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U.S. Embassy
Amman, Jordan
April 07, 2003
Michael Marx: Good morning, everybody, and thank you for coming. First, I wanted to start with some comments about what the Disaster Assistance Response Team is, how we are organized, what we’ve done in preparation for our operation, and then give you as much time for questions as possible.
I am the Team Leader for the DART. I’m based in Kuwait. I have team members spread throughout the region, about 45 team members in Kuwait; 8 here in Jordan; another team in Turkey and team members in Doha, Qatar and in Larnaca, Cyprus.
So, we’re spread throughout the region in order to perform some of the major functions of the DART, and that is to coordinate U.S. government humanitarian assistance world-wide, and in this case specifically focused on any potential humanitarian crisis in Iraq. The mandate for the DART is to save lives and reduce suffering, and it stays very confined within that. So, we are the first responders. We go in and we make sure that the immediate humanitarian needs are met and then we will turn it over to the longer-term reconstruction efforts, that I’m sure most of you are aware of.
The DART is not a new organization, although it is an ad-hoc organization. It comes primarily from where it is housed in the office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. But this DART is very unique both in its size -- it’s the largest DART that we have ever deployed into a crisis -- and it comes from many different offices and agencies within the U.S. Government, including USAID, the Department of State, the Public Health Service, and the Centers for Disease Control. We’ve deployed in many places in the past: Afghanistan, Kosovo, Northern Iraq, as well as to dozens of natural disasters worldwide from Hurricane Mitch to earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan. We do this all the time regardless of whether there is a political element to the event. The DART is a humanitarian assistance organization that responds specifically to humanitarian needs.
For the last four months, we’ve been planning for a potential crisis inside Iraq. This has been normal, prudent contingency planning. We’ve planned for humanitarian crises worldwide, both natural disasters as well as complex emergencies. In our planning, we have made sure that we have as much expertise on this team as possible. We are self-sufficient in logistics and in communication, but we also have expertise in the medical and health fields, as well as water, sanitation, shelter and some other specialized humanitarian areas. We have 4 or 5 doctors on the team right now. We have water and sanitation engineers. We have logisticians, food distribution experts, experts in affairs related to refugees, experts in dealing with internally displaced populations. So, we really are well-situated, well-prepared to respond to any humanitarian needs in Iraq.
The primary focus of the DART, based on our assessments, is and will continue to be provision of clean water and sanitation to the population inside Iraq. This is our primary focus right now, because it is the most urgent need both in time and in physical need. In addition to water sanitation, we are strongly focused on getting the health care system back up and running, making those emergency interventions to get the health care where it needs to be, as well as reestablishing the public distribution system for the food, making sure that that runs correctly and is well-resourced and, to a large degree, we are also focused on shelter and humanitarian access. We can do small projects to build bridges in order to get humanitarian goods moving across the country.
One of the important things that a DART does, other than coordinating U.S. government humanitarian assistance, is provide resources for the implementing partners. The DART team is just one part of the overall international humanitarian effort, but we are not the implementers. We provide resources to the non-governmental organizations, the International organizations including the United Nations and the International Committee for the Red Cross and Red Crescent, as well as working in coordination with the civil affairs military forces, because they’re the ones that can get access into many of the combat areas right now.
So far, we’ve provided over $100 million in non-food assistance, and that’s everything from the preparations of non-governmental organizations and the UN to respond, and around $430 million in food assistance, including a ship carrying 28 thousand metric tons that just left the Texas port of Galveston in the United States. So, we’ve provided resources to non-governmental organizations and to the UN and we also have a lot of active grants for logistics, whether that’s providing air support for non-governmental organizations, as well as providing commodities for the humanitarian effort.
The DART has stockpiled commodities in the region that will meet the needs of one million people within Iraq, and that’s only one part of the stockpiling effort. The UN also has stockpiled commodities, as have international organizations and NGOs. One million people is what we fixed our sights on as far as what the DART could provide.
