SANCTIONS/IRAQ: Mixed Signals Confuse Sanctions Renewal Issue

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Dilip Hiro

LONDON, Jan 2 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations Security Council’s rolling routine 60 day renewal of sanctions against Iraq gets progressively problematic. The next reimposition, due on Jan. 8, must now take account of mixed signals on the subject coming from the region.

A communique issued on Dec. 6 at the end of the six member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Muscat, Oman, backed continuation of the embargo until Iraq complied with all Security Council resolutions on the Gulf War. But some of the Gulf states are in flexible mood.

Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalif al-Thani, who pointedly did not attend the summit closing ceremony, had brought to the GCC a message of reconciliation from Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

And in October the United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Zaid ibn al-Nahayan, had publicly called for a relaxation of the embargo against Iraq. The ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos ibn-Said, was also reported to be favouring fence mending with Baghdad.

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Jaber ibn Ahmad al-Sabah of Kuwait — as the countries most affected by Saddam’s disastrous invasion and rapid defeat in 1990/1991 — predictably remained staunchly opposed to any relaxation of the sanctions against Iraq. Firmly behind them was the United States. The three prevailed.

However there are signs of a split within the Saudi ruling establishment. Following his meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Dec. 14, Prince Khalid ibn Sultan al-Saud, the joint coalition commander during the 1991 Gulf War, declared that the U.N. sanctions had strengthened rather than weakened the Iraqi regime, and needed to be eased.

The signals coming from Amman are equally mixed. In this instance Jordan is uniquely placed. It is the only one among Iraq’s neighbours allowed by the U.N. Security Council to have limited economic relations with Baghdad. It is permitted to import 67,000 barrels of oil per day from Iraq, which the latter sells at a discount price and supplies by truck. The Iraqi government uses the income to buy food and medicine for its citizens.

In mid-December a Jordanian delegation visited Baghdad to negotiate an increase in supplies of oil for 1996. Though the Saudi monarch has by now forgiven King Hussein of Jordan for not joining the Gulf War against Iraq, and mended fences with Amman, he has yet to offer oil supplies to Jordan.

But while the Jordanian king is unable to end his country’s dependence on Iraqi petroleum, he has recently taken to shoring up the exiled opposition leaders of Iraq. In December he addressed them at a meeting in Amman.

He proposed a federal set-up in Iraq which, in his view, would satisfy the three main groups in the country: Kurds, Shias and Sunnis. Since there are no clear geographical lines that divide Sunni Muslims from Shia Muslims, the idea is a non-starter.

What lies behind this move by King Hussein? Pressure by the United States. Having repeatedly failed to see Saddam overthrown by his own people, Washington has now seemingly opted for a fairly long-term strategy of toppling his regime through a combination of economic and political measures.

Since Jordan is the only overland gateway into and from Iraq, a country cut off from foreign air links, it has a key role to play if the U.S. plan is to succeed. And given Jordan’s economic and diplomatic dependence on Washington, it is imperative that its monarch must be seen to be doing something on this front.

Nonetheless, Saddam is taking King Hussein’s move seriously. Just after Christmas Baghdad announced that Iraq’s direct international telephone links are being cut on the ground that it does not have enough foreign exchange to pay the bills.

Baghdad has also reduced the duration of its exit visa from 12 months to one month, thus restricting further foreign travel for Iraqi citizens.

And on Sunday Saddam launched a new austerity campaign to halt the decline of the Iraqi currency. He called for tax rises and a cut in the amount of bank notes in circulation. The dinar has plunged to 2,500 against the dollar on the black market, against an official rate of one dinar to 3.2 dollars.

As for the U.N. sanctions, Iraq’s state-run newspapers Monday exuded confidence. Al-Thawra, the daily of the ruling Baath party, as quoted by the state-run Iraqi News Agency, said sanctions would be lifted in 1996 thanks to “friends and brothers” who were aware of what it called Iraq’s “real commitment” to U.N. Security Council resolutions.

In this the decider will be the final report of the U.N.’s chief inspector in Iraq, Rolf Ekeus. Just before Christmas, Ekeus revealed that, tipped off by the Iraqi government, his inspectors had salvaged some crates from the Tigris river in Baghdad.

These contained gyroscopes for long range ballistic missiles, which are banned by the Security Council Resolution 687 of April 1991. A preliminary study showed that these crates had been under water for about three months.

The Iraqi government’s explanation was it had caught a certain individual who had brought these machines into the country, and when he could not ship them out of Iraq, he decided to dump the crates into the Tigris. Ekeus is investigating the matter, and it will be some weeks before he reaches a conclusion.

The U.N. has offered to allow Iraq to sell a limited quantity of oil to pay for medicine and humanitarian supplies, but Baghdad refuses, saying U.N. conditions infringe on its sovereignty. Oil exports used to account for 90 percent of Iraq’s foreign revenues.

Ekeus’s final report on Iraq’s demolition of its weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles is unlikely to materialise before the Security Council review of the sanctions by Jan. 8. The chances are they will be renewed for another 60 days.

Thus the major losers in this 65 months old saga remain the Iraqi population, who are suffering untold economic hardships, widely expected to culminate in a famine in the spring.

The average monthly wage is just 5,000 dinars, equivalent to two dollars and inadequate to cope with prices — up to 60 dinars for bread, 1,200 dinars for a kilo of flour, and 5,000 dinars for a kilo of meat. Most now survive on state rations.

SANCTIONS/IRAQ: Mixed Signals Confuse Sanctions Renewal Issue

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Dilip Hiro

LONDON, Jan 2 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations Security Council’s rolling routine 60 day renewal of sanctions against Iraq gets progressively problematic. The next reimposition, due on Jan. 8, must now take account of mixed signals on the subject coming from the region.
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