This had better not become a matter of too little too late …

“A city of that size cannot afford to go without electricity or water for long.” - Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, talking of the crisis in Basra, southern Iraq.

“[The war is being conducted to] minimise the suffering of the Iraqi people.” - Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Basra is Iraq’s second largest city. It has 1.5 million inhabitants. The Red Cross has had a role there for twelve years, trying to improve its water supply. The only way Red Cross workers have been able to maintain Basra’s water supply has been to patch it up directly to the local river system - which is contaminated by sewage. Kofi Annan has made the obvious legal and moral point: the invaders are now responsible for the welfare of the civilian population behind the frontline of the conflict.

However the problem is emerging in Iraq is that hard line loyalists to “the regime” (including disciplined Republican Guard troops) are, predictably, not fighting fair. They are dispersing into cities which have nominally “fallen” to snipe at and harass the occupying forces. These fedayeen fighters have learned the obvious lesson from the first Gulf War – that guerrilla tactics may succeed where they could never win in a pitched battle. The Iraqi forces have prepared for urban warfare, and our military leaders admit to underestimating them.

This makes necessary humanitarian relief difficult to impossible.

Another problem for the relief effort is supply lines. It seems generally accepted that relief supplies will need to enter the country through Umm Qsar harbour – but not only is the port city itself “not “secured”, but coalition naval forces are still removing mines from the bay.

Last Wednesday Prime Minister John Howard said “massive humanitarian assistance - food, water and medicines - [will be delivered by the allies] to the Iraqi people in the next few days as the security situation, particularly in the south stabilises.” Nearly a week later, there is not much sign of that happening.

Part of the reason for the lack of security, is probably the same reason that US “liberators” are not being welcomed with smiles and open arms. Simply put, the Iraqi people do not trust the western powers. Why should they? When the Shiite majority in the South rose up against the Baath party twelve years ago after the first Gulf War their rebellion was brutally put down without a single laser-guided allied bomb falling in their support.

I think they can be forgiven for feeling a little jaded and wary. We abandoned them to their fate once before, and in their situation I’d suspect we’d do it again.

Further, like everyone else, they were promised a short war and the rapid provision of food, medicine and assistance. Another promise we’re not delivering on. The reports from inside Iraq are of a civilian population where hope is being displaced by anger towards the invasion force. These are not people, who following years of sanctions, have any adequate supplies to sit out the war. UN food agencies do not expect the civilian population’s food reserves to last into May. AFP wire service reports from Nasiriyah, north-west of Umm Qasar and Basra tell of hunger-inspired looting.

Also, to be fair, the coalition is hamstrung by its own morality. Trying to keep civilian casualties to a minimum works as a double blow against the allies. It allows the Republican Guard to disperse into residential areas and hide among civilians. The allied policy also encourages, inside and outside Iraq, the belief that the war was meant to be without civilian casualties - which is certainly affecting Iraqi support for the invasion, and in the longer run may swing public opinion in the UK and Australia back away from increasing support for the war.

But beyond this, a question has to be asked: are coalition forces stretched too thin? Do we have the troops on the ground to press on to Bagdad, but also to secure civilian centres adequately so relief can commence? The now famous New Yorker article suggests the Bush administration rejected up to six war plans on the grounds it could be done with fewer troops. (And Rumsfeld’s denials are far from convincing on this point.) Despite the fact that for some months yet, it will be the military that must supply relief and emergency infrastructure work (simply because they are the only co-ordinated force on the ground trained to operate under fire), there does not appear to have been any clear plan for military humanitarian relief. Nor can I buy the argument that it’s no job for the army. If we don't have the troops to do the job, and the humanitarian effort suffers as a result, we will be paying for it throughout the reconstruction in terms of continued Iraqi resistence to occupation and hostility to their "liberators".

And who is going to pay for reconstruction? In a sluggish US economy George Bush wants to deliver further tax cuts and ask Congress for $US 75 billion just to get through the next six months of the war. Apparently the Pentagon figure for war costs is about $US 100 billion, or about 1 percent of US GDP. The US wants to keep non-coalition, and possibly even non-US, companies out of the reconstruction effort, shunting the UN to one side. Jay Gardner, an old colleague of Donald Rumsfeld (and a former general) is tipped to head the reconstruction effort.

Britain is making noises about a UN Security Council Resolution after the war to legitimise the results and give the coalition primary responsibility for rebuilding Iraq. This is pretty much what happened, for example, with NATO in Kosovo. Except, of course, France, Russia and China won’t have a bar of it.

Overall, it is hard to see the US alone having the will and the resources to reconstruct Iraq largely unassisted.

It appears to be anticipated that Iraqi oil money will foot the bill, which should flow fairly readily when sanctions end. (Australia’s call for the resumption of the “food for oil” program is not entirely altruistic, as our own Foreign Minister has noted in public the Australian Wheat Board was a big supplier to Iraq under former “food for oil” trading. That said, we are apparently donating 100,000 metric tonnes of food.)

Personally, I agree with Chris Maxwell QC, now that our government has implicated us in this regrettable, improvident and illegal war - we are obliged to make a substantial commitment to reconstruction.

And this is why I cannot support a call for the Australian troops to come home. Like Macbeth, we are now so steeped in blood it is as easy to press on as turn back. Indeed, the moral imperative is that we carry on. I cannot see how, morally, we could advocate the withdrawal of our own troops without advocating the withdrawal of all forces from Iraq.

Now that the war has started, pulling all coalition forces out would lead to the worst of all possible outcomes: massive damage to Iraqi infrastructure, a humanitarian crisis commenced, and a repressive dictator still in charge of an even further brutalised, demoralised and impoverished population. The least-worst option now is finishing what we have started. Though I don't think the humanitarian argument was ever made out as a convincing case for entering the war, but now we are there it makes a convincing case for seeing it through.

If anything there need to be more forces in Iraq - not at the front line - but securing humanitarian relief works and food aid behind the front line, and sooner rather than later. Further, the odds of any reconstruction being successful if Iraqi civilians are left to die of hunger and dysentery in cities the size of Perth are slim. The amount of violent resistance, and even terror, the reconstruction transitional authority is met with will be directly proportionate to the suffering of the Iraqi people in the interim.

I never thought I’d say this, but there is currently a case for getting behind the war effort - admittedly in a morally limited way. The best hope for civilian relief at the moment is more military intervention, not less.

Further news on this issue

Apparently AusAID, the agency responsible for distributing Commonwealth government funds for international relief projects, has pledged $100 million to humanitarian action in Iraq - $73 million of this will be wheat distribution.

It’s a start. The Australian Red Cross has so far received $22,000 in private donations as well.