Those commodities include blankets, plastic sheeting, water purification units, water storage containers of a kind that will hold 10 to 11 thousands liters for the needs of a whole community, as well as five gallon jugs in places where the population can go to the tap stands, get the water and bring it back to their homes. In addition, we provided personal hygiene kits, which is a standard item within the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, which include all of those needs that a displaced population might have -- everything from a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, detergent, toilet paper, and the like.
We also have stocked World Health Organization emergency health kits. Each one of these kits, in which there are 24 boxes, meet the needs of a population of 10,000 for three months. We have stocked piled enough of those to move in to meet the population of a million as well. These are the commodities that we’ve started moving the most rapidly. We are providing health kits to the hospitals in Umm Qasr, and Al-Nasariyah, and in some other areas. These provide the emergency drugs and antibiotics, maternal child health as well as bandages, sutures, and common needs.
I want to stress that the DART is only part of the overall international humanitarian effort. We are fully supportive of the UN mandate to provide humanitarian assistance, and we work closely with the UN. The DART is uniquely positioned because it is part of the U.S. Government and we can work with other agencies and departments within the US Government as well as our normal relations with the non-governmental organizations, with the UN, with other international organizations.
Organizationally, I have three-field teams that will go in -- one will go in to the North, one will go in to the Center, and one will go in to the South. But for us to go in, since we are a civilian organization, we have to have a stable and secure environment. That means a lack of combat operations, because we are not trained, organized or equipped to operate under a combat environment. We have moved our southern team into the port of Umm Qasr, and we’re starting to move out to the other areas as quickly as we can in order to make sure that we’re meeting the needs as quickly as possible. And those areas that we cannot get to because they’re insecure or still have combat operations going on, we are in close coordination with the civil affairs troops that are operating there, as well as the International Committee for the Red Cross, and other non-governmental organizations that have programs in those areas. So, we’re pushing across as quickly as we can, as prudently as we can, in order to meet needs.
An important role of the DART is our assessment capability. We have a proven methodology to provide assessments, both rapid assessments and more detailed assessments, and we feed those in to the overall humanitarian effort so that other organizations can make their plans for response as well. What we’re seeing right now is not a major humanitarian crisis, and we’re very happy about that. But we are seeing pockets of need. In neighborhoods within cities we are seeing humanitarian needs that are being addressed as quickly as possible.
We need to keep in mind that each organization within the humanitarian community has to make its own decision whether an environment is safe enough for their staff to operate or not. So, you’ll see some NGO’s that are working inside already, and others are choosing to wait, we’re helping to provide security information, so that they can make the best decision, and move in as rapidly as possible. I think I’ll stop there and open up for questions.
QUESTION: (inaudible) … the US Government is not in control in any major populated area north of Umm Qasr. Wouldn’t it make sense to shift your emphasis from Kuwait to here, in order to go straight in on the desert road toward Baghdad, toward Najaf, and toward Karbala?
MR. MARX: Absolutely, but our effort is not focused in Kuwait. That’s where the majority of the team is, but the plan the entire time has been to have the core part of the DART there so that we can move the technical expertise to the areas it is most required. The team that is here will go in to the center when the environment is secure enough to do that.
QUESTION: What is the state of that environment?
MR. MARX: Especially in the South, it’s way too insecure. There are still combat operations going on.
QUESTION: Do you mean in the southern part of the center portion of Iraq, is that what you’re talking about?
MR. MARX: The way we’re looking at team responsibilities, when I look at the center it’s Baghdad and its environs. The Southern piece would be everything from Umm Qasr up to Al Nasariyah.
QUESTION: All right, but you just said that it especially risky in the South.
MR. MARX: No, I’m sorry,.it’s especially risky in the Center. We are starting to push forward in the South and making good progress there.
QUESTION: And, I take it, you can’t give us a time estimate on the Center, for example, on when you’ll get out of here.
MR. MARX: No. It’s frustrating, but this is not time or calendar-driven. It really is situationally-dependent. We have to wait until the combat operations have ceased.
