Relief Groups Say Efforts Hindered by Military, Distrust

While aid is now flowing faster to Iraq, relief groups say that pockets of fighting, rampant looting and restrictions by the allied forces are frustrating their efforts to provide food, water and medical help to the Iraqi people.

Along with trying to address the effects of war, relief workers say they must fight another battle: the lack of trust and coordination on all sides.

The Pentagon distrusts the U.N. bureaucracy, say U.S. officials, and doesn’t always understand nongovernmental aid groups’ desire for independence -- which can result in excruciating delays. And relief agencies say that because allied forces are also dispensing aid, the Iraqi people have mistaken humanitarian workers for soldiers and spies.

“There is confusion about who is managing the humanitarian response,” said Susan Laarman, a spokeswoman for Mercy Corps, an independent aid organization. “In some places, the military are driving white vehicles like our white vehicles, and soldiers are handing out food. We are afraid we might be identified as military and become targets. It’s crucial that our staff feel safe and that the people we are helping know who we are and that we are impartial and don’t represent a point of view.”

Although Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders and others have gone into Iraq without military clearance, the Pentagon says aid groups should wait until allied forces declare an area secure.

“We’re trying to make it as safe as possible for them to go about their job without taking sniper shots and being robbed,” said Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a Central Command spokesman in Doha, Qatar. “We’re not stopping anyone unless there’s a dynamic reason not to let them in, and those calls are being made by the commanders on the ground.”

The relationship between the military and humanitarian agencies has often been uneasy.

In Iraq, the secrecy surrounding the military planning before the war made it difficult for relief groups to prepare a swift response, aid officials say, and even now the Pentagon’s role has left little room for them to maneuver.

Some relief organizations say that bureaucracy, not security concerns, is behind the delay and that the Pentagon is stifling their efforts to deliver aid. At the U.N. humanitarian office in Amman, Jordan, spokeswoman Veronique Tavreau complained that U.S. Central Command has kept 31 U.N. staff members out of northern regions of Iraq that the U.N. security coordinator has declared safe. They had planned to deliver aid in Irbil, Dahuk and Sulaymaniyah by April 14 but have yet to receive flight clearance.

“This delay is slowing down the delivery of humanitarian aid and the return of our 31 international staff to the north. It is too long a process to return to an area where direct conflict did not occur,” she said. U.S. military officials acknowledged that U.N. staff had been kept out of those towns but said that was because of security concerns.

A British relief group, Save the Children, says it has been trying for longer than a week to fly in medical supplies to treat 40,000 people. The aircraft was also carrying emergency feeding kits for malnourished children in Irbil.

“The lack of cooperation from the U.S. military is a breach of the Geneva Conventions and its protocols,” said Rob MacGillivray, Save the Children’s emergency program manager. “But more importantly, the time now being wasted is costing children their lives.”

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, occupying forces are obliged to protect civilians and open up space for humanitarian relief work.

Central Command spokesman Owens concedes that aid groups are better equipped to deliver relief. “We’re the military, after all. They can go a lot further than we can,” he said. “But security is our first priority.”

Widespread looting and chaos in Iraq’s cities also have set back relief efforts, and agencies are urging coalition forces to protect hospitals, food and water supplies. In Baghdad, only about a third of the city’s 34 hospitals are functioning. Medical staffers are afraid to show up to work, and many patients have been sent home despite needing care.

Looters have pillaged hospitals. Aid workers say that even doctors and nurses have taken emergency food and medical supplies meant for patients, considering it their rightful compensation for working nonstop without pay and treating hundreds of patients a day.

While nearly all humanitarian workers rely on the military to make it safe enough to work, Amnesty International head Irene Khan sharply criticized the allied forces this week, saying that more planning and resources had gone into protecting the country’s oilfields than the population and infrastructure.

“The response to disorder has been shockingly inadequate,” she said. “It would seem more preparation was made by the coalition to protect oil wells than to protect hospitals or water plants. The first taste of the coalition’s approach to law and order will not have inspired confidence in the Iraqi people.”

Some aid groups are especially determined to remain distinct from the allied forces. Organizations such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders have a policy of not accepting funding from parties involved in a conflict and refuse to work under the Pentagon, saying that aid workers can too easily be confused with soldiers. On April 2, two medical workers from Doctors Without Borders were accused of espionage by Iraqi authorities and imprisoned until Baghdad fell seven days later.

“We operate differently from the military,” said Nicolas de Torrente, executive director of Doctors Without Borders, which has 25 workers in Iraq. “We work with no other agenda than to provide basic services to people based on their needs. That’s what ensures our access to people and guarantees our security.”