A confidential UN document from December 2002 estimated that over 60% of the Iraqi population would lose access to water and sanitation during a war, with the most severe impact in southern Iraq.56 Following a January 2003 humanitarian assessment mission to Iraq, the Center for Economic and Social Rights warned that Iraq’s water and sanitation systems could not withstand military attack:
Having functioned for over a decade without capital investment, maintenance, and spare parts, their operation is jury-rigged and unsustainable. In the event of another military attack which disables the electrical supply, they are unlikely to recover and would not function until they were replaced.57
There can be little doubt that, as with the 1991 Gulf War, the US government was aware in advance that invading Iraq would result in a profound public health crisis throughout the country. In February 2003, USAID solicited bids from a handful of private contractors to rehabilitate the water infrastructure in all 45 major urban centers of Iraq after the war. The bid document anticipated that:
Disruptions to electrical supply, as well as possible damage to supply and distribution, will severely compromise the integrity of piped water systems… All systems are currently operating at a highly degraded level of performance, and will likely suffer further degradation as a result of a conflict.58
On March 26, USAID administrator Andrew Natsios blamed Iraq’s “Ba’athist Party” for “shutting down the water system” and precipitating a humanitarian crisis—without mentioning the effects of either economic sanctions or the Anglo-British blockades and attacks against civilian infrastructure.59 On March 30, US military commanders in the port town of Umm Qasr proposed selecting Iraqi businesses with tanker trucks to sell clean water to desperate civilians for a “reasonable” fee. 60 Only public protest by British authorities in control of Umm Qasr prevented this breach of humanitarian principles from taking place.61
The potential sources for funding Iraq’s eventual rehabilitation and reconstruction—estimated at up to $100 billion62—are currently being discussed in the Security Council. Despite opposition at all levels of the UN, the US has proposed to divert $10.9 billion already in the pipeline of the oil-for-food program from UN-administered humanitarian relief programs to US-controlled reconstruction funds, much of which has already been allocated to American corporations.63
The Pentagon is also insisting on exercising direct control of relief operations inside Iraq, in violation of longstanding legal principles meant to ensure the neutrality and independence of humanitarian action. InterAction, an umbrella coalition representing 160 major US relief and development groups, recently accused the Pentagon of:
forcing nongovernmental organizations to operate under Department of Defense jurisdiction… [which] complicates our ability to help the Iraqi people and multiplies the dangers faced by relief workers in the field.64
56 United Nations, Likely Humanitarian Scenarios (strictly confidential), (December 10, 2002).
57 Center for Economic and Social Rights, The Human Costs of War in Iraq (February 2003).
58 USAID, Solicitation No. M/OP-03-590. p. 20.
59 Natsios, Andrew. “US Humanitarian Relief and Reconstruction Efforts in Iraq,” Foreign Press Center, Washington, D.C., (March 26, 2003).
60 Sisk, R. “Deal to Sell Water all Wet, Critics Charge,” New York Daily News (April 1, 2003).
61 Sisk, R., “Brits win water fight; Postwar boss arrives in Iraq, nixes selling supplies,” New York Daily News (April 2, 2003).
62 Becker, Elizabeth and Oppel, Richard. “Bechtel Top Contender in Bidding Over Iraq,” New York Times, (March 29, 2003)
63 United Nations Office of the Iraq Programme, Update 25 – 31, (January 2003).
64 InterAction Press Release, cited in Lobe, J., “Relief Aid Splits Pentagon, White House from Other Actors,” OneWorld (April 4, 2003).