not give sugar for the last seven months, nor rice for two months,"
Abu Ali said. "Nor tea for four months, and no cooking oil for the
last three months."
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- Meanwhile the market price of
sugar has risen 25 percent, of rice 80 percent, tea 100 percent and cooking
oil 50 percent.
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- Most homes in Baghdad get on
average only three hours of electricity supply per day, and Iraqis who
can afford them use small generators. But petrol shortages and rationing
continue, with only 40-50 litres allowed per vehicle monthly.
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- The interim government is considering
a five-fold increase in petrol prices early next year.
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- The situation is being further
complicated by attempts by some Iraqis to compensate for the dramatic shifts
in their economy. "Many landlords are raising rents two or three times
the normal amount," said Abu Ali. "This creates a bad spiral
for everyone."
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- Hope also appears to be in short
supply. "Anybody who tells you there are plans for this is a liar,"
Abu Anas, who works in the Ministry of Trade told IPS. "The government
is still interim, so they cannot make plans, and they don't think that
is their task. God help the Iraqi people."
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- Many analysts have blamed the
US government squarely for this situation.
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- "The 'reconstruction' of
Iraq is the largest American-led occupation programme since the Marshall
Plan (for reconstruction of Europe after the second world war)," analyst
Ed Harriman wrote in the London Review of Books. "But there is a difference:
the US government funded the Marshall Plan whereas (defence secretary)
Donald Rumsfeld and (former administrator of Iraq) Paul Bremer have made
sure that the reconstruction of Iraq is paid for by the 'liberated' country,
by the Iraqis themselves."
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- According to Harriman's research,
6 billion dollars in assets were left over from the UN Oil for Food programme,
and revenue from resumed Iraqi oil exports brought another 10 billion dollars
in the year following the invasion.
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- Nevertheless, while the US Congress
voted to spend 18.4 billion dollars of US taxpayers' money in Iraq on 'reconstruction',
Harriman says that "by 28 June last year, when Bremer left Baghdad
two days early to avoid possible attack on the way to the airport, his
CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) had spent up to 20 billion dollars
of Iraqi money, compared to 300 million dollars of US funds."
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- Allegations of fraud and theft
have plagued the occupiers of Iraq from the beginning. Auditors with the
US government are reported to have found serious problems.
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- "The auditors have so far
referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid
to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible
criminal prosecution," writes Harriman.
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- "They have also discovered
that 8.8 billion dollars that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries
in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect
of finding out where it went. A further 3.4 billion dollars earmarked by
Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance 'security'."
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- Iraq has oil and dollar wealth,
but the people do not see it.
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