QUESTION: In the past couple of days, the ICRC has reported that the hospitals in Al-Nasariyah and Hillah and elsewhere are in very bad need. Did you say that you’ve delivered medical kits to Al-Nasariyah?
MR. MARX: Yes. We have gotten one in there so far.
QUESTION: Do you know when that happened?
MR. MARX: I’ve been on the road for a while, but I believe it was the latter part of last week, maybe Wednesday or Thursday.
QUESTION: Obviously, you can’t go across the border from here. What sort of communications are you having with the Jordanians, for instance, about when you’ll be able to go over that border?
MR. MARX: We have a lot of different ways to go in, so we haven’t started planning to go across this border yet. So, those negotiations are still ongoing.
QUESTION:.The materials coming from here will be sent to the center of Iraq?
MR MARX: Yes, the port of Aqaba is very important to the overall international humanitarian effort. I just came from Cyprus and talked to the UN, and a major part of their plan is to use the port of Aqaba to move goods across. But our team here is facilitating those operations.
QUESTION: Coming from here, coming from Jordan, all the material here, all the stockpiles here are slated for central Iraq, is that right?
GUY LAWSON (DART TEAM JORDAN): (Inaudible) We have the capability to pick up and move these commodities wherever the need is. We could put them on a plane from here and move them wherever the need is and wherever we have access.
QUESTION: Would you ever move things in in a military convoy?
MR. MARX: Very seldom do we use the military. That’s the last resort, as part of a convoy. We go in when the combat situation has been resolved. But the warehouse here is only one of several that we’ve got in the region. We’ve got a large warehouse in Kuwait, a larger warehouse in Dubai and then our normal warehousing throughout the world.
QUESTION: You say we are fully supportive of the UN mandate. What UN mandate?
MR. MARX: The UN mandate for humanitarian assistance. Our biggest piece is working with the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, which coordinates the overall humanitarian effort. We are working as part of that to help coordinate all efforts, whether or not we are resourcing the NGOs or other humanitarian actors. So, it’s providing our information, making sure that everybody is operating under that system.
QUESTION: But is there a UN mandate of some sort for this Iraqi operation, and is that complicating your life if there is not one?
MR. MARX: The UN, the humanitarian mandate is across the board, and it’s not specific to operations. There is a difference between the political mandates and the humanitarian mandate.
QUESTION: Is it complicating your life, this difference?
MR. MARX: Not so far, no.
QUESTION: You say you’re making your own security assessments and obviously the UN and the all the other aid agencies are doing the same thing, but given your position within the American Government, is it likely that you would go in before the UN and the others, or not?
MR. MARX: That has been the experience. We got in to Umm Qasr before the UN was given permission to go and do an assessment, and each organization has a different methodology of how they conduct their security assessments and what the criteria is. For the UN, UNESCORD takes the lead on that. They have to look at the situation in terms of non-armored vehicles and whether or not the security situation is permissive to their workers.
QUESTION: You don’t normally take military escorts; I mean you wouldn’t have protection from the American military?
MR. MARX: That’s correct. We operate under the area security umbrella of the military, the coalition forces, but we don’t have personal protection from them, and if we had to go in that way, it would be an absolute last resort.
QUESTION: First of all, you spell your last name M A R X. Is that right.
MR. MARX: That’s correct.
QUESTION: You said that you’re in negotiations here over the details of when, how you might be going across the Jordanian border into Iraq. If that works out as you would like to see it work out, what would it look like? What would it involve?
MR. MARX: By Geneva Convention, the free flow of humanitarian assistance, which is what the Government here is supportive of. So, it’s less a negotiation than just making sure the paperwork, all the information is provided.
MR. LAWSON: I guess what we’re doing here, not only for ourselves, is working to ensure that all humanitarian actors have access getting through eastern Jordan, getting to the border, and then being able to cross that border and be on the other side. So not a lot of negotiations. And the Jordanian government wants to see this and is being very cooperative.
