Will There be Famine in Iraq or Mass Migration to Other Countries?

The Humanitarian Times

 (April 4, 2003)

IRAQ's  FOOD INSECURITIES WILL NOT LEAD TO FAMINE ANY TIME SOON

Mass starvation occurs only after many months or years of food shortfall.  Though 60% of Iraqis depend on government  food rations, they have stockpiled food that will last for many weeks to come.  The Red Cross and World Food Programme have also stockpiled further food supplies for Iraqis.  Commercial food markets in the neighboring countries also will be available for meeting population food needs.

BOMBING RARELY INDUCES EMERGENCY MIGRATION and UNLIKELY TO IN IRAQ
Large-scale migration into Jordan, Syria, Turkey or Iran is unlikely during the current fighting.  Coalition bombing campaign has not resulted in any mass migration; despite the expressed fears by UN and aid agencies that millions of refugees may flee Iraq.  The mass migrations that occurred in 1991 did not occur during bombing or the war; instead, they occurred after the war was over, when Republican Guard massacres forced Kurds and Shiites to flee.

Most of the excess refugee deaths in 1991 were among Kurds fleeing to Turkey, a scenario unlikely to occur this year.  Population displacement scenarios, conjectured by the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation, (see www.cooperationcenter.org/library6.asp ) concludes that Kurds are better organized than in 1991, with 3,000 rebuilt
villages as "protective buffer between the towns and the mountainous borders.  "the reserves, assets and org. of the population of the North,  the Kurdistan Regional Govt, and city administrations will absorb the brunt of any large-scale displacement, whether in KRG-controlled territories or in newly liberated towns like Kirkuk, Mosul and others."

KURDS CONTINUE TO FEAR TURKEY'S INTERVENTION IN NORTHERN IRAQ
Turkey sacrificed billions of dollars of US aid when it denied U.S. army basing rights in Turkey, in order to maintain France's goodwill necessary for accession to the E.U..  In giving up US aid, Turkey has less to lose if it decides to move some of its 60,000 troops, now deployed along the Iraq border, into northern Iraq to prevent Kurds from gaining territory, sovereignty, or access to Kirkuk oil field fortunes.  Kurdish leaders said they will fire upon a Turkish advance.

IRANIAN INTERVENTION INCLUDES REFUGEE RETURN
Some 200,000 Iraqi refugees who have been living in Iran (since 1991) are expected to return to Iraq this year (some of them armed).  Iran may take a cue from Turkey if Turkey sends troops into Iraq.  Iran would seek to protect the majority Shiite population, though analysts feel this is unlikely.  In 1991 the coalition left Iraq with half its army and S. Hussein's rule intact so that Iraq could defend itself against Iran.  In the Iran/Iraq war, Iraq was outnumbered but had superior weaponry; however, in the last two weeks, the U.S. has destroyed most of Iraq's remaining weaponry (airplanes, tanks, cannon).  Officially, Iran favors a strong U.N. role to ensure a democratic (Shiite majority) government in post-war Iraq.

ISRAEL's  ROLE HAS GARNERED LITTLE ATTENTION
this year though it dominated news analyses in 1991 when coalition forces feared that Israel would retaliate against the numerous Scud missiles that Iraq fired into Israel.  Then, as now, coalition forces desire to keep Israel completely out of the war and press reporting which, whatever action Israel takes, would only contribute to Pan-Arab support for Iraq.   In 2003, it appears that 5-8,000 special operations forces occupied western Iraq in the earliest days of the war, capturing any Scud missile sites.  Because no journalists were embedded with these special operation forces, the media has not covered the campaign in the massive western areas of western Iraq, as per the coalition's aim.

S. HUSSEIN MAY HAVE RELOCATED TO TIKRIT, HIS NORTHERN STRONGHOLD
Even if coalition forces capture central political offices of Baghdad, a further siege of Tikrit may occur, with heavy bombing of deep-earth bunkers, leading to even more civilian casualties than may occur in Baghdad.
 
LANDMINES THREATEN CIVILIANS (INCLUDING JOURNALISTS and DISPLACED).
Yesterday a British journalist was killed when stepping on a landmine. Physicians for Human Rights cautions that "the heavily mined borders will..threaten internally displaced and fleeing refugees and greatly hamper aid reaching camps along borders.  Humanitarian de-mining of regions . . . is critically important to minimize deaths and maiming of both fleeing Iraqi civilians and humanitarian workers in the region."   See: www.phrusa.org/research/iraq/021403.html 
 

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