U.S. Denies Blame for Malnutrition in Iraq : Mideast: It says Hussein is blocking distribution of food. Study shows children’s mortality rate has tripled.

The Bush Administration on Tuesday rejected responsibility for a reported tripling of Iraqi children’s deaths from malnutrition and other causes since the Persian Gulf War, insisting that ample food is available in the war-ravaged nation but that President Saddam Hussein’s government is blocking distribution of it.

Mortality rates for children younger than 5 years jumped from 27.8 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 104.4 per 1,000 between January and August of this year, according to a study conducted by an international group and funded by the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New York-based Merck Fund and the U.N. Children’s Fund.

The survey was performed by the group of 87 medical, environmental and legal experts from several countries who visited Iraq between Aug. 23 and Sept. 5. They blamed hunger for the deaths, coupled with diseases transmitted through contaminated water--typhoid, gastroenteritis, cholera and hepatitis. An estimated 900,000 Iraqi children, the experts said, are suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition attributed to the war, which ended in February.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said special exceptions to postwar sanctions, imposed by the U.N. Security Council, are allowing plenty of food and humanitarian supplies to be sent to Iraq and that further easing of sanctions sought by the Baghdad government would not help.

“The problem has been that there are vulnerable groups inside Iraq that are not getting the food, and that’s not something that we have done,” Boucher said in an indirect reference to the regime’s discrimination against ethnic minorities. “That’s something that the government of Iraq has done.”

In some places, Boucher said, the government is blocking U.N. teams from setting up relief centers. According to Security Council resolutions ending hostilities, food and humanitarian relief was to be distributed under U.N. supervision.

At a Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday on implementation of U.N. sanctions against Iraq, legislators of both parties criticized the Administration’s failure to gauge the severity of the situation.

“You really have to come to grips with the humanitarian problem in Iraq,” said Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, during testimony before the subcommittee by Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, U.S. representative to the United Nations. “My impression is that very little is being done inside Iraq to alleviate the suffering.”

Pickering said more information is needed before the Security Council can go beyond its August resolution permitting Iraq to sell $1.6-billion worth of oil and use part of the proceeds to buy food and medical supplies. Iraq has refused to accept the terms of the resolution, demanding freedom to increase oil exports and objecting to outside supervision of relief distribution.

“I’m not comfortable leaving it at that,” Hamilton declared after the hearing. He called the situation a “standoff” in which the Security Council is seeking to pressure Baghdad to comply with all sanctions and Hussein’s regime is holding its own population hostage, hoping to gain an easing of the restrictions.

“How long do you wait and how long do you let these people suffer?” Hamilton asked.