POLITICS-IRAQ: UN Review of Iraqi Relations Grinds On

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 2 1999 (IPS) - The UN Security Council has ended weeks of bickering on Iraq with an agreement to review UN-Iraqi relations, but has set up a timetable which, in effect, postpones most tough decisions until April.

Although Iraq immediately criticised the Security Council decision at the weekend to form three review panels who would deliver recommendations on Iraq “no later than Apr. 15”, Iraq’s allies on the Council cautiously embraced the plan as a way forward.

Ambassador Alain Dejammet of France, which called two months ago for lifting the eight-year-old UN economic embargo against Iraq, praised the plan, initially proposed by the Canadian government, as a first effort “to restore the Iraq-UN working relationship”.

Dejammet noted that the proposal, agreed to by all 15 members of the Security Council, would allow Brazilian Ambassador Celso Amorim to invite opinions from a wide range of experts and to authorise travel to Iraq to obtain new information.

The plan, Amorim said , would involve setting up three panels, under his chairmanship, to help the Council “discuss options which would lead to the full implementation of all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq”. For Iraq’s opponents, such language means that the Council must determine how to ensure that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are completely eliminated; for its supporters, it also means that the body must prepare to reward Iraq by lifting UN sanctions.

The three panels offered something for all sides. The first would deal with disarmament and weapons monitoring, and would “involve the participation of and expertise from” the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), which has monitored Iraqi disarmament, as well as the UN Secretariat and other relevant bodies.

The second would evaluate “the current humanitarian situation in Iraq and make recommendations to the Security Council regarding measures to improve the humanitarian situation,” a key demand of the critics of the lengthy UN embargo. The last panel would address complaints, supported by the United States, about the fate of Kuwaiti prisoners of war and property since the short-lived 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Taken as a whole, Dejammet said, the proposal offered “a procedural way forward”, although it gave no clue on what concrete steps would be taken to determine a new UN policy on Iraq.

With the Canadian compromise, Iraqi supporters like France and critics, like the United States, hoped to re-establish the UN role in Iraq that was shattered in December when U.S. and British forces began four days of air attacks on Iraq.

The strikes, which followed a critical report on Iraqi disarmament by UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) chair Richard Butler, discredited the work of the UN weapons inspectors in the eyes of several Council diplomats and ruptured the Council’s fragile unity.

Yet if any side thought the Canadian compromise – which was modified by Brazil, Argentina and Bahrain last week – would bring Baghdad around, the initial response from the Iraqi government has been a sharp slap.

One Iraqi spokesman said the panels would take up months of time and “will mean nothing but procrastination and maintaining the unjust embargo on Iraq”.

Dejammet conceded that, if it were not for the time limit of Apr. 15 for the panels’ recommendation, the proposal could simply lead to stagnation. But as it is, he argued, the review process will push all sides to find ways to forge a new relationship between the mutually suspicious UN weapons inspectors and Iraqi government.

“We have to be very pragmatic,” he said. “We don’t believe the solution is to ignore Iraq, to leave Iraq in a state of isolation.”

On Monday, Dejammet repeated his government’s plan for the way ahead, including the lifting of economic sanctions, a maintenance of the arms embargo on Iraq and the involvement of UN bodies – including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – in disarmament tasks.

The United States favours none of these options. Instead, the White House is willing to consider allowing Iraq an unlimited exemption from sanctions on oil sales designed to buy humanitarian aid under a UN-monitored plan, but to maintain UNSCOM as the primary vehicle for disarmament work.

That is an all but impossible task. Iraq no longer trusts UNSCOM after Butler’s December report was seized upon by the U.S. and British governments as a reason to attack Iraqi weapons sites. Last month, reports that UNSCOM had passed sensitive data on Iraqi military secrets to U.S. intelligence officials hurt the weapons inspectors’ already shaky reputation with Russia and China, two other key Iraqi allies on the Council.

Since the December attacks, UNSCOM members have not been allowed back in Baghdad, although Butler said they would be willing to return to work if Iraq lets them in.

With mistrust lingering on the Iraq issue and the date for a decisive Council review now three months away, some UN officials believe that the diplomatic atmosphere could be improved if several diplomats trusted by Baghdad travel there with Amorim. Both Russia and France appear willing to send envoys if it can help bring Baghdad back into talks with the United Nations.