Now food is running out in Iraq....

On her way to Jersualem [see last posting] Condi dropped in in a flying-visit on Baghdad last weekend. She and the Iraqi PM proudly announced that the latest beefed up security measures had been successful in cutting down the suicide bombers especially in Baghdad.

As the last days have shown nothing could be further from the truth. The carnage has continued with suicide bombers killing and maiming many.

Meanwhile, life for Iraqis gets worse by the day:

"Look at us begging for food despite the fortunes we have," 60-year-old Um Muthanna from Baghdad told IPS. Standing at a vegetable market in central Baghdad where vegetable supplies are not what they used to be, Um Mahmood despaired for Iraq.

"A country with two great rivers should have been the biggest exporter in the world, but now we beg for food from those who participated in killing us." Iraq is rich in oil and agricultural resources.

Local and international aid flooded into Iraq in 2004, the year following the invasion, but much of the supply was blocked off after the kidnapping of many aid activists in the country.

The food the Iraqis did get was often not what they needed, or wanted."

Read Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatchs in full here.

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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