By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 2, 2003; Page A13

BAGHDAD, June 1 -- The national food-rationing program introduced by Saddam Hussein because of international sanctions was reestablished today by occupation authorities who concluded that Iraqis need the rice, cooking oil and chickpeas to stave off hunger in a paralyzed economy.

Officials with the U.N. World Food Program, which is providing the rations under the authority of the U.S.-led occupation forces, say the approximately $2 billion food-distribution effort is the largest they have ever undertaken. The cost will be reimbursed by Iraq after it resumes oil exports.

Many Iraqis are frustrated with what they see as the slow-motion efforts by U.S. and British forces to get the country moving again. U.S. officials hope the reestablishment of rations will help dampen rising tempers and bring a modicum of stability.

UNICEF says the acute malnutrition rate among the country's children has risen to 7.7 percent from a prewar level of 4 percent. An assessment by the aid group Oxfam last month concluded that "Iraqi agriculture is on the brink of collapse, with fears that many of its people will go hungry this summer."

Hussein and his government operated a highly regimented food-distribution system in which 44,000 grocer-agents nationwide allotted necessities to each of Iraq's 24 million people.

In February, in anticipation of the war, Hussein's government distributed enough extra rations for four to six months. That food has been largely consumed or bartered, and while the markets are filled with goods, many poorer Iraqis complain of hunger.

Kadem Wreij, an agent in Baghdad, was supervising the unloading of bags of Pakistani rice and crates of Belgian soybean oil at his tiny shop. The aging merchant with bad teeth had in his hands an invoice from the new Trade Ministry, which listed every item for the 76 families, including 411 adults and three infants, he serves.

"Saddam was very organized," Wreij said. He was clever; he used the food wisely, and told the people it was a gift from their president, Wreij added.

The rations were distributed every month, usually on time, and the people relied on them even if they despised the government, he noted.

Some months, the tea was bad; other months there was no flour; sometimes the oil was rancid.

"But it came," Wreij recalled, like clockwork. And he thinks the Americans are wise to continue Hussein's program. "We need to eat," he said.

The occupation forces and the United Nations are essentially replicating the system devised by the previous government -- a controversial "oil-for-food" arrangement. Some critics said the program only served to bolster Hussein after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which was prompted by his invasion of Kuwait, and the U.N. economic sanctions that followed.

But in a chaotic country, the rations program resumed with a refreshing orderliness.

In Baghdad, trucks rolled into one of four central warehouses. Computer-printed lists were checked and double-checked, and the food rolled out and went to the corner grocery stores operated by the agents.

Kissan Bahjet, general manager of the Rusafa distribution warehouse here, was happy to provide precise numbers about the renewed rations program, a rarity given that confusion about occupation-run programs is the norm.

"This morning, the first day of the program," Bahjet said with a flourish of figures spit out by the printer, "we have served 119 agents who supply 21,151 households, totaling 114,543 people."

Bahjet said the renewal of the rations program is the first evidence that life here is resuming in an orderly fashion.

"It is a good beginning," he declared. "The people will feel better when their bellies are filled. They will calm down. They will see what is possible. Thank you, George Bush. Thank you, America."

World Food Program officials estimate that 60 percent of the population is "completely dependent" on the bulk supplies to survive. Even the well-to-do pick up their allotment, and though they might not eat the food, they give it to poorer relatives or employees.

This month, every person in Iraq is entitled to roughly 20 pounds of flour, 61/2 pounds of rice, 41/2 pounds of sugar, a box of tea, a can of cooking oil, a few bars of soap and a quart of detergent. Households with children and infants get milk and baby formula.

The supplies cost 250 Iraqi dinars, or about 18 cents at today's exchange rate, and are enough for many Iraqis to survive for a month, if their larder is supplemented by the purchase of beans, tomatoes and onions from the market, and the occasional piece of meat.

Under the Hussein government, Iraqis say they were often charged extra to get their rations, or to get the better rice or oil. There was a flourishing black market in food rations.

Occupation officials are now stressing that they will not permit price gouging, and they have asked Iraqis to report any agent who asks for excessive tips for supplying the rations.

Iraqis will be able to pick up their rations on Monday. An elderly woman who came by one of the agent's shops, as young men shouldered bags of rice and laid them down in the back room, said, "You see the food and you believe." She said she would return first thing in the morning, ration card in hand; then she went off to the market to buy a chicken.