IRAQ-UN: U.S. Opposes Renewal of Iraq Oil-for-Food Deal

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, May 25 1997 (IPS) - Negotiations on renewing the “oil- for- food” deal which allowed Iraq to gather 1.5 billion dollars to pay for food and medicine are running through stormy waters at the United Nations.

The agreement came into effect nearly six months ago and eased the seven-year U.N. embargo on Iraq so that it could sell a limited amount of oil and buy humanitarian goods with the proceeds. But the United States, long opposed to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, is unwilling to agree to an extension of the oil-for-food due on June 10.

“The U.S. government has not yet decided whether to support extension of resolution 986,” U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson said this week, referring to the agreement which paved the way for the limited oil sales. Iraq is “no closer to meeting its obligations” to make peace in the region and eliminate its military arsenal than before, and may not deserve the deal’s renewal, he argued.

The UN Security Council authorised Resolution 986 in 1995 and, after Iraq agreed to the terms of the deal one year altar, it went into effect last December. Since then Iraq has sold 121 million barrels of oil through 51 contracts.

Under the tightly-monitored distribution scheme worked out with the United Nations, Baghdad must spend 53 percent of the funds currently received (about 800 million dollars) on food and medicine for Iraqis in the country’s central and southern regions, and 13 percent (nearly 200 million dollars) on northern Iraqis living in the three provinces of Kurdistan.

But Richardson contends that the oil-for-food deal has not been strict enough in holding Iraq to commitments to provide for groups, like the northern Kurds, with which Hussein’s regime has fought. Washington, which set up a “no-fly” zone in northern Iraq with British and French support, wants to see more aid going to the Kurds.

The United States also wants to see more transparency in the workings of Resoilution 986 – from agreements on oil sales to the monitoring of food distribution, Richardson said.

The U.S. stand worries some diplomats here, who fear that Washington might want to scupper a deal which it now sees as a lifeline to Hussein’s regime. Already, Iraqi diplomats have complained that the United States has used its role in the 15- member Security Council’s sanctions committee on Iraq to block contracts or applications for goods arbitrarily.

Of the applications received so far, the Council sanctions committee has approved 226, blocked seven, and put 143 “on hold” pending further information. Council sources say that U.S. objections have held up many of the applications.

U.N. officials also are reluctant to change the terms of the current deal, which were negotiated for more than a year between the United Nations and Iraq, significantly. Nor do they feel that distribution between central Iraq and Kurdistan is unfair.

Yasushi Akashi, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian operations, said Friday that the expectations of what the 986 deal would provide the northern provinces in aid and funding may have been too high, and that the arrangement could never have satisfied all the region’s medical, educational and infrastructural needs.

Yet he defended the effectiveness of the deal so far, both in terms of the amount of goods it has provided following years of arduous sanctions and in its rigorous monitoring by 151 U.N. investigators. “There is no hindrance imposed on our movements,” Akashi said of the monitors, noting U.S. concerns that the monitors may not be able to determine if the government is distributing aid equitably.

At the same time, Akashi stressed the need for more humanitarian aid for Iraq, which he said still showed signs of major shortages when he visited the country earlier this month.

“Conditions of life for the people, particularly internally displaced people, people in hospitals and children, are deplorable,” he said. “There is a clear lack of medicines, even essential medicines. Old needles are still being used.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that supplies have been held up by the sanctions committee because of confusion when Iraq seeks to import brand-name medicines, whose names on applications to the committee therefore differ from the generic names of medicines on the U.N.-Iraqi list of goods which can be legally distributed. Those mix-ups, Akashi said, are gradually being cleared up as brand- name goods are reconciled with the generic names on the distribution list.

The problem underscores a far larger one for Iraq: The oil-for- food deal still only partially removes the sanctions imposed by U.N. members. Except for specific products, Iraq cannot import a wide variety of goods it needs and, under the terms of 986, it cannot export more than one billion dollars of oil every 90 days.

For 13 of the 15 Security Council members, the embargo has already gone on too long and the United Nations should devise a timetable for its lifting. But the United States and Britain, which both hold veto powers, maintain that Baghdad has yet to comply with a special U.N. disarmament body’s demand for scrapping weapons of mass destruction. In its last report, the body, the U.N. Special Commission, noted that Iraq still has not accounted for large quantities of VX nerve gas, a prohibited biological weapon.

Although sanctions have failed to topple Hussein, Iraq’s economy has been devastated since the embargo was imposed in August 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The embargo is growing in unpopularity, however, and Washington has little choice but to accept a renewal of the oil-for-food deal, which at least mitigates the sanctions’ bite.

As Akashi commented, “I think an extension may not be such a big surprise.”