QUESTION: So the schedule on this is simply being set by the conditions across the border presumably in central Iraq, which will be the target area for stockpiles that are based here, or would be the most logical target area for the stockpiles here.
MR. MARX: Well, again, from a planning perspective. But a plan is just a point to deviate from, so we’re going to move commodities as quickly as possible to where they are needed. But it is very much assessment-based. So, when we find a need and we find an ability to get the commodities there, then that’s how we move them.
QUESTION: Ultimately, let’s say you can move them in, will this be in Jordanian trucks, local trucks, Iraqi trucks?
MR. MARX: There are all different kinds of options. Yes, but it will be drawn heavily from the local commercial ability.
QUESTION: I have two questions here with me. The first is about assessments, and the second is how you move from assessments to contracts and implementing partners. After the security assessments are done, what else you are going to do, how extensive is your coverage going to be, what areas are you interested in surveying, assessing, whatever, how do you produce this data, what happens to the data once it’s been produced, and then how do you move from that to working with people who want to actually engage in contracts and so on in the region?
MR. MARX: This operation fairly unique, because the entire humanitarian community has agreed on a common assessment form which we’ve gotten the coalition forces, civil affairs soldiers to use. So it’s one form, and it’s a rapid assessment form to go in and take a look at the immediate needs. These are needs in water sanitation, health, shelter, food -- the common needs. And from that rapid assessment, could follow on a more detailed assessment that is much more focused sectorally. And what’s been happening so far is that from the rapid assessments moving primarily into water sanitation and food assessments. And then, how that moves from that to a program is that a non-governmental organization, or one of the international organizations, will come to the DART or to other donor nations and say “this is what we want to do” and provide a proposal for program. The DART is uniquely capable on this one, because I can make a grant in the field. So it doesn’t go back to Washington, it doesn’t go through bureaucratic process. So within a day, we can turn around the proposal from the NGO to resourcing that, so that they can move as quickly as possible.
QUESTION: ..(inaudible).full assessment process and sort of fast track contracting mechanism as well?
MR. MARX: That’s correct.
QUESTION: On the contracting for the NGOs, American companies first, or you look into international companies?
MR. MARX: We don’t work with companies, we work with non-governmental organizations, and we don’t separate between American and non-American, we fund any NGO that has the capability and the positioning to implement program.
QUESTION: In recent days, the fighting has progressed more rapidly than maybe anticipated. You mentioned that some of the aid has just left Texas, are you going to be in a place to respond to the crisis in time?
MR. MARX: Yes. This is the food aid that has just left Texas. In all of our planning, and all of our assessments so far, the estimate is that there is anywhere from 4-6 weeks of food left inside Iraq, in individual households. So, yes, the food will arrive in time.
QUESTION: ..(inaudible) you mentioned a figure, I think it was $400 million and $200 million so far in preparations. Is that the total budget which DART has for the NGO’s and the UN in terms of what projects they may come up with after the combat operations have finished, or is there a bigger budget than that for you?
MR. MARX: No, there is bigger budget. One thing that DARTs have never had any problem with is getting money for humanitarian assistance from the US government.
QUESTION: What is the budget you’re looking at which all these NGOs and international organizations can draw on?
MR. MARX: It’s hard to say because there are several different offices within the U.S. Government that have requests in under the emergency supplemental. So the food assistance, which is right now at $433 million, there were different options given as far as high, medium and low cost, and that depends on the re-establishment of the oil-for-food program and the ability to move the contracting or the existing contracts into Iraq from the non-food side. The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance requested $130 million, total. Other offices within the government have requested more. The big funder of the United Nations and the International Organizations is the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Immigration and they make large cash transfusions into the UN system.
QUESTION: You can’t give us a precise figure what DART is got to offer?.
MR. MARX: We don’t operate that way. We don’t operate within a budget, we operate within the needs. So, when we have needs, then we go back to Washington if the existing money is gone, and we get more, and that’s the way it’s worked, historically.
