WFP's James Morris Outlines scope of world's largest aid programme
Speaking in London this morning, WFP Executive Director James Morris said the organisation was preparing a six-month aid programme.
It is anticipated that the humanitarian operation in Iraq will become the largest of its kind.
The United Nations World Food Programme has launched an appeal to raise $1.3bn to buy food.
That figure represents just over half the total cost of the humanitarian aid for Iraq being planned by the UN for the next six months.
Speaking to journalists in London this morning, James Morris said the first 30 days of that six months would be designed to meet the needs of refugees.
After that there would be a three-month period during which the UN hoped to provide resources to feed the entire Iraqi population of 27m people.
Mr Morris said that the final two months of the six-month programme would be what he called a 'wind-down period' during which Iraq's Oil for Food Programme, which is now controlled by the UN Secretary General, would be back in full operation.
However Mr Morris warned that there were still many unknowns in the plan, the biggest of which was exactly how long the war in Iraq would continue.
Elsewhere British troops are reported to have opened a water pipeline from Kuwait to Umm Qasr, while the Red Cross is reported to have started visiting Iraqi prisoners of war.
