War as salad dressing

Uncertainty came to an end. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan accepted defeat. He pulled out arms inspectors and other personnel from Iraq. He...

Uncertainty came to an end. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan accepted defeat. He pulled out arms inspectors and other personnel from Iraq. He withdrew humanitarian aid-providing agencies. He shut down the 8216;oil for food8217; programme as there would be no monitors to oversee it. But Annan added, 8220;The UN is not abandoning the Iraqi people.8221;

War is here but relief is not. So just as the most important international body lies to waste a shameful fall to boot, those in transit lift their backpacks to head out. But, where to?

In this war, five lakh Iraqis will move towards the long Iran border.

The Central Crisis Head Quarters has contingency plans for a lakh and a half to nine lakh people in refugee camps. Some agencies expect the number of refugees to quickly cross a million and while contingency plans are watching out for that number, feeding them could involve an unmanageable expense.

On the Turkish border, there will be eighteen refugee camps, of which six will be on Turkish territory housing 80,000 people. The eighteen camps will be equipped to accommodate 276,000. The situation in Iraq is dire because of the combined effect of two wars8212;with Iran in the 1980s and the Gulf War in 1991.

And then, of course, there8217;s a decade of UN sanctions, which Annan had called 8216;smart8217; because he said they had been designed to do something very specific8212;compel the dictator to allow back arms inspectors all those years ago. Of course, this never happened because the dictator never was for his dying hungry people.

This war could put to an end, a cautious refugee and prisoner of war PoW return program which Tehran and Baghdad started early in 2002, fourteen years after the end of the war between Iran and US-funded Iraq.

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Metin Corabatir, spokesperson for the UN high commission for refugees UNHCR in Turkey, says every year some 450,000 tonnes of air materials are sent to Iraq as a part of the oil for food program, but these supplies were cut.

Although Blair recently announced the restoration of the oil for food programme, the stored materials, currently stored in warehouses located in the Turkish provinces Gazianstep and Van, could be bombed and coordination could be a problem.

While UNHCR has so far spent 20 million, the need is, at least, of 60 million. International relief is in disarray. Any borrowing from the UN would be on a returnable basis.

Refugee and relief agencies are complaining of no contact with American organisations on co-ordinated activity during war. Road maps for food and aid delivery are still to be chalked out. So far the question raised was what8217;s the point of an international peace keeping body that crumbles in front of the US?

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Now it8217;s more like what8217;s the point of having a UN when it also has the audacity to kick up its shoes and leave Iraq until its 8220;safe8221; to come back and piece it all together.

There are some curious adjectives being used by experts on this war. They say it could be crisp,sharp, short, clean and decisive making it sound like pungent salad with vinaigrette dressing. And Iraqi people don8217;t know what to make of it.

Does it mean, Saddam will be ousted as Bush put in his speech on Monday night, March 18 th, 8220;the tyrant will soon be gone8221;? But bin Laden who is probably alive is the ghost of Christmas pasts, that West Asia will never forget.

So what should those in transit do? Lock themselves up in their homes because Bush tells them, 8220;Your fate depends on your movements8221;? The 8220;human cost of war8221; or 8220;collateral damage8221; by that account will only be gauged after the war, by the number of bullets that hit people escaping them or those who go buying groceries for breakfast.

The writer is with CNBC