DISARMAMENT-IRAQ: UN Reports Offer Little Hope for Sanctions’ End

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 19 1998 (IPS) - A series of reports on disarmament and human rights in Iraq, released by U.N. officials during the past week, painted a grim picture of a regime that still is not complying with international norms.

President Saddam Hussein’s government had been looking forward to this month’s review of Iraqi disarmament in the hope that its recent cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors would improve the chances of the world body lifting sanctions.

The latest evaluation of Iraqi disarmament by the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), however, offered little hope that the 15- nation U.N. Security Council could find any grounds for easing sanctions. And a report on human rights released by special rapporteur Max van der Stoel, which depicted a poor and worsening rights record, confirmed the belief of most members of the Security Council, notably the United States, that sanctions must be maintained.

The UNSCOM report argued that Iraq’s claim that “it is now absolutely free of any prohibited weapons and the equipment used to make them…has not been able to be verified.” That verification is a key prerequisite for the lifting of U.N.-imposed sanctions.

Over the past six months, the report added, weapons inspectors made little progress in verifying the elimination of Iraq’s biological, chemical or long-range missile arsenals. “Virtually no progress in verifying disarmament has been able to be reported,” said the report, written by UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler.

Those months were marked by a tense standoff between Baghdad and UNSCOM, that led to two separate crises – last November and in February this year – when the United States threatened to attack Iraq. The latter crisis was defused only after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan negotiated an agreement with Saddam Hussein that allowed UNSCOM to inspect presidential sites in Iraq when accompanied by a special team of diplomats.

That team, in a report written by UNSCOM Deputy Chairman Charles Duelfer, acknowledged last week that Iraq had cooperated with the presidential site inspections. But, Duelfer warned, “it was clearly apparent that all sites had undergone extensive evacuation” before the team’s arrival.

The Butler report also charged Iraq with providing incomplete or inaccurate information about its various weapons programmes – particularly its arsenal of prohibited biological agents, which UNSCOM in the past has alleged includes the toxins that produce anthrax and botulism.

Butler also said that UNSCOM would not provide Iraq with a list, as Baghdad has requested, of whatever information the wea[pons teams still required. “If the Commission presented Iraq with a finite list, it is not unreasonable to consider that Iraq might take action to satisfy only that list it, but possibly not known to the Commission,” he argued.

Iraq thus seemed no closer now to the lifting of sanctions than it did several months ago, when it cited the long-standing embargo as its chief concern during the standoff with the weapons inspectors. Baghdad has several allies – notably France and Russia – among the veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council, but the new reported on the lack of progress strengthened Washington’s hand in maintaining the embargo.

In recent days, Iraq responded angrily to signs that its fortunes at the United Nations have not improved. According to Duelfer, one top official involved in the inspection negotations, Gen. Amer Rasheed, warned that the searches into the presidential sites would be for a limited time only, contrary to Annan’s agreement.

On Thursday, Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council argued that the time had come for “lifting the embargo completely and comprehensively” and warned that, if any parties “oppose the lifting of the sanctions, (they) will bear in addition to the burden of previous crises the burden of a new crisis and what harm may hit our people.”

Annan who,in recent weeks, appointed several envoys to handle the fractious relationship between the United Nations and Baghdad – the first direct involvement between the secretary-general’s office and the Hussein regime since the 1991 Gulf War – played down the significance of the Revolutionary Command Council’s statements.

“We need to be very careful not to jump to conclusions each time an Iraqi official makes a statement,” he argued. “So far, the cooperation has been good.”

Annan added that he had not received any information from the Iraqi government that would indicate any lessening of cooperation from the February agreement, which he negotiated with Hussein and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. “It may be that they are talking to their own people, and I don’t want to react to it,” he said.

Nevertheless, Baghdad had hoped that its allies on the Security Council would push for a lifting of sanctions this year, and is disappointed by the lack of progress to that end. U.N. studies, meanwehile, showed that the embargo had contributed to a dramatic rise in malnutrition and illness in Iraq.

Currently, the Council is allowing Iraq an exemption from sanctions to sell 5.2 billion dollars of its oil over six months to buy needed food and medicine and to repair Iraqi infrastructure.

However, Iraq has resisted the ‘oil-for-food’ deal, on the grounds that it places the United Nations in control of too many aspects of Iraq’s oil production and revenue distribution. In addition, as another U.N. report argued recently, Iraq cannot pump enough oil to earn 5.2 billion dollars unless the United Nations agrees also to allow Baghdad to repair its decaying oil wells and pipelines.