“A country with two great rivers should have been the biggest exporter in the world, but now we beg for food from those who participated in killing us.”
Iraq is rich in agricultural resources.
Barley, wheat, pulses and the famous Iraqi dates are staple diet. Common meals in Iraq include rice, lamb, chicken and locally grown vegetables like cucumbers, onions and tomatoes.
But, when Paul Bremer began governing Iraq after the invasion, he lowered tariffs on imported goods, including food, Iraq farmers could not compete and many went into bankruptcy.
And then the cost of imported food inflated dramatically, fueling stability-challenging inflation. The farmers who remained in business are hampered getting their produce to market by the scarcity of gas and the security situation in the country.
Initially, international aid helped provide food, but much of that was stopped after aids workers were kidnapped as the insurgency began. That left Australian and other US contractors to send in food stuffs. But there are problems:
Low quality – In July 2006, thousands of tons of contaminated food was destroyed that was past its expiry date and that had already caused wide-spread food poisoning. Distributions of Australian wheat were found to contain steel fragments.
Corruption – Sectarian favoritism or simple corruption in the distribution of food rations, which 60% of Iraqis use and which 6.5 million are “highly dependent” upon.
When something as basic eating is a big problem, people aren’t thinking about democracy or feeling any gratitude toward their “liberators.”
“The whole country has been stolen from us. If this goes on another six months, we will be just like any starving country.”
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