Opinion

THE REAL SCANDAL OF IRAQI RELIEF FOLLIES AT FIVE O’CLOCK

BAGHDAD

THEY come from all over the world. Their supposed mission is to help the people of Iraq. Their concerned frowns and even their clothes all proclaim the message: “We’re the good, caring people . . . and you’re not.”

But if actions speak louder than words, then many of the international charitable organizations called NGOs (non-governmental organizations) here are less interested in doing good works than in moral posturing and haranguing the army that won a war most of them opposed.

Ask any soldier who patrols this city, and you’ll hear the same thing: The NGOs have been here for weeks, but they’re not out in the streets. They cite “security concerns” – though journalists and soldiers alike move around the city, using common sense and taking precautions.

(This absence is also true of the United Nations, which has a fleet of $65,000 SUVs sitting uselessly in the sun outside its headquarters at the Canal Hotel. One U.N. program is active – the food program – but on its first day on the job, one of its workers was caught looting and arrested by the U.S. Army.)

TO catch the NGOs in “action,” you must go to the daily meeting at 1700 hours at the palazzo occupied by CMCC – that’s the Civilian Military Coordination Center. (It used to be CMOC – the civilian military operations center – but the NGOs complained that the name implied that they were operating together with the military!)

At the meeting are NGO representatives, officials from the U.S. Organization for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid (ORHA) and Army officers from headquarters around Baghdad.

At the head of a long table in the middle of the room sits an army “facilitator,” Maj. Tony Coleman – a man with the patience of Job. On rows of gilt chairs on all sides of the table sit about 30 civilians and a sprinkling of soldiers.

A few of the civilians are Iraqis. The rest are international bureaucrats, most of them shiny with privilege, all of them bursting with self-righteousness.

Army officers stand all along the walls. Compared to the aid workers (with their new clothes and expensive haircuts), they look dirty and tired.

The soldiers must doff their rifles and sidearms before they enter the area because the NGO folk – who depend on these men and women for their protection – object to the presence of firearms.

Many other complaints follow the lines of: I was over there yesterday. You said it was safe but I heard a shot.

AFTER the official briefings on health, power, sewage, security and even subjects like animal welfare, you get to hear the long discussions of how the next meeting should be run: Certain topics must be highlighted; it’s important that there be “break-out” sessions. It’s there that you’ll hear every shortage here blamed on the Americans and their war, even though there were severe problems here before March 20.

“All they do is complain,” said a colonel who attends these meetings. “And you know what, I’m getting school supplies here with the help of my church at home quicker than all these NGO guys. A lot of units here are doing the same.

‘ALL these guys do is talk, talk, talk. The only NGOs I’ve seen out here are the ICRC – and they’re driving around, not working. These guys are more bureaucratic than the Army!” (They’re also more secretive, excluding the media from their meetings and trying to keep them out of the CMCC sessions.)

Certainly almost every question is delivered in accusatory tones. Indeed, more often than not they aren’t really questions but statements: “You should understand that the military should not occupy schools because that’s an abuse of civilian structures,” admonished one NGO leader on Sunday.

A little later, another informs the room that “we as an organization will adhere to humanitarian principles and not use any military aircraft. . . . It is unacceptable for humanitarian supplies to come in on military transport.”

The issue of moral pollution by contact with U.S. forces sometimes seems to be the NGOs’ main focus.

A Frenchwoman from Medecins Sans Frontieres embarks on a long rant: “We all know that this war has been planned for a long time. You cannot deny that. So why did you not plan medical assistance?” She said that MSF – whose Web site in any case says that there is no humanitarian crisis in Iraq – is pulling out.

LATER, a blond girl from a group called “Innocent Victims of War” asks a question basically accusing the armed forces of not caring or doing anything about cluster bomblets and the children they injure. A British engineer major then calmly explains that there are 10 unexploded-ordnance teams all over the city and that a special U.N. dog-team is coming into town next week. The task is huge because “this whole country is a vast ammunition dump, and a lot of the stuff is booby trapped.”

She doesn’t relent: Next week “is a little unacceptable to me.” The major moves the subject on, assuring her that the children injured by munitions are “something that truly pains us all.”

ONE of the many sulky Frenchmen demands that the Americans remove the roadblocks on the road from the airport into town, only to be told by a bullet-headed Maj. Watkins that this simply won’t happen: The Army has to keep its main supply routes secure.

Then an armor major stands up, says that there’s a young girl in his area with a brain tumor, and asks: “Are there any NGOs out there who can arrange specialized treatment for her?” The answer is silence.

The same thing happens when Capt. Cory Davis of the 2nd Armored Cavalry requests NGO help in resettling 400 families who’ve installed themselves in government buildings that will soon be taken back by the relevant ministries.

“Look at Saddam City,” a senior officer liaising with ORHA said to The Post, referring to the city’s biggest Shiite slum, “There’s 2 million people living in that little spot. It’s so poor it reminds me of Haiti. That’s where the NGOs could make a huge difference. But you know who’s the only people coming in to help? The Iranians.”

THE NGOs do have some legitimate gripes. ORHA is slow and bureaucratic. As an institution, it sometimes seems primarily concerned with its own comfort and safety. And as these meetings make painfully clear, there are no military officials who keep track of the whole city in matters of security, health, transportation, etc.

And different parts of the Army here don’t or can’t communicate with each other. For instance, when the NGOs want to talk to someone who can arrange landing slots at the airport for humanitarian flights – no one at the meeting knows who they should talk to. (The number some have been told to call at Doha, Qatar rings unanswered forever.)

Moreover, some of the big problems, like the shortage of fuel for automobiles, generators, etc. can only be solved by the U.N. Security Council, which has been inexplicably, cruelly slow when it comes to lifting sanctions and ending the suspension of the Oil for Food program.

The NGO folk come in various types. There are the churchy-hippie guys, like the bearded, earringed representative from Christian Peacemaker Teams. There are the sullen Frenchmen in linen shirts. There are the pretty, privileged-looking girls in clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in the streets of SoHo.

WHAT they all seem to have in common is opposition to “George Bush’s war” – and a desire, conscious or not, to justify that stance retroactively by finding fault with the American regime here.

They are entitled to their opinion. But the Iraqi people need help, regardless of whether that help comes from people in camouflage uniforms riding in dusty Humvees, or from elegant men in ponytails driving gleaming SUVs.

It is fascinating to see how much more morally serious the people in the Humvees seem to be – and how much readier the people in the SUVs are to despise the Army than to effectively better the lot of the Iraqis.