The Bush administration pushed the United Nations Security Council to allow the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq to expire on Nov. 21. The United States is insisting on taking over a program that has been operated very successfully since 1995 by the United Nations. Yet no one is accounting for the following facts.

The Bush administration doesn’t have a plan of its own to replace the Oil-for-Food program. The United States greatly needs more international help, not less. Up to 70 percent of Iraqis are unemployed and thus lack the income to buy food themselves. These already restive people are liable to join the opposition to the U.S. occupation.

Why is this happening? This administration wants more control of Iraqi oil. This happens at a time when the administration is supposedly thinking about how to leave a stable situation behind when it withdraws, but this action is liable to make a bad situation worse.

Marquita K. Hill

Orono