Life in Iraq

Stat house
March 2003

Life in Iraq:
Excerpts from UN reports and the CIA factbook on Iraq
By some estimates, 260,000 may be killed outright in a new Gulf War, half of that figure civilians. The UN expects 500,000 potential direct and indirect casualties and nearly 10 million Iraqis may be in need of humanitarisn assistance. According to one UN report, in the event of war: "The collapse of essential services in Iraq ... could lead to a humanitarian emergency of proportions well beyond the capacity of UN agencies and other aid organizations."

UN war concerns include:

"[T]he effects of over 12 years of sanctions, preceded by war, have considerably increased the vulnerability of the population." Most Iraqis have exhausted their cash and material assets.

"80 percent of the average household income is constituted by the food ration."

"60 percent of the population (around 16 million persons) rely solely on the monthly food basket to meet all household needs and would be directly and seriously affected by a disruption of the food distribution system."

The 30 percent of babies born with low birth weight will be "much more vulnerable to death and under-development."

"4.2 million children under five and 1 million pregnant women are highly vulnerable."

"[I]n the event of a crisis, 30 percent of children under 5 would be at risk of death from malnutrition."

"significant risk of measles outbreaks."

Estimates vary, but unemployment in Iraq could run as high as 80 percent. An average laborer in Iraq earns about $23 each month.

About two-thirds of Iraqis depend on government food hand-outs, and 49 percent of Iraqi families' earnings do not meet their basic needs. As many as 6 million Iraqis (out of a total population og 24 million) are undernourished. Sewage and water systems are extensive but in bad repair owing to coaltion bombings and UN sanctions. Oxfam International describes Iraq as a "public health disaster."

Background
Formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, Iraq became an independent kingdom in 1932. A "republic" was proclaimed in 1958, but in actuality a series of military strongmen have ruled the country since then, the latest being SADDAM Husayn. Territorial disputes with Iran led to an inconclusive and costly eight-year war (1980-88). In August 1990 Iraq seized Kuwait, but was expelled by US-led, UN coalition forces during January-February 1991. The victors did not occupy Iraq, however, thus allowing the regime to stay in control. Following Kuwait's liberation, the UN Security Council (UNSC) required Iraq to scrap all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles and to allow UN verification inspections. UN trade sanctions remain in effect due to incomplete Iraqi compliance with relevant UNSC resolutions.

Area
Total: 437,072 sq km
Water: 4,910 sq km
Land: 432,162 sq km

Area - comparative: slightly more than twice the size of Idaho

Land boundaries
Total: 3,650 km
Border countries: Iran 1,458 km, Jordan 181 km, Kuwait 240 km, Saudi Arabia 814 km, Syria 605 km, Turkey 352 km

Climate
Mostly desert; mild to cool winters with dry, hot, cloudless summers; northern mountainous regions along Iranian and Turkish borders experience cold winters with occasionally heavy snows that melt in early spring, sometimes causing extensive flooding in central and southern Iraq

Terrain
Mostly broad plains; reedy marshes along Iranian border in south with large flooded areas; mountains along borders with Iran and Turkey

Natural resources
Petroleum, natural gas, phosphates, sulfur

Land use
Arable land: 11.89 percent
Permanent crops: 0.78 percent
other: 87.33 percent (1998 est.)

Environment - current issues
Government water control projects have drained most of the inhabited marsh areas east of An Nasiriyah by drying up or diverting the feeder streams and rivers; a once sizable population of Shi'a Muslims, who have inhabited these areas for thousands of years, has been displaced; furthermore, the destruction of the natural habitat poses serious threats to the area's wildlife populations; inadequate supplies of potable water; development of Tigris-Euphrates Rivers system contingent upon agreements with upstream riparian Turkey; air and water pollution; soil degradation (salination) and erosion; desertification.

Population
24,001,816 (July 2002 est.)

Age structure
0-14 years: 41.1 percent (male 5,003,755; female 4,849,238)
15-64 years: 55.9 percent (male 6,794,265; female 6,624,662)
65 years and over: 3 percent (male 341,520; female 388,376) (2002 est.)

Infant mortality rate
57.61 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.)

Ethnic groups
Arab 75 percent-80 percent, Kurdish 15 percent-20 percent, Turkoman, Assyrian or other 5 percent.

Religions
Muslim 97 percent (Shi'a 60 percent-65 percent, Sunni 32 percent-37 percent), Christian or other 3 percent.

