Peyman Pejman

Mention Iraq these days and the most immediate impression will likely be daily attacks on US soldiers, assassination of Iraqis, explosions, or maybe difficulties in transferring power from the US-led occupation force to Iraqi officials. But more and more Iraqi — and international — leaders are warning that the real threat in Iraq lies somewhere else, and that, if it is not addressed soon enough, it can wreak havoc.

‘’The need for (improving) social programme is huge and nothing compares to them. They are our highest priority and will remain so,’’ Mehdi Hafez, Iraq’s planning minister told an Iraq donors’ conference in the United Arab Emirates last month.

Hafez and other Iraqi, US and UN officials have warned that unless Iraq can quickly rebuild its social infrastructure network, future Iraqi governments might pay a high political price for it.

Hafez went to the donors’ conference with a wish list to spend four billion United States dollars on 700 projects by the end of the year. Of that amount, almost three billion dollars would have been spent on education, health, electricity, and water projects. Hafez only received pledges for a quarter of what he wanted.

A donors’ meeting in Madrid last year promised to pay 16 billion dollars toward Iraq’s reconstruction in the next three to five years, but the overwhelming portion of that money will come once sovereignty is handed over from occupation forces to Iraqi officials. Washington plans to spend 18 billion dollars of its own money in Iraq this year.

Iraqi officials argue that the social needs are manifold.

Although official Iraqi figures put the employment and underemployment at about 50 per cent, UN and US officials believe the real figure is closer to 70 per cent.

Drinking water is another major concern. Iraq’s two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, supply drinking water to two-thirds of the country’s 25 million people, but 60 per cent

of the supply is lost to leaks or ‘’illegal connections’’, according to United States officials in Baghdad. Nationwide, only six per cent of waste is treated and only nine per cent of

the urban areas have their sewage treated.

Health care is a field Iraq once prided itself in, but no longer. Some of the damage caused to the medical and health care facilities has little to do with Saddam’s regime or the war that toppled him. Looters ransacked most of the major hospitals in Baghdad and other cities soon after their fall and stole anything from medical supplies to oxygen canisters and surgical equipment.

One of the areas that both Iraqi and occupation officials have expressed special concern about is schools. Whether because of damage caused during the war or neglect by the former regime, 80 per cent of primary and secondary schools in Iraq need ‘’significant reconstruction’’, says Adm David Nash, director of the office responsible for spending United States reconstruction funds in Iraq.

Although the numbers have decreased, Iraqi, UN officials say too many students still do not go to school.

Finally, one reason why Iraqi officials say they need immediate cash infusion to quell the possibility of social and political unrest is the need to ensure a reliable supply of electricity. Even in Saddam’s time, Iraq only produced about 80 per cent of the electricity it needed.

Baghdad received a supply of about 22 hours a day, but only at the expense of many hours of darkness in rural areas and smaller cities.

After the war, many Iraqis blamed the occupying forces for not fixing the damaged electricity lines fast enough. — IPS