Averting Famine from Iraq

Published by Dar Al-Ahliya, "Averting Famine in Iraq: My Memoirs of the Blockade Years 1990-2003" by Dr. Mohammed Mehdi Saleh Al-Rawi offers an extraordinary first-hand account of managing Iraq's economic survival. Written by the former Minister of Trade who oversaw national food distribution during thirteen years of comprehensive UN sanctions, the memoir details the operational strategy behind the "Ration Card" system. Al-Rawi provides behind-the-scenes insights, backed by administrative data and official documents, into the logistics of feeding a population of 25 million under extreme isolation and destruction of infrastructure. The book covers the complex implementation of the UN Oil-for-Food program and provides a crucial historical lens into crisis management, economic resilience, and institutional governance under siege.

It provides an invaluable insider primary source on economic survival, logistics, and public policy administration during one of the most severe international blockade regimes in modern history.

Historians, political economists, researchers of modern Iraqi history, public policy specialists, and students of international relations and crisis management.