Friday, Apr 18, 2003
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By Sridhar Krishnaswami
The first Oxfam aid flight for Iraq, at London Manston Airport, Kent, England, on Thursday. The U.N. has provided the aircraft that will fly 17 tonnes of equipment and four-wheel-drive vehicles. Oxfam hopes to help restore water supplies to southern Iraq, where thousands are still without water. — AP
"Now that Iraq has been liberated, the U.N. should lift economic sanctions on that country," the U.S. President, George W. Bush, said in St. Louis on Wednesday while touring a Boeing Company plant But the general impression has been that countries like France and Russia, which hold veto powers at the U.N., are hesitant to give the U. S. a major say in post-war Iraq. And basically it is the Security Council that should lift sanctions against Iraq, measures that date back to the invasion of Kuwait and its aftermath. The Bush administration is under no illusions of having an easy ride in New York but is nevertheless confident that a mechanism can be worked out that will have the Security Council revamp the systems that had placed it in charge of Iraq's oil revenues as well as imports.
Debate soon
Politics apart, there are tough legal issues involved and diplomats are saying that it could take months before anything is nailed down at the Security Council. But the first debate on the subject is expected to begin next week when the U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, is due to appear before the Council. Basically much of the attention is on how to manage Iraqi oil sales which until now has been going into an U.N. managed escrow account. The Bush administration seems to suggest that the U.N. can continue to supervise all oil deals first with U.S. officials and later with Iraqi officials. The equally tougher issue is that of dropping all sanctions, from a political and a legal perspective. From a political point of view under the old scheme of things, Iraq could purchase goods but under the close supervision of the U.N. And the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, essentially doled out contracts to such countries like Russia, France and China or others who were calling for an end to the sanctions regime. Under the new scheme of things major powers are worried that in the event of the U.N. lifting sanctions who would be the main source within Iraq that will be supervising the imports. And this is where the political fight is a perception — and a valid one — that it will be the U.S. sitting in charge of how Iraq's oil revenues could be spent. This is a view that is hardly a sobering one to many countries in the Security Council. The problem with lifting sanctions is not confined to the realm of politics. The legal dimension is that before the Security Council lifts the punitive measures it will have to certify that Iraq is free of all weapons of mass destruction. And it is here that the Bush administration wants to have it both ways: it wants the environment for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq to be in place but will not allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq. Or for that matter is Washington hardly thrilled about the top weapons inspectors in the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.
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