IRAQ

Times: Anguish of the pensioners of Baghdad
IT WAS meant to bring relief, but it ended in tragedy. From six in the
morning they came: the old on crutches, the sick, the frail, widows
with children to support and pensioners with grandchildren. They came for
the first pension pay day of the new regime, but instead of help for a
desperate people, the seething, exhausted crowds found only
frustration, anger, injury and death in their search for the $40 (£24) payment. This
first big test of the Baghdad social support system under the American
administration had spun terrifyingly out of control, pitching the
weakest members of one of the world’s most-battered countries against the
world’s supreme military superpower.

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