The situation in Iraq deteriorated steadily in 1998. Already at the beginning of the year the United States threatened to resort to force, but the visit to Baghdad from 20 to 23 February by the UN Secretary-General made it possible to reach an agreement. In April the Security Council renewed the sanctions in effect since 1991. In spite of the extension of "oil for food" resolution 986, the humanitarian problems stemming from the sanctions worsened. In August the Iraqi authorities declared that they were no longer willing to cooperate with the international experts. The crisis intensified in October and November and all UN personnel were evacuated. On 5 November the Security Council adopted a new resolution and the UNSCOM* inspections resumed. A fresh crisis erupted following the report by the Chairman of UNSCOM. On 15 December UNSCOM personnel were evacuated once again and during the night of 16/17 December the United States and the United Kingdom launched a four-day campaign of air strikes dubbed "Operation Desert Fox".

The authorities in Baghdad stated that they would not allow UNSCOM to return and refused to comply with the air exclusion zones in the south and north of Iraq which had been in force since the Gulf war. The final days of 1998 were marked by incidents involving American aircraft and Iraqi air defence systems, and the year ended on a very tense note.

Operation Desert Fox

As soon as the air strikes began, the ICRC sent a diplomatic note to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Iraq reminding them of their obligations under international humanitarian law.

Under that body of law, belligerents must take all necessary precautions to spare civilians and civilian property, to treat persons captured humanely, to ensure that the wounded and sick are collected and cared for, to protect medical establishments, personnel and means of transport, and to ensure respect for the red cross/red crescent emblem.

In Iraq itself the ICRC set up an emergency programme. Medical sets to treat the war-wounded, sheets and blankets were distributed with the cooperation of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society to Baghdad’s four major hospitals and to the main medical facilities in 14 other governorates.

In Tikrit, 200 kilometres to the north of Baghdad, a 400-bed hospital suffered blast damage when three missiles landed close by. The ICRC immediately started work to put the hospital back into operation as rapidly as possible. Repair work is set to continue in 1999.

The situation at six water treatment plants around the capital and those in Basra, Nasiriyah and Mosul was checked. Fortunately, no damage was found.

The decline in the living conditions of the Iraqi population, due in particular to the embargo that has remained in force for over eight years, continued to cause concern for the ICRC in 1998.

Assistance for the civilian population in Iraq

Despite implementation of "oil for food" resolution 986, the situation remained very difficult for the Iraqi population throughout the year. Oil production did not reach the level authorized by the Sanctions Committee, mainly because of the poor state of the installations, so Iraq was unable to import the necessary quantities of medicines, food and other essentials to make up for shortages. The medical infrastructure, water treatment and electricity generating plants and communication systems, which had been out of action or disused since the beginning of the embargo in 1991, were also in a very precarious state. Water and sanitation programmes (see below) therefore remained a priority.

Water and sanitation

Although the implementation of resolution 986 enabled Iraq's water boards to obtain materials for the maintenance and repair of installations, the problems resulting from several years' interruption in the operation of certain facilities continued to cause a great deal of concern. As in previous years, the ICRC devoted a large part of its budget for Iraq to water treatment and sanitation work. However, in view of the general state of the country’s water-supply systems, this went only a short way towards meeting needs.

The seven ICRC teams (two expatriates and some 30 Iraqi engineers and technicians) completed some 50 projects throughout the country to repair or maintain drinking water and waste water treatment plants and sewage systems. Overall, several million people benefited from these programmes.

The ICRC supplied the chemicals and other materials necessary to operate and maintain water treatment and production plants. It supervised renovation work and, wherever possible, gave priority to the use of local personnel and resources (purchases or production on the spot).

Programmes for amputees

In 1998 the ICRC and the Iraqi authorities signed several agreements relating to ongoing prosthetic/orthotic programmes for the war-disabled, mainly amputees from the Iran-Iraq conflict, casualties of the fighting in northern Iraq and people injured by landmines. On 28March an agreement was concluded with the Ministry of Education concerning cooperation between the ICRC and the Institute of Medical Technology in Baghdad (assistance for an outpatient clinic at the Institute and training for specialist staff). In July the ICRC held a one-week seminar on the production of lower-limb prostheses using polypropylene. Eight technicians from the Ministries of Health and of Defence, the Institute and the Iraqi Red Crescent took part in the seminar, which resulted in the publication of a technical handbook in Arabic.

February saw the opening of the Ibn Al-Kuff centre. The centre, which depends on the Ministry of Defence, produced around 60 prostheses a month from the time it was opened. The ICRC had funded and supervised rehabilitation work on the premises under an agreement signed in December 1997.

The cooperation agreement on the ICRC’s prosthetic/orthotic activities in northern Iraq was also renewed in 1998.

Throughout the year the ICRC continued to run its component workshop in Baghdad. It also provided technical and financial support for four Ministry of Health limb-fitting centres in Baghdad, Basra and Najaf and for a Iraqi Red Crescent centre in Mosul.

The ICRC launched an information campaign on activities relating to amputees with the support of the Iraqi Red Crescent and the Ministry of Health. Awareness-raising tours were organized and documentation was distributed.

The ICRC also stepped up its efforts to familiarize the Iraqi population with its activities. It signed an agreement with the Ministry of Information and Culture to spread knowledge of the ICRC’s activities and mandate among schoolchildren by means of a magazine. In addition, a news bulletin was published in Arabic, Kurdish and English for the general public and the national and international organizations working in the country.

