This letter, from Clare Short to Tony Blair, sets out key humanitarian issues and thoughts on the UN’s role in humanitarian element of the invasion of Iraq. It discusses at length the reliance of the Iraqi people upon humanitarian aid and prior to the invasion and highlights the importance of the UN in continuing to play a coordinating role in terms of aid and food distribution during reconstruction.

This source is of benefit to scholars as it demonstrates that at this early point in the war, military planning very much outweighed the attention paid to the millions of Iraqi people who were impacted by the conflict. This document helps us understand what action, if any, was taken to reduce the impact of the conflict for the general population of Iraq.