Quality of Life Deemed Poor in Iraq
May 12, 2005

By BASSEM MROUE:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - More than two years after Saddam Hussein's fall, 85 percent of Iraqis complain of frequent power outages, only 54 percent have access to clean water and almost a quarter of Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition, a U.N.-Iraqi survey revealed Thursday.

``The survey, in a nutshell, depicts a rather tragic situation of the quality of life,'' said Iraq's new planning minister, Barham Saleh.

Although Saleh blamed years of wars, economic mismanagement and repressive policies under Saddam, conditions worsened after the U.S. invasion in 2003, and insurgents now are doing their best to tear down the economy, averaging 70 attacks a day at the start of May.

The U.S. reconstruction effort also has drawn criticism. Last week, government investigators said U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly $100 million promised for projects in south-central Iraq.

But for all the challenges, the U.N. secretary-general's deputy special representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, said the situation could be much worse.

``In spite of the bad news that we hear, a lot of what is being offered by the international community and done by the Iraqi authorities is anyway reaching a lot of people,'' he said. ``Not enough but moving - otherwise this report would have been much more serious and much worse.''

The survey, conducted last year by the U.N. Development Program and the Planning Ministry, paints a picture of persistent misery for many Iraqis.

Mohammed Najm, the owner of a Baghdad perfume shop, said Thursday the new Iraqi government should make improving infrastructure as high a priority as it does fighting the insurgency. Since Saddam's ouster, ``we haven't seen even 10 percent worth of improvement,'' he said.

Kadhim Hatem, who owns a clothing store in Baghdad, said improving living standards would help defuse the insurgency. ``If unemployment is brought down, terrorist attacks will decrease,'' he said. ``When those people have jobs, they cannot be recruited.''

A total of 21,688 households in Iraq's 18 provinces were surveyed for the report.

It found 1.5 million new housing units are needed to deal with a critical housing shortage. Almost a quarter of Iraqi children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition, and 193 women out of every 100,000 births die in labor.

Unemployment is running at just over 18 percent, literacy at 65 percent.

In addition to power and water problems, only 37 percent of the population has working sewage systems, the report said.

``If we compare this to what was there in the 1980s, we would see a major deterioration in the situation,'' Saleh said. ``In 1980, 75 percent of families had access to clean water.''

Iraq had one of the region's best infrastructures, health and education systems in the 1970s, but conditions deteriorated rapidly after Saddam became president in 1979.

In 1980, Saddam started an eight-year war against Iran. His August 1990 invasion of Kuwait launched another ruinous war and brought U.N. sanctions that remained in place until U.S. forces toppled his regime in April 2003.

``The former regime's repressive policies, its wars ... and its mismanagement of the economy are an important part of why we are here today,'' Saleh told reporters.

Source Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5001424,00.html