U.S. Boosts Emergency Food Aid for Iraqis

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq so far has been less severe than anticipated, but the United States is nonetheless committing an additional $200 million in cash for emergency food aid to Iraq, the U.S. Agency for International Development said Wednesday.

“There are pockets of need in Iraq, but we are not facing a massive humanitarian crisis,” said Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the agency, known as USAID.

The agency’s announcement of additional funds for food aid came a day after committees in both houses of Congress put forth bills giving President Bush more money than he had requested for Iraqi relief, but specifying that the roughly $2.5-billion effort should be managed by the State Department -- not the Pentagon.

“We’d like Natsios to do all the reconstruction,” John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday. “The Congress said in a bipartisan fashion that the most proper purveyor of foreign assistance is the secretary of State.”

The administration’s proposal called for giving all the funds to the Pentagon, “further drawing our armed forces into long-term nation building, a mission that would degrade their capacities to fight wars,” Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, said in a statement Tuesday. He added, “Bottom line -- reconstruction is a civilian role.”

The White House disputed that decision Wednesday.

“We disagree with the committees about whether it should be the State Department or the Defense Department that should be authorized to expend the funds,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

He said the president believes that because the military is in charge of security on the ground, it could most effectively deliver aid. “And that is an issue that we’ll take up with the House and the Senate when it comes to the floor,” Fleischer said.

The estimated $2.5 billion for Iraqi relief is part of a nearly $75-billion supplemental war budget that Congress is considering. The House Appropriations Committee added $40 million and the Senate added $25 million to the president’s original request of $2.44 billion. Passage of a final bill is expected this week.

Natsios, who reports to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, downplayed the controversy over who should control relief funds, saying that USAID has provided relief assistance in other military operations, including in the Balkans.

“We rely on the U.S. military for security, but the U.S. military does not direct relief operations,” Natsios said.

The $2.5 billion includes $730 million for relief -- emergency food, water, sanitation, medicine and shelter -- and $1.7 billion for reconstruction, which includes everything from de-mining to rebuilding roads and airports, and education and public health.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated for planning purposes that up to 600,000 Iraqis could become refugees as a result of the war. But so far, very few have left their homes. Officials said about 300,000 Iraqi residents in northern cities have gone to stay with relatives, and about 500 foreigners, mostly Sudanese and Egyptians, have departed for Jordan, but other movements of civilians have been “insignificant.”

However, officials worry that the food situation could become dire because about half the population is almost completely dependent on Iraqi government food rations. Living standards in much of the country were poor even before the war.

The U.S. already has provided $530 million in food aid to Iraq, including wheat from Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Some of it was authorized months before the conflict began.

The additional $200 million in cash announced Wednesday will immediately be given to the World Food Program to buy food in the Middle East, thereby reducing the transportation time. It will feed 23 million Iraqis for one month.

The expenditure is intended to keep Iraqis fed until the United Nations-administered “oil-for-food” program, which the U.N. last week voted to restart, begins delivering food again in eight to 10 weeks, USAID officials said.

Delivering the food may not be easy, however. Australia, which is contributing about $60 million in aid, has two ships each carrying 50,000 tons of wheat scheduled to unload in Kuwait City and the southern Iraqi port of Umm al Qasr. But Umm al Qasr is shallow and clogged with silt.

Natsios said USAID is urgently negotiating to have the port dredged, a task that could be accomplished “in a matter of days, not weeks.”