*EPF305 04/09/2003
Coalition Efforts to Provide Aid, Restore Services in Iraq Continue
(State Department Report, April 9) (990)

By Jane Morse
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Plans to "win the peace" in Iraq continue to move forward, says State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher.

"Just as we've been planning carefully for military victory, we've been planning to win the peace, and that has been an ongoing process," Boucher told reporters during the daily State Department briefing April 9.

"Our initial effort, after the military secures the situation, is being led by the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, headed by Jay Garner and done in cooperation with other members of the coalition," he said. "Their focus is to help restore services, to help restore immediate services, basic services, to the Iraqi people. And then, as early as possible, we want to get to work on an Iraqi interim authority."

Plans are now under way for a meeting with liberated Iraqis from newly freed areas of Iraq as well as members of the free Iraqi opposition who have been overseas, Boucher said. The location and the date of the meeting have not yet been determined, but Special Presidential Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad will lead a U.S. delegation to the meeting.

"We expect this to be the first in a series of regional meetings that will provide a forum for Iraqis to discuss their vision of the future of Iraq and their ideas regarding the Iraqi interim authority," Boucher said.

The U.S. hope, he said, is that these meetings will culminate in a conference to be held in Baghdad, which will then establish the Iraqi interim authority. "That Iraqi interim authority, of course, will serve as a temporary authority during a transition period, until fully representative elections can be held and a new government formed," Boucher said.

He emphasized: "It's been a very consistent position of the United States that the future of Iraq needs to be decided by the Iraqi people and needs to be decided by a very wide range of Iraqi people so that all the different groups, all the different regions, all the different areas and cities of Iraq are represented in the transition and then the Iraqi people get their own chance through elections to decide who their representatives will be."

Regarding humanitarian assistance to Iraq, Boucher said progress is being made on allocating shipping, and prepositioning and delivering emergency supplies and food. U.S. money allocated to this effort for immediate relief already comes to $874 million, he said.

He noted that the British supply ship Sir Galahad is already in Iraq's port at Umm Qasr. Food, water and medical help are also arriving from Spain; and a ship carrying 700 metric tons of food and water from the United Arab Emirates is expected to reach Umm Qasr April 10. The Kuwaiti Joint Relief Committee convoy carrying water, food and blankets was expected to arrive in an Nasiriyah April 8.

Local community representatives will distribute the British aid, along with that from the World Food Program starting April 12, he said.

"There are pockets of need in Iraq, particularly as the destruction of regular distribution systems has occurred with the fighting," Boucher said. "But there are also people, frankly, who are benefiting from city services, who are benefiting from supplies that they couldn't get under the previous Saddam Hussein regime." He said that at least some of the poverty suffered by Iraqis has been caused by "the intentional discrimination of the Saddam Hussein regime against certain groups and minorities."

Regarding the current plight of overflowing Iraqi hospitals, Boucher said: "We have made very clear that we have made every effort possible to avoid civilian casualties in this conflict. Nonetheless, we know that those casualties do occur."

He added: "We feel great sympathy for the people that may be harmed in the course of the fighting either because ... they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or because the Iraqi government, as we've seen, has intentionally put civilians in harm's way."

To help alleviate the medical needs of the Iraqi people, the coalition has delivered medical supplies to local hospitals in areas now controlled by the British, the spokesman said.

"The U.S. government pre-positioned 97 World Health Organization kits in the region," Boucher said. "Each of these kits is designed to serve 10,000 people for approximately three months. Kits contain a basic and a supplementary unit. The basic kit contains 12 non-injectable drugs, as well as medical supplies. The supplemental kit, to be administered only by professional health-care workers or physicians, contains more drugs, including injectables.

"Yesterday the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health medical supply convoy of 12 refrigerated trucks arrived to restock hospitals in Umm Qasr, Safwan, Al Zubair. Medical personnel will remain at Umm Qasr to assist the hospital until the convoy returns from the other cities.

"Medical teams are also prepared to enter Northern Iraq with additional staff, volunteers and medicine. Medical supplies from the International Committee of the Red Cross reached hospitals near Basra on April 4th, and the organization has also begun trucking water to the three main hospitals in Basra and to a neighboring town."

The spokesman also noted that coalition military units have been caring for civilians.

Regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Boucher reiterated the U.S. belief that Iraq's "whole weapon capability was well hidden" and noted that evidence uncovered so far by coalition forces clearly shows that "Iraqi forces have been prepared for a chemical environment."

"There is no doubt that there are weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi forces have been prepared to use them," he said.

Finding all these weapons will take time, he acknowledged, but may become easier when Iraqis feel free enough to talk about where these weapons are stored.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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