Hospitals are not only short of such medicine as antibiotics, but also of gloves for doctors, light bulbs for operating theatres. The monthly food ration lasts two weeks and malnutrition is everywhere. Mr Annan wants to raise the energy intake from 2,030 kilocalories per head per day to 2,450, include a bit more protein in the food basket, and provide supplementary food for nearly 2m particularly vulnerable people. Most Iraqis are preoccupied with surviving. Schools are run down, with no textbooks, let alone computers.
Children stay away to beg at traffic lights throughout Baghdad.
But this terrible suffering of the Iraqi people has in no way weakened Saddam Hussein. In fact Saddam uses the blockade to reinforce his hold over the Iraqi people. The logic is that if Saddam is against US imperialism, and the people of Iraq are against US imperialism, then the people will be for Saddam Hussein. That is the way the regime maintains itself. They want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but the more they want to get rid of him the more it props up his power.