Sunni Arabs
This minority has wielded power over the Shia Arab majority and the Kurdish minority since Iraq was created by the British in 1921. Their domination dates back to the time when Sunni Ottomans took control of the region in the 16th Century. More recently, when the governing Baath Party came to power in 1968, it was controlled by Sunni Arab clans from provinces in north-western Iraq.

Among them was Saddam Hussein, whose power today extends through his Sunni Arab family, extended family and his clan, the Tikritis from the small town of Tikrit on the Tigris north of Baghdad.

Sunnis dominate the country's central region with its politics, the army and administration and many branches of the security services. Another large Sunni clan that wields power is the Dulaimi clan, which makes up most of the regime's security and intelligence personnel. They have also led civil unrest and coup attempts against the president. Some 150 soldiers and officers were executed in 1995 after they revolted in response to the execution of a Dulaimi air base commander accused of planning to kill the president.

Sunnis in and out of the government tend to be secularist leaning.

Shia
Shia Arabs are predominantly in south-east Iraq, around the city of Basra, but also make up a sizeable minority of the population of Baghdad. Shia Muslims are the largest community in the country. They have historically been dominated and at times oppressed by the Sunni elite, who have excluded them from the highest ranks of power.

During Saddam Hussein's reign, Shia opposition groups have been fiercely oppressed and a number of political leaders assassinated. As a result, the opposition has tended to look to neighbouring Iran for support, and in the late 1970s, thousands of Shia were expelled to Iran under the pretext of their "Persian connections."

The Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (Sciri) in Iraq is the strongest political group and claims to represent much of the Shia population. It has between 5,000 and 10,000 troops - known as the Badr Brigades - based mainly in Iran.

The group is led by Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, whose followers have been waging a low-level war of ambushes, sabotage, and assassinations against Saddam Hussein's regime for 20 years. As the country's majority group, Shia are expecting a major say in any post-Saddam administration. Opposition leaders have warned against a US military administration.

In 1991, after the Gulf War, President Bush senior encouraged Iraqis to rise up against their leader. The opposition, including the Kurds of the north, believed this would mean the US would back a rebellion. The Badr Brigades crossed the border into southern Iraq and Shia strongholds, including the holy city of Najaf on the Euphrates, rose in revolt. Lacking US support, it was brutally suppressed. The Shia are now protected by no-fly zones in the south, patrolled by British and American fighter planes.

Christians
Before the Gulf War in 1991, Christians comprised almost one million of the Iraqi population. Chaldean Catholics are one of the largest Christian communities. Today, there are an estimated 650,000 Christians and all the churches report that number is still shrinking, as many continue to leave the country. Many left to join relatives in the West after the Gulf War and the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq.

Assyrian and Chaldean Catholics - who acknowledge the supremacy of the Catholic Pope - are the largest Christian communities. They can trace their ancestries to ancient Mesopotamia and the surrounding lands.

Other Iraqi Christians include Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics and Greek Catholics and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The Iraqi constitution allows freedom of religion. Many Christians can be found in the northern cities of Kirkuk, Arbil and Mosul, but there are also a significant number in Baghdad.

Christians have risen to the top ranks in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz prominent among them. Commentators say anti-Christian violence has been largely suppressed by the Baath regime.

Iraq's Christian communities have lived in harmony with their neighbours for decades. In Mosul, for example, there are an estimated 50,000 Christians. But some communities have been subjected to the government's systematic "relocation programmes." For the Christians, this has been particularly marked in the oil-rich areas, where the government has tried to create Arab majorities near oil fields to secure control of economic assets.

Some Christians fear that a US-led conflict in the country could generate anger against them. They recall the Gulf War, when "New Crusaders" was how many Muslims sympathetic to Saddam Hussein described the American and allied forces.

Kurds
Kurds are members of an ethnic group that mainly inhabit south-eastern Turkey, north-western Iran, northern Iraq and parts of Syria. They are descendants of Indo-European tribes and appear in the history of the early empire of Mesopotamia. They trace their distinct history as mountain people to the 7th Century BC.

Kurdish nationalism manifested itself in the late 19th Century, but the aspirations of Kurdish nationalists have remained unfulfilled. Together, they make up the world's largest ethnic group without a state. They are predominantly Sunni Muslim, a religion that was embraced by the Kurds around the 7th Century AD.

Iraqi Kurds, who make up 15% to 20% of the country's population, have been fighting for self-rule from Baghdad since 1961.

In 1970, an agreement between Kurdish leaders and the Iraqi Government paved the way for the Kurdistan Autonomous Region (KAR) to be set up in northern Iraq four years later. After the 1991 Gulf War, Baghdad lost its control of the KAR and, with the protection of American and British planes keeping Saddam Hussein's forces at bay, the Kurds formed a de facto state in the mountains.

Kurds have in the past been victims of military campaigns by the central government. During the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Kurdish guerrillas stepped up their opposition against the regime, with help from Iran. The Iraqi president deployed troops in the north in response.

In 1988, he unleashed a seven-month campaign against strongholds belonging to one of the main Kurdish parties, involving use of chemical weapons affecting thousands of villages. In March of that year, at least 5,000 Kurds perished in one hour when forces dropped chemical bombs on the eastern town of Halabja.

And, in 1991, after the Gulf War, Kurdish nationalists persuaded the local army auxiliary force comprising Kurds to change sides and take part in a rebellion. But the insurrection was crushed, causing an exodus of about 1.5 million Kurds into Iraq and Turkey.

The Kurds have also made up the bulk of the estimated nearly one million Iraqis who have been displaced during Saddam Hussein's rule. These systematic programmes have been conducted by the Baath Party in an attempt to control the oil-rich areas in the north of Iraq.

Policies have included forcible expulsion or stripping families of identities, property documents and food ration cards. Many have fled the country or ended up in squalid camps for displace people within the KAR.

The Kurdish enclave is controlled by two factions - the PUK in the north-east headed by Jalal Talabani, and the KDP which dominates the north-west and is headed by Massoud Barzani. For the past 10 years the two have been bloody rivals, but recently signed a unity pact.

They constitute the greatest armed challenge to the Iraqi regime - between them, the two groups can muster about 60,000 fighters. The Kurds favour a post-Saddam constitution that envisages two federal regions, one in the predominantly Kurdish north and one in the Arab south. But this would likely bring opposition from one of Iraq's powerful neighbours, Turkey, which, with its own Kurdish population of 12 million, is very sensitive about anything that could be construed as a Kurdish move towards independence.

Languages
Arabic, Kurdish (official in Kurdish regions), Assyrian, Armenian

Economy - overview
Iraq's economy is dominated by the oil sector, which has traditionally provided about 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings. In the 1980s financial problems caused by massive expenditures in the eight-year war with Iran and damage to oil export facilities by Iran led the government to implement austerity measures, borrow heavily, and later reschedule foreign debt payments; Iraq suffered economic losses from the war of at least $100 billion. After hostilities ended in 1988, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and restoration of damaged facilities. Iraq's seizure of Kuwait in August 1990, subsequent international economic sanctions, and damage from military action by an international coalition beginning in January 1991 drastically reduced economic activity. Although government policies supporting large military and internal security forces and allocating resources to key supporters of the regime have hurt the economy, implementation of the UN's oil-for-food program in December 1996 has helped improve conditions for the average Iraqi citizen. For the first six, six-month phases of the program, Iraq was allowed to export limited amounts of oil in exchange for food, medicine, and some infrastructure spare parts. In December 1999 the UN Security Council authorized Iraq to export under the program as much oil as required to meet humanitarian needs. Oil exports are now more than three-quarters prewar level. However, 28 percent of Iraq's export revenues under the program are deducted to meet UN Compensation Fund and UN administrative expenses. The drop in GDP in 2001 was largely the result of the global economic slowdown and lower oil prices. Per capita food imports have increased significantly, while medical supplies and health care services are steadily improving. Per capita output and living standards are still well below the prewar level, but any estimates have a wide range of error.

GDP - per capita
Purchasing power parity - $2,500 (2001 est.)

Exports
$15.8 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)

Exports - commodities
Crude oil

Exports - partners
US 46.2 percent, Italy 12.2 percent, France 9.6 percent, Spain 8.6 percent (2000)

Imports
$11 billion (f.o.b., 2001 est.)

Imports - commodities
food, medicine, manufactures

Imports - partners
France 22.5 percent, Australia 22 percent, China 5.8 percent, Russia 5.8 percent (2000)

For more:
UN crisis scenarios
UN oil for food program
Budget committee report on cost of Iraq war

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