I do so, I should explain, because I'm sensitized to the question of famine through my own work as a physician and a health and hunger historian (0925) Over 60% of Iraqi civilians, 16 million, depend primarily, many solely, on the monthly food ration system for meagre, subsistence food from an Iraqi government food distribution system made up of a network of 46,000 food ration agents throughout central and southern Iraq.

3. Considers that the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein should pave the way for the Iraqi people to move towards a peaceful, secure and democratic future denied to them for decades under the repressive policy of that regime; emphasises that security and stability in Iraq and in the region is the most urgent challenge facing the international community, since it is a crucial precondition for the development of a lively and voluntary civic spirit among Iraqi citizens; expresses its concern about the present insecure situation, which results both from an increasing number of acts of terrorism and from the perpetration of other acts aga ...[+++]inst foreign troops; considers that the international community has a moral and political duty to respond;

€45 million will be held in reserve to allow a flexible response to changing circumstances on the ground and to respond to the needs identified by the new Iraqi government formed after the elections on 30 January.

Mr Poos has evidently not read this amendment, which takes as its reference value the resolution that this House will be adopting tomorrow, it being a minimum precondition for the European Union’s involvement in Iraq that there should be a UN resolution, that the money should be put in a trust fund controlled by the World Bank and the United Nations, that the Iraqi people should be involved in the processes of democratisation, in the adoption of a constitution and of the establishment of institutions, all of which are now needed, and, above all, that the oil industry should be placed in the hands of the United Nations, in order that it m ...[+++]ay be a source of funding for the country’s reconstruction.

We could be helping the Iraqi people cultivate a constitutional democracy that protects private property, a democracy that allows true elections, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and freedom of thought, along with all the freedoms that together constitute the natural interests of all people, including the Iraqi people.

It is reported by the United Nations chief arms inspectors in Iraq that Israel is to be a potential target of Iraqi missiles, this time, however, armed with chemical weapons which could wipe out large segments of its population and potentially that of others in the surrounding areas.