2. Context and Scope of Study

This study is based on a survey in 1996, and builds on research begun in 1991. The 1991 survey took place exactly one year after the imposition of sanctions, and some four to five months after the end of hostilities. The 1991 study was based upon surveys of households, markets, and economic enterprises, as well as interviews with a wide cross-section of people including ordinary citizens, officials, factory managers, representatives of international aid organisations and UN agencies. Surveyors visited a large number of locations, including areas outside of government control in Iraqi Kurdistan and the southern marshes where, also, the writ of the government was tentative. The primary focus of that study, as of the present one, was on the rise of poverty, and particular attention was paid to the issue of food security.

The format of the 1996 visit was similar to the one in 1991, except that it was shorter and the number of places visited were fewer. In total we spent only one week in Iraq in the beginning of May 1996.

It is important to put on record the conditions of our travel and work in Iraq. The week we spent in Iraq was divided between visits to various localities in and around Baghdad, and a visit to Basrah in the South with frequent stopovers for interviews in towns and small settlements en route. In the greater Baghdad area we visited homes, farms, shops and factories in a broad cross section of districts, including Al-Thawra (Saddam City), Adhamiyiah, Bab-al-Shaikh, Karadi and Jamila. We spent a night in Basrah and on way to and from we stopped for interviews in several southern governorates, including Kut, Ammarah, Nasiriyah, Najaf, and Karbala. The sample of families we interviewed in Iraq was chosen at random. The sample, although not representative in the statistical sense, represents a broad cross-section ranging from well-off to desperately poor households.

Though we had to submit our travel itinerary to the Iraqi authorities and obtain a written permit, no prior restriction was placed on localities we could visit other than that these excluded Iraqi Kurdistan outside government control. En route we stopped wherever we liked and interviewed who ever we chose. The main constraint we faced was the limited time at our disposal.

Iraq is a heavily policed country. We came across police and military checkpoints at regular intervals on inter-city roads and also within towns and cities. At various points during our travels in the country, we had to show the government authorization but allowed passage without let or hinderance except on one occasion. On the road to the marshes in the south we were stopped and not allowed to proceed until permission was granted by the local governor. We were permitted to travel to the marshes on the condition that we would be accompanied by an armed escort. We chose not to take up the offer because of the limited time and the feeling that the presence of an armed escort might detract from the purpose of our visit. The heavy armed presence on the roads to the marshes indicated that the area is not fully under government control, but there was regular traffic in and out of the marshes.

The Ministry of Information assigned interpreters who often (but not always) accompanied us. Our escort from the Ministry of Information did not try to influence where we stopped, who we interviewed and what questions we asked. All interviews with households were conducted in the privacy of their homes, and we did not detect any reluctance or hesitation on the part of our interviewees in responding to our questions. But it has to be said that we took care to restrict our questions to economic and welfare matters, such as wages, employment, incomes, asset ownership, prices, food consumption and the functioning of the ration system. We generally found our respondents to be extremely frank and hospitable. In fact, on issues relating to the earnings of household members or profits of enterprises, we found respondents to be surprisingly frank in comparison with our experience in similar investigations in other countries.⁵

On a number of these issues we were able to cross check our respondents' replies against actual observations both in homes as well as in business premises. It was not difficult, for instance, to form an impression about a family's general living conditions, by observing the quality of their dwelling, their ownership of bulky household durables, as well as the appearance of their children. Similarly, in factories, workshops and farms, it was relatively easy to observe and cross-check some simple data such as the number of workers present and the proportion of machines running.

We directly conducted interviews with over 20 families about their economic condition covering their income, employment, food consumption, living conditions, and access to the ration system. We also visited a wide range of economic enterprises, including small private sector workshops, large factories, both private and government owned, farms, shops and markets. In addition to these we were able to visit a number of hospitals. We also had meetings at a number of ministries, including the Ministry of Trade, where we were able to meet with the minister himself, as well as the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture where we met with senior officials. We visited the institutions involved in the operation of the food rationing system, including the computer centre which keeps the record of ration recipients for the whole country, a flour mill, a wholesale centre for the distribution of ration supplies to retail outlets and shops delivering rations to households. This provided a cross-check on the responses by households about the functioning of the ration system.

The amount of information we were able to gather in a short time and from a limited number of interviews, although not comprehensive, is, we believe, not misleading. We present and make use of the quantitative data to convey the broad magnitude of the impact of the sanctions on the economy and on the welfare of the population and also corroborate qualitative observations. These figures are particularly useful in the absence of any well-accepted and objective source of statistical data on these issues.