The Humanitarian Panel Report is the work of one of three panels, set up to advise a deadlocked Security Council on the future of the ‘Oil for Food’ or 986 Programme.

Under 986, proceeds from Iraqi oil sales go to the UN. One third is allocated for compensation claims and administration, the remainder for humanitarian needs. Prior to June 1999, Iraq was nominally permitted to export 5.26 billion dollars worth of oil every six months - but was unable to do so. Low oil prices and a dilapidated oil infrastructure have left the humanitarian programme with less than 4 billion dollars in the last 12 months.

In early April in Baghdad we met with Hans Von Sponeck, United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq - the official responsible for overseeing the 986 Programme. Mr Von Sponeck, a demographer who has worked at the UN for 31 years, took over the post seven months ago when his predecessor, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest over the impact of sanctions.

‘That’s not a per capita income figure - that is the figure out of which everything has to be financed: from electrical services to water and sewerage, to food, to health - the lot - and that is obviously a totally, totally inadequate figure.’

Hospitals throughout Iraq lack basic supplies from paper to pillows. 986 funds have substantially increased imports of medicine, but most health care centres still only have one third of the drugs they need. At the Saddam Central Teaching hospital, weary doctors showed us around the wards. After eight years of sanctions they are accustomed to talking to journalists: ‘Our hospitals have become like zoos’ says one.

In the Leukaemia ward a young father stands by his dying son, brushing away flies that swarm in through the broken windows. It’s a hot day and the sick child is lying on a plastic covered mattress: none of the beds have sheets any more.

There has been a dramatic increase in childhood cancers and in congenital abnormalities in Iraq and there is a growing consensus that this is linked to the allies use of Depleted Uranium (DU) during the Gulf War. DU munitions - which were used again in Kosovo - are categorised as ‘conventional weapons’: the main component of DU has a long half-life and therefore low radioactivity. But DU contains traces of two other more radioactive isotopes, and three emit alpha particles, which are the most biologically damaging kind of radioactivity. Like other heavy metals DU is also chemically toxic. The US Defence Department estimates that 315 tons of DU was fired during the Gulf War. Dust from the exploding munitions is likely to have been dispersed by the winds and - since some DU compounds are soluble - leached into soil and water supplies, linking it into the food chain. When inhaled, the dust particles lodge in the lining of the lungs; when ingested, soluble compounds appear in the blood, tending to concentrate in the kidneys. Situated close to vulnerable tissues, alpha particles do maximum damage.

Doctor Mazin has worked on this ward for five months, during which 26 children have been admitted and 26 have died: ‘The cure rate for leukaemia is 0%’ he explains, because none of the triad of treatments - cytoxic drugs, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant - have been reliably available.

British allegations that the Iraqi regime is deliberately withholding medical supplies imported under 986 are dismissed as propaganda by Mr Von Sponeck. One of the reasons he cites for erratic distribution is the tortuous, months-long contracting process necessitated by the sanctions regime: inter-related medical items arrive at different times, some on the point of expiry. Syringes for insulin, angina tablets and cardio-vascular valves have all been blocked by the Security Council in the past, as have the refrigerated trucks necessary for distributing many drugs. The fact that the Iraqi administration receives no cash from the oil sales is also highlighted as an obstacle to efficient distribution. Other factors cited by the UN reflect the general collapse of the infrastructure: dilapidated warehouses, transport and communications breakdowns and frequent power outages.

According to the UNDP it would cost 7 billion dollars to ‘rehabilitate’ the country’s electricity supply. In the meantime power cuts - which averaged 10 hours a day in Baghdad in January - impact on every sector. Chicks imported by the UN died because of power outages in the hatcheries, and lack of reliable cold chains has hampered a vaccination campaign against Foot and Mouth disease, which is affecting over a million sheep and cattle in Iraq and is now threatening neighbouring countries. UN agencies put the cost of eradicating the outbreak at 16 million dollars and warn that it could ‘substantially reduce animal productivity’ if unchecked. Power cuts to irrigation and drainage systems, combined with shortages of pesticides and quality seed have already led to a 30% drop in agricultural output which is now further threatened by a drought, the worst for 100 years, which Mr. Von Sponeck warns will be ‘catastrophic’.

Heavily reliant on food imports, the Iraqi regime introduced subsidised rationing within a month of sanctions being levied, as food prices on the open market soared. 986 funds rescued the system from collapse in 1997 but the food ration still doesn’t meet calorific needs and provides mainly carbohydrates. Some other foods are available on the open market but hyperinflation puts them beyond the reach of most families. At the Al Shodja market in Baghdad a kilo of baby milk costs 4000 dinars -13,200 dollars at the pre-war exchange rate. Rice costs 990 dollars a kilo.

At the little stalls selling nuts, dried fruit, tomato puree, the traders keep their takings - huge bundles of bunk notes - in carrier bags. The 250 dinar note is now virtually the only one in use. Once worth 825 dollars, it is now worth just 12.5 cents.

Since professional incomes have fallen from around 800 to 8 dollars a month, it is now common to find doctors, engineers and teachers driving taxis, working at market stalls or simply unemployed. According to Hans Von Sponeck the result is ‘a middle class that is becoming desperately, humiliatingly deprived’. Many Iraqi doctors and engineers trained and worked overseas, a fact that makes the humiliation all the harder to bear. One friend, a retired medical contractor, pointed out that he used to order hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs from pharmaceutical companies in the West but now could not buy even one aspirin. As far as he is concerned the initials UK, USA and UN stand for ‘United-to-Kill-US-All-UN-justifiably.’

Professional people in every discipline complain of the lack of up to date journals and information: educational materials of all kinds are embargoed by the Security Council, from lead pencils, to text books to medical journals. A whole generation is growing up without access to up to date information or technology of any kind. Hans Von Sponeck is so concerned about the future implication of this that he prepared an additional report for the Security Council: ‘To make the point that right now we are setting the stage for depriving another generation of the opportunity to become responsible national and international citizens of tomorrow.’

Education in Iraq is free to university level and compulsory to intermediate level. But many families simply cannot afford to have their children in school. Instead they must go to the streets to work - selling cigarettes, shining shoes or to beg. When I was in Iraq 5 years ago, begging children was still an unusual sight. This time I was often mobbed by desperate children, many of them as young as four or five years old, dodging lanes of speeding traffic, desperate for a few cents.

Many children I spoke to were tiny for their age - stunted by years of inadequate diet. According to UNICEF, the main nutritional problem in Iraq in the 1980’s was obesity. 26% of Iraqi children now suffer from chronic malnutrition. Less visible than acute malnutrition, chronic malnutrition is much harder to reverse. Stunting is one effect, increased susceptibility to disease is another. A malnourished child is 400 times more likely to die of measles, but the child’s emotional and intellectual development is also impaired. According to the UN Secretary General, the 986 programme has succeeded only in stopping the rise in malnutrition. Chronic malnutrition continues to effect one in four of Iraq’s children and infant mortality in Iraq is the highest in the world.

In the meantime the strategy of squeezing maximum oil production to finance the 986 programme is causing long term damage to Iraq’s deteriorated oil facilities. According to the humanitarian report ‘the precarious state of the oil industry infrastructure, if allowed to deteriorate further, will have disastrous effects on the country’s ability to cover the costs for basic humanitarian needs.’

The reports’ conclusion is ‘that the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy, which in turn can not be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian effort.’

Iraq now has a national debt of 190 billion dollars. A ‘sustained economic revival’ would take years and investment on a massive scale - but until that time the dinar will remain devalued and the majority of Iraqi families will remain dependent on rations - and the regime - for their survival.