POLITICS-IRAQ: No Light at End of Tunnel for UN

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 1999 (IPS) - Two months after beginning a review of its relations with Iraq, the United Nations Security Council remains bitterly deadlocked over how to deal with Baghdad and diplomats do not see a quick end to the impasse.

Unity among the 15 Council members was shattered last December when US and British forces attacked Iraq for four days following a report by UN weapons monitors that criticised the lack of cooperation by Iraq with disarmament demands.

Since then, UN monitors have been barred from Iraq and US and British warplanes repeatedly have struck at Iraqi targets. The Security Council, meanwhile, disagreed on nearly every other aspect concerning relations with Baghdad – including 9 years of UN sanctions.

Efforts to forge Council