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Iraq

MCC worker moves to Iraq despite threat of war

by Maria Linder-Hess
AKRON, Pa. -- A Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker moved to Baghdad in March even as the United States considers military strikes against Iraq.

Edward Miller is beginning an 18-month stay in Iraq, where he will oversee and report on MCC aid shipments and other humanitarian assistance. MCC's previous workers in Iraq left in April 2001.

Miller, most recently of Nairobi, Kenya, moved to Baghdad in mid-March; at the same time U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney toured 11 other countries in the Middle East, primarily to solicit support for possible U.S. military action in Iraq.

"We [at MCC] hear the rhetoric; we don't know what's going to happen," Miller said. "Obviously we're all concerned."

Miller will also work with MCC offices in Canada and the United States to press for the lifting of U.N.-imposed sanctions, now in their 12th year. Through living in Baghdad, he hopes to gain an understanding of what daily life is like in Iraq, he said.

Most of Iraq's 25 million people are "caught up in a giant geopolitical drama," said Menno Wiebe, MCC country co-representative for Jordan and Iraq. Wiebe, who lives in Amman, Jordan, has visited Iraq six times in the past two years.

"The current struggle between their government and the international community prevents them from living with secure food sources, water systems, communication and roads -- all things they could rely on before 1990," Wiebe said.

Besides everyday inconveniences, structural failures have major implications for the people's welfare. "For example," said Wiebe, "immunizations cannot remain intact without constant refrigeration. So temporary electrical breaks can be devastating -- especially in a country where medicines are already in short supply."

Since the United Nations imposed economic sanctions in 1990, MCC has sent food and material resources valued at nearly $1.6 million Cdn./$1 million U.S. to partner organizations in Iraq. In addition to these shipments, MCC funds projects inside Iraq including school rehabilitation and tomato cultivation.

In March MCC shipped a container loaded with health, school and sewing kits, bed sheets and fabric that is scheduled to arrive in Baghdad mid-April. CARE International, an MCC partner agency, will distribute the supplies to hospitals, schools for the deaf and workshops that employ people with disabilities.

Maria Linder-Hess is a writer/editor for MCC Communications.

=A9 2002 Mennonite Central Committee

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