Under an agreement with the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, 650,000 lottery tickets were printed with inserts describing the ICRC’s activities in Iraq. This was supplemented by a promotional spot shown daily on television.

Cooperation between the ICRC and the Iraqi Red Crescent essentially in-volved assistance programmes – provision of medical and surgical supplies to the country’s health facilities, support for the Iraqi Red Crescent’s prosthetic/orthotic workshop in Mosul, and non-food aid for displaced persons in northern Iraq.

Efforts were also made in the area of preparing National Societies for emergency and conflict situations in order to optimize operational capacity.

Cooperation relating to the restoration of family ties continued. The ICRC carried out an assessment at the various branches of the National Society with a view to setting up a plan of action in 1999. An agreement on the dissemination of humanitarian principles was signed at the end of the year.

The new President of the Iraqi Red Crescent was received at ICRC head-quarters in October.
Matters relating to the aftermath of the Iran/Iraq conflict and the Gulf war are dealt with in separate sections. [13]

Northern Iraq

The beginning of the year was relatively calm in northern Iraq because of the dialogue initiated by the PUK* and the KDP* with a view to reconciliation between the two factions. Towards the end of May the Turkish armed forces, which back the KDP, carried out military operations against the PKK.* Sporadic clashes continued up to November, when full-scale fighting resumed. The military operations took place mainly to the north of Arbil in relatively sparsely populated areas, and thus had a limited effect on the civilian population. Nevertheless, around 600 families were forced to flee the combat zones and had to be given emergency assistance (see below).

On 17 September the KDP and the PUK signed an agreement in Washington for the establishment of a joint provisional government in advance of fresh elections. The agreement also provided for the withdrawal of the PKK from Iraqi soil, the release of detainees arrested for political reasons and the return of displaced persons to their places of origin.

Representations to the authorities

Throughout the year the ICRC made recommendations to its contacts concerning respect for the civilian population on the part of fighters of all the parties involved.

Visits to detainees

Delegates continued to visit civilian and military detainees in many places of detention in northern Iraq. The number of detainees dropped sharply following several releases in early 1998, and conditions of detention improved as a result. The ICRC provided the detainees visited with ad hoc assistance.

Medical and non-food aid

Following the clashes between Kurdish factions, surgical material sufficient to treat around 2,000 war-wounded was handed over to some 20 health facilities in the region.

Although the clashes occurred in sparsely populated areas, they forced hundreds of civilians to seek refuge further south. With the cooperation of volunteers from local branches of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the ICRC distributed emergency supplies to displaced persons who had received no aid from the authorities or other humanitarian organizations.

IN 1998, THE ICRC:

	– repatriated to their respective countries, in February, 6 people who had entered Iraq illegally; – visited, at the Abu Ghraib centre, 78 nationals of countries without diplomatic representation; – carried out, in northern Iraq, 98 visits to 35 places of detention where it saw 1,516 people detained for security reasons or in connection with the fighting between the various Kurdish factions; – provided ad hoc aid for detainees visited in northern Iraq;
	– issued 968 travel documents for refugees;
	– supplied ad hoc mate-rial assistance to the most needy groups of people displaced by the fighting since 1994 in the northern governorates (8,000 families in total); – provided emergency assistance for people displaced by recent fighting in the same region (600 families);
	– during the Desert Fox air strikes, provided 4 hospitals in Baghdad and a dozen others elsewhere in the country with emergency medical and surgical supplies sufficient to treat 500 war-wounded; – rehabilitated a hospital in Tikrit damaged by the air attacks; – continued throughout the year to furnish medical supplies for hos-pitals across Iraq; – supplied some 20 health facilities in northern Iraq with surgical material sufficient to treat around 2,000 war-wounded during the year;
	– continued to provide support for 4 government prosthetic/orthotic centres (in Baghdad, Basra and Najaf), the Iraqi Red Crescent centre in Mosul and its own centre in Arbil (northern Iraq); – produced, in its workshop in Baghdad, 3,096 prostheses (1,699 of them for victims of anti-personnel mines), 2,733 orthoses and 136 pairs of elbow crutches; – contributed to the training of technicians from all over the country, and held a course at the Institute of Medical Technology in Baghdad on the production of polypropylene prostheses under an agreement signed with the Ministry of Education;
	– completed about 50 projects involving water treatment and distribution plants across the country and provided the equipment and products necessary for maintenance and construction work on the installations, carried out in cooperation with the Iraqi water boards;
	– continued to support the 3 branches of the National Society in northern Iraq, in particular in providing emergency aid for displaced families; – gave support to the Iraqi Red Crescent limb-fitting centre in Mosul; – signed an agreement with the Iraqi Red Crescent on the dissemination of humanitarian principles whereby volunteers will be trained in this area as of 1999; – carried out an assessment of the National Society's activities to restore family ties, so as to upgrade on-the-job training of specialized staff, and in the area of preparedness for emergency and conflict situations;
	– presented the ICRC’s activities and mandate to schoolchildren in a magazine designed especially for them; – printed descriptions of the ICRC’s activities in Iraq on 650,000 lottery tickets, and produced complementary spots shown daily on Iraqi television; – published a news bulletin for the general public in Arabic, Kurdish and English.