Baghdad, Iraq ? Deep in the musty, cold halls of what was once one of Baghdad’s finest shopping malls, Fawzi al Dulani toils to provide the first line of defense for Saddam Hussein. Every critical day now, al Dulani and a few dozen government workers calculate just where and how record quantities of rice, oil and milk will be delivered this month.

“Electricity can go on and off. Gas can go on and off. But food can’t be missed. The food system is key,” said al Dulani, the rations chief of the Al-Hamza Rationing Center, one of dozens of outposts for the most high-profile aid program in Iraq.

As U.N. inspectors prepare to produce their first written assessment of Iraq’s weapons programs Thursday, the regime has begun to hedge its bets on war. Advance rationing expands this week, with the country of nearly 25 million people lining up for a four-month cache of government-subsidized food. Blood drives are being planned.

Government officials increasingly are taking to the state-run airwaves to boost the nation’s spirits, urging the public to take on “any invader … city by city, street by street” and to remind whoever listens “that every family here has a gun.”

At one government ministry last week, workers were herded into an unlikely symposium for tea and cookies and an hours-long riff on the glory of past battles. Even peace advocates have taken off the gloves when it comes to discussing what happens after the U.N. inspectors, intent on determining whether Iraq still harbors weapons of mass destruction, are scheduled to leave at the end of the month.

“Don’t ask me how we will fight,” Abdul Razzad al Hashimi said at the nongovernment Iraq Organization for Friendship, Peace and Solidarity. “We know how to fight. If (President) Bush brings his soldiers to Iraq, tell him to bring a lot of plastic body bags.”

Such battle predictions aside, it is clear that Saddam has decided that the first crucial test of his leadership is ensuring public confidence and the food supply in the face of a Western military threat.

History’s lessons

Twelve years ago, when sanctions were first put in place, the food supply in Iraq dropped drastically. By the time the Persian Gulf War ended, after little more than three months, food imports were nonexistent.

Iraq’s emergency food program, stoked with international donations, became a priority and a staple of households and the economy. Everyone was allotted so many beans, so much rice, so much soap each month.

Taher Mohammad, 45, carries a sack of wheat at the Jamila main market in Baghdad. The Iraqi government, as part of its war preparations, is stockpiling food in an effort to avoid the shortages that struck the country during the Persian Gulf War.

No one would ever live well on these supplies — about half of the population may suffer from malnutrition despite the aid — but the handouts made a critical difference in survival and, to some extent, popular support for Saddam.

The supplies also became the stuff of barter and trade. Government workers, who earn less than $7 a month, usually qualify for extra rations. Some workers siphon extra cans of baby formula or laundry detergent from their monthly stash. Whatever they can sell on the street may mean an extra egg or even a chicken in the family larder.

Al Dulani began working in ration centers as a government worker the day Saddam ordered their establishment. Most of the facilities were set up in former state-run shopping malls, huge concrete enclaves selling designer clothes, appliances and the latest in technology.

Inside a ration office

Twelve years later, the Al-Hamza ration offices, one of the country’s largest, occupies a small corner of the vast and deserted shopping center. Workers nurse small glasses of hot tea as they update computerized distribution lists, tapping in newborns and deleting deaths.

Al Hamza is creaky and cold and poorly lighted, but the environs seem to have done little to dampen the spirit of those who work late into the night in preparation for the unprecedented ration distribution.

“Ask anyone here. We have the feeling that we are doing patriotic work,” said al Dulani, whose office coordinates deliveries from 17 warehouses in Baghdad to 1,655 small food stores where more than a million people pick up sacks of flour, lentils and rice.

“We’re helping our people and our country, and that’s what stays in our minds during these long nights.

“We know we’re all working so that families can rest assured that rations will still be here no matter what,” said the father of four children. “Rations help to consolidate confidence and trust among the people–and convince the people that there will not come a time when they won’t have anything to eat.”

International efforts

International aid agencies, however, already envision Iraq again running short.

In anticipation of possible war, UNICEF, the children’s charity, has moved some supplies to Iraq and neighboring countries. It has plans to feed 500,000 Iraqis inside the country and thousands of refugees outside the borders.

The U.N. World Food Program is gearing up to help another million people in the first month.

Government officials are loathe to discuss wholesale international aid in context with the latest crisis. The whole point of this advance, multiple-month rationing is to assure Iraqis that the regime will take care of them.