Oil-For-Food Adds A Little To Iraqi Tables Exemption To U.N. Sanctions Extended, Allowing Sale Of Oil

There is more and better flour in the cupboard, and salt and lentils are on tables for the first time in years.

Apart from these luxuries, though, life has changed little for Iraqis since the United Nations allowed Saddam Hussein to sell $2 billion worth of oil over the last six months to buy more food for his hungry people.

The deal was an exemption to U.N. sanctions imposed as punishment for Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the Persian Gulf War. But while the U.N. Security Council agreed unanimously Wednesday to extend the oil-for-food agreement for another six months, some Baghdad people say it makes no difference.

“It is a deal for the U.N. … and to hell with the Iraqis,” shouted Hikmat Sadoon, a 42-year-old schoolteacher who had come to shop at the city’s Jameela food market.

The deal was signed in December, but the benefits did not become apparent until April, when Iraqis received their first 41,050-ton shipment of the wheat that makes up much of their diet.

After the shipment arrived, Iraq raised the monthly flour ration from just over 15 pounds to nearly 20 pounds, and cooking oil from 1-1/2 pints to about a quart.

Lentils and salt were added to the list of essential items - flour, rice, sugar, tea, cooking oil, baby formula, soap and detergent - that have been rationed since the sanctions were imposed.

Residents say the flour now is of finer quality and there is a little bit more of it. Previously, sifting flour for impurities such as barley and corn grains would leave them with only 11 pounds.

Although the full ration package costs only 105 dinars a person - roughly the equivalent of seven cents - residents complain they cannot live on flour and rice alone. Vegetables, meat and eggs are out of reach for many.