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I've just emailed this letter to The Guardian: Letter to the Editor The Guardian 26 April 1999 David Sharrock (April 24, “Iraq is falling apart. We are ruined”) refers to a report by Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, in February 1999 indicating that $275m of supplies and medicine from the UN’s Iraqi oil sales programme have not been distributed from Iraqi government warehouses. He then quotes an unnamed ‘officer in the relief field’ as believing that this is being done deliberately by the Iraqi government. Sharrock does not cite the reasons given in Annan’s report for the stockpiling: 'lack of modern managerial tools', 'poor working conditions within the warehouses', 'lack of transport for moving the supplies', 'the rigid hierarchy in the Ministry of Health administration which makes it difficult for functionaries to approve deliveries without approval of superiors'; over-prescribing by physicians and the Iraqi Ministry of Health's desire to prevent waste of medicines by controlling supplies more tightly; and 'superiors may have deliberately withheld supplies in anticipation of emergency needs' after tensions increased as of September 1998. This last point refers to bombing by US and British air forces. It should also be noted that, in June 1998, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended increased stockpiling of medicines. According to Annan at the time: ‘WHO has indicated that a more substantial reserve is the only practical solution to the procurement cycle with a delay of some four to five months before the start of arrivals’. Annan also reported Iraqi government subisidies of around 80% of the cost of medicines for public purchase. While the Iraqi government does impose terrible suffering on many Iraqis in some areas, it is not at all clear that this is one of those areas. ---------------------- Dr. Eric Herring Department of Politics University of Bristol 10 Priory Road Bristol BS8 1TU England, UK Tel. +44-(0)117-928-8582 Fax +44-(0)117-9732133 http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics Eric.Herring@bristol.ac.uk -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html