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Food crisis can be averted in Iraq: UN agency

LONDON: The United Nations food aid agency expressed optimism on Monday that it could avert a major crisis in feeding the people of Iraq.

"We have enough supplies. We will be able to meet the needs," James Morris, executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told a news conference in London.

The WFP has appealed for $1.3 billion to fund a vast food aid operation in response to the Iraq war. This is part of an overall $2.2 billion appeal for humanitarian assistance for Iraq in the next six months launched by the United Nations last week.

Morris said WFP was preparing a six-month operation. The first 30 days will be focused on meeting the needs of refugees and internally displaced people. For the following two months it is preparing to provide resources to feed the entire Iraqi population of 26 million people.

The last months will be concentrated on the most vulnerable people, including refugees.

During the final phase it is hoped the oil-for-food programme, which was disrupted by the war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, will be up and working again.

That programme allowed Iraq, living under UN sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, to export oil and use the revenues to pay for food, medicine and other civilian goods.

An estimated 60 percent of Iraqis rely on the public system that is used to distribute food under the oil-for-food programme. The majority of Iraqis are likely to exhaust their food reserves by May.

"This is a huge undertaking," said Morris. "We are dealing with a very difficult set of circumstances."

But he said he was confident that the WFP, which has been involved in Iraq since 1991, could manage.

Morris said he did not envision a situation where the military would be required to distribute food aid. The WFP plans to include wheat flour, pulses, cooking oil, rice, salt, sugar, dried whole milk and infant-weaning foods.

The WFP has bought some 160,000 tonnes of wheat flour and 84,000 tonnes of rice for Iraq. The two purchases are thought to be the biggest one-time acquisition of foodstuffs on the grain market by WFP for a humanitarian operation in the past decade.

"Our plate is very full these days," said Morris. "The longer the conflict, the more difficult our task will be."-Reuters