Thursday, April 08, 2004

Humanitarian crisis coming

Battles rage at two Iraqi mosques: "Iraqi insurgents fought U.S. troops at two mosques in Fallujah and held sway over all or part of three cities in southern Iraq in the worst chaos and violence since Baghdad fell a year ago Friday. "
And remember that "humanitarian crisis" which didn't happen last April? Well, stay tuned.
My analysis is that Iraqis have had enough and they will keep fighting now as long as their ammunition holds out because they want to push the troops out of their cities.
But the flow of food and medicine into these cities will stop as a result. Last spring, there was no humanitarian crisis because Saddam had distributed three months food from the Oil for Food program, and the war bypassed the cities to a large extent in the push for Bagdad.
But as this rebellion continues, people will have to gather their families and try to escape the fighting by moving into the country or by trying to cross the borders into Kuwait or Jordon or Syria or Iran. This will be a disaster.

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