Rations delivery resumes in Iraq

? A massive food-rationing system that fended off starvation for Iraqis during more than a decade of U.N. sanctions resumed nationwide Sunday for the first time since the U.S.-led war began.

Once overseen by Saddam Hussein, the program is now run by the U.S.-backed occupying force.

About 45,000 distribution agents headed to U.S.-guarded food warehouses to collect their quotas, but many grumbled that rising transportation costs were eating into their small profits.

“It’s not worth the trouble anymore,” said Baghdad retailer Kawkab Mohammed Abbas.

The national distribution of the monthly rations — a food basket that includes flour, rice, sugar, lentils, milk powder, tea, salt and cooking fat — will begin today and continue until later this year.

It then may be replaced by a program for the “most vulnerable” or by other mechanisms to ensure food security, according to James Morris, head of the U.N. World Food Program.

The Rome-based WFP is in charge of purchasing, shipping and transporting the food to Iraq’s Trade Ministry, which oversees the five-month, $1.85 billion program. A total of 2.5 million metric tons of food will be distributed under the program, of which 440,000 metric tons already are in the country, the WFP said.

Due to shortages, however, Iraqis will not receive milk powder or salt during June and their ration of chickpeas will be cut, WFP spokeswoman Antonia Paradela said.

As many as 80 percent of Iraqis are known to depend entirely on the rations.

The food ration system operated sporadically during the past two months, but its nationwide resumption moves Baghdad a significant step closer to normalcy after the weeks of chaos and lawlessness that followed war that began April 9.