US Spending 120 Times More on Bullets, Bombs than Aid for Iraq

The US is spending around 120 times more on prosecuting the war in Iraq than it is on providing humanitarian aid and food supplies for the Iraqi people, claim public health experts in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

In an editorial, posted on the web in advance of print publication, David Barr and Dr Jaime Miranda highlight the figures on behalf of the International Health Advocacy Group at University College London.

And they call on doctors around the world to stand up and be counted, and pressurise their respective governments to respond to aid agency pleas and commit the necessary funds to what is likely to become "the largest humanitarian operation in history."

The neglect of public utilities, transport, and the health infrastructure over the past 12 years in Iraq mean that its people are significantly more vulnerable than they were at the start of the 1991 Gulf War, they write.

An estimated 50,000 to 250,000 people are expected to die in the first three months after hostilities have ceased, they say. And there are grave doubts about whether the US humanitarian aid plan, developed without the collaboration of other international aid agencies, and led by the military, will be viable.

The US has committed US$206 million for humanitarian aid and a further US$300 million for food supplies. But this compares with US$62.6 billion committed to the military campaign.

The food component of the Oil for Food Programme, which existed before the outbreak of war, and on which almost two thirds (60%) of Iraqis have come to depend, costs US$250 million per month alone. Nearly one in five Iraqi children under the age of 5 suffers from chronic malnutrition.

"The situation in Iraq is already a humanitarian disaster," write the authors. "Relief efforts since the war began have only amounted to token gestures," they say, adding: "Regionally and globally, people's health, dignity and wellbeing are prerequisites for stability and security, yet they are peripheral concerns in this 'war against terrorism'."

Click here to view the full paper online: http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/data/57/4/DC1/1