I find it troubling that the US military is using food and water as a tool and is now punishing the Iraqi people who largely do not want to be occupied by the US military. We are coming not as liberators but as invaders to a land where our ‘help’ is not wanted. The so-called Allies (Britain and the US) have cut water and food supplies to the populous city of Basra in an attempt to starve any opposition and to weaken the resolve of the city’s inhabitants.
British and American officials call these problems a “nuisance factor” or “pockets of resistance” that do not affect the overall plan to march to Baghdad and destroy Hussein’s government. Blair, answering questions in parliament about Basra, said, “It’s surrounded, and cannot be used as a base anymore” by government militias and security forces. Blair also promised that water, which was cut, would be restored to the city soon.
But one effect of the siege in Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, is the inability to use its international airport to bring in badly need humanitarian aid for Iraqis in the south. Similarly, Umm Qasr would be an important entry point for supplies shipped in by water.
“We need water, we need electricity, we need food,” said Hussein Jabar, a 20-year-old from a local farming family here, who described how his family has to buy water from a tanker truck at 350 Iraqi dinars per liter and store it in barrels. He said electricity to the area has been cut since Wednesday.
In my opinion, I think it’s highly likely that the Bush administration has purposefully stalled humanitarian aid as a tool to suppress Iraqi opposition. By declaring Iraq ‘unsafe’ for US government humanitarian agencies they have effectively closed off ways for refugees and displaced Iraqis to get food. The Red Cross has been able to enter Iraq and provide assistance, however they do not have the resources of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, which acts under the direction of the Bush administration.
Sources: