NEW YORK — In August 2002, Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, wrote a prescient article in The Wall Street Journal warning of the dire consequences of invading Iraq. His predictions are confirmed in a new report by Oxfam, the British aid agency and NCCI, a network of aid organizations working in Iraq.
The report, "Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq," states that Iraq is undergoing a huge humanitarian crisis, with 8 million Iraqis — nearly one in three — in need of emergency aid. The lack of response to this situation threatens to open the country to total chaos.
According to Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International: "The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Malnutrition among children has dramatically increased, and basic services, ruined by years of wars and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people. Millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee the violence, either to another part of Iraq or abroad. Many of those are living in dire poverty."