QUESTION: It’s constantly being reported that one place or another has been secured. For instance, there were wires saying Kabala was secured last night. What is the difference between secured and safe in terms of your operating concept? And, secondly, do you feel that you prepared for a war that’s really rather different from the war that has developed?
MR. MARX: Well, the first question is something that I have trouble with all the time, but its a matter of terminology. The word “secured” in the military means something different than it does to me as a team leader for a civilian humanitarian operation. My definition is the absence of combat operations, or some time of security or policing mechanism in place. That’s a very different definition of what the military has. But I’m not putting my team members at risk, or in harm’s way, so for me, my definition is the one that matters for the DART team. As far as preparing for a war that has unfolded very differently, yes. We prepared for the worst, and so far we’re not getting that, which is really a good news story for us.
QUESTION: You mean in terms of internal displacement, that kind of thing?
MR. MARX: Absolutely.
QUESTION: Humanitarian Crisis?
Mr. MARX: That’s right. We were looking for displacement in the millions, or planning for it. But that has not turned out to be the case yet. So what we are seeing are pockets of need that we can address fairly quickly, and no one is happier than me or the DART team about that.
QUESTION: There was a piece of a question I asked earlier that I realize slipped through the cracks. All of these assessment teams that are using, as you say, a common assessment form are feeding their data somewhere. Where does it go and what happens to this database later? I’m particularly interested to know if at some point when there is a new regime in Iraq, would they be handed this as a base-line planning mechanism they can use to institute their own projects, or who is going to own that information?
MR. MARX: Actually, it is owned right now by the UN. This is part of operating under the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Assistance mandate within the UN system. They have set up a humanitarian information center where all of these assessments are fed into. That’s happening right now, and they’re posted and available freely on the web site. So, it’s not only the humanitarian community that has access to it, it’s anybody that is interested in seeing that.
QUESTION: I’ve got two questions. Obviously, this idea of coordination is kind of a vast subject, and you’ve explained about NGO’s coming to you for contracts, with your resources, but is there a, so to speak, one stop shop for all the humanitarian assistance plans in Iraq, looking ahead many months? Will every agency, whether UN, private, U.S., go through a DART office for an OK to conduct their operations? That’s the first question. The second is, can you give us an idea what’s happening right now on the ground as specifically as possible from the DART point of view? In other words, where you’ve said that a team has gone into Umm Qasr already? What else is happening today as far as you know, or yesterday?. Thanks.
MR. MARX: As far as permission, absolutely not. The DART is not the gate keeper, by any means, for humanitarian assistance. What we do is provide resources and assessment capability and technical capability to the overall effort. Each office that has been involved in Iraq has their own plan of how they’re going to respond to the needs. But keep in mind, these are plans that are made in vacuums, and the humanitarian community response to needs. So these needs are developing, as we speak. Everybody is adjusting their plan, adjusting their responses as quickly as possible. But there really is no gate keeper on who responds. The UN has a coordination mandate, but that’s coordination, it’s not trying to move the humanitarian actors around the country, because that’s just not possible. Somebody likened that to herding cats -- that’s a tough thing to do.
As far as what the DART team is doing so far, we’ve done assessments into Basra, we’ve done assessments in Um Qasr, in Safwan, and we’ve taken a long look at the port facility in Umm Qasr.(inaudible)….as the only port in the region, obviously Aqaba is going to be probably the main emphasis, and we have provided resources to NGOs and to the UN and to International Organizations so far to move forward. So, we’ve moved commodities forward with any organization that has demonstrated the need and the capability of getting them there. But as far as the efforts, a lot of what we’re doing right now is more in the coordination line with the implementing partners. We’ve got a team in the north that is probably only a few days away from crossing the border to take look at the needs in northern Iraq. But what we’ve seen there so far has also been a good news story -- we have not seen a humanitarian crisis yet.
QUESTION: But did the assessment team (inaudible).?
MR. MARX: The plan the whole time was having three field teams out of the DART that would provide the assessments and the information back to the core DART, and then we would provide the technical expertise for more detailed assessments or the resources required. The northern team is just one of the three teams.
QUESTION: You say you’ve been looking at the facilities, for example at the port of Umm Qasr. Do you coordinate with UN on that, say, OK, well, we will look into that situation, or does it end up there’s a lot of duplication, because obviously for the UN that’s going to be very important, as well for other NGOs. I mean, is one organization given that specific task, so that you don’t have half a dozen different teams doing the same thing?
MR. MARX: Yes, and that’s always a problem early on, and especially when just a small location like Umm Qasr is opened up. Everybody wants to go there, because everybody wants to respond as quickly as possible. But there is a lot of coordination that goes on, lots of meetings that take place, that say, “ok we’re going out and assessing the port facilities, and another organization is going out assess the water and sanitation piece.,” Some of that is worked out beforehand. It’s not a perfect system, by any means, and it really depends on a very strong UN coordination system to make all that work.
QUESTION: You said that you had planned for millions of displaced people, and it hasn’t turned out to be that, which suggests that you have done some kind of assessment, you have some sense of numbers. Whereas the UN people say that they really have no sense of numbers. Can you discuss that? And, secondly, you said that this has not developed into a major humanitarian disaster. Of course, we’re hearing about a desperate water situation still in many parts of Southern Iraq, and we don’t even know what’s going on in Central Iraq, but there have been electrical outages everywhere, apparently. There is a lack of medical supplies in major hospitals, which is what ICRC knows about anyway. Many people would call this a major humanitarian disaster. Would you discuss that?
MR. MARX: Sure. I don’t think that the humanitarian community is characterizing this as a major humanitarian crisis. We are seeing, as I said before, pockets of need. And those needs include medical care in specific hospitals and clean, potable water for specific populations. And those needs are being addressed. As far as the numbers, one thing the DART is doing, as well as many other organizations, is trying to piece together as much information as we can. That information is from news reporting, or from military assessments, or from organizations like ICRC that are inside Iraq right now, and trying to get a better sense for the displacement, as well as the other needs. We are seeing some displacement, which is absolutely normal in this type of situation but the displacement is in the thousands, instead of a millions, which is what we had planned for. We always plan for the worse case, so that we’re not caught short. So this is not anything unusual for the DART team, or for the US government’s efforts.
QUESTION: Just coming back to the question of the war you planned for and the war you got, is the security situation much tougher than you thought it would be? I mean, in the sense that, basically, almost no population areas are under control or policed as you suggested. And given that that’s the situation, if you’re waiting for police or law and order to be established in the areas you go to, there are going to be huge parts of Iraq that may not be accessible to you for weeks or months. Is that different from what you expected?
MR. MARX: We’re not looking for an establish police force. We’re looking for a policing mechanism like is found in Umm Qasr. That the coalition troops have the situation under control. But this really is not different than what we had planned for, and what we had expected. I know the capabilities of the DART team and what environments we can go into. We’re not the people that ride on the lead tanks. We’re not the ones that go in with the combat units and address the needs, partially because that’s not what a DART team does. A DART team does coordination and assessment and resourcing, so we’re not the implementers, but we’ll go in just as quickly as it is safe for our staff.
QUESTION: But given the dubious or questionable security situation in virtually all populated areas of Iraq, do you think that civil affairs is essentially going to take a bigger role and DART a smaller role in the foreseeable future?
MR. MARX: I don’t look at it as who is playing a bigger role, or a smaller role. The people that have the access are playing the role that they can right now. Because of the insecurity, the civil affairs soldiers have better access than we do, but we’ve coordinating with them over the last months to make sure that what they know, we know, and the rest of the international community knows as well.
QUESTION: Do you have any sense of how many people have left Baghdad over the past few days or week?
MR. MARX: The reporting that we’ve seen, and none of it has been confirmed, from news reporting or ICRC, and it’s been in the hundreds, or thousands, but it’s been fairly low so far.
Thank you.
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