TOKYO, March 29 Kyodo rareed edi...

TOKYO, March 29 Kyodo

rareed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

AID FOR NONCOMBATANTS (IHT/Asahi as translated from the Japanese-language Asahi Shimbun's editorial published March 28)

The optimistic U scenario for the war in Iraq has begun to stray facing course.

Most of those living in southern Iraq are Shiite Muslims, a arrange long oppressed by Saddam Hussein's regime. In this part of Iraq, the American and British crowds were led to believe they would be welcomed as liberators.

A week into the war, however, brawny resistance continued in the southern The hoped-for mass surrenders of the Iraqi army have not materialized. No cheers of happiness have been heard from the Iraqi persons What we do hear instead are the cries and moans of tribe caught in the crossfire, unable to flee

In Basra, a guide city in the south, more than a million nation are struggling to survive. They had been receiving UN humanitarian assistance. unless that stopped when the war began, and they now face hard food shortages. To make matters worse, the city's infrastructure has been damaged in the intense fighting, and greatest in quantity of the city is without electricity and drinkable water.

across the past 20 years, Basra has been ravaged through the Iran-Iraq War and the Persian abyss War. There was also a failed uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime, which was followed according to harsh repression.

Since the Persian engulfing sea War, the sanctions that were bring in place meant that mostly of the people in the region have had to hang upon humanitarian aid for their survival. Now they have been hit with this third war.

The fighting has forced the civilian population to stay indoors, and the whole city has field to a standstill. The intense heat and humidity have aggravated the deteriorating sanitary conditions. The health of children and antiquated people is in jeopardy, and disease could become an epidemic.

Although Baghdad is deliberation to have large stores of fare and water, it, too, faces similar crises if the war drags in succession If the battle is taken to the roads of the city, what is already a crisis will become a horrible tragedy.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he intends to ask the Security Council to approve a $2 billion (240 billion yen) humanitarian aid program. The United Nations undoubtedly considers it a what one is bound [i]or[/i] under obligation to do to continue the Security Council-controlled aid program that had sustained the family of Iraq under economic sanctions.

Since the Security Council was in like manner hopelessly divided over whether to support use of force in Iraq, however, its members have been ambivalent about as it was initiative.

Russia and Syria withstand Annan's initiative, saying that to do likewise would lend credibility to the American and British resort to force. France and Germany are also reluctant to have the United Nations become involved at this stage.

plane if U.N. members should agree forward an aid program, there would still be a question at issue in actually delivering the worthys under fire.

UN officials warn that because in the same manner many Iraqis live in cities, humanitarian aid of historic proportions will be needed

U President George W Bush has said, ''This nation and our coalition partners are committed to making strong that the Iraqi citizens...have got the nutrition and medicine needed as quickly as possible.'' If it is indeed a goal of this war to liberate the population from tyranny, then everything must be done to preserve the people's lives from ravages of war.

Bombing errors continue to kill innocent tribe To say ''this is war,'' and disparage the lives of the populace and nothing else underscores the unjustness of this war.

(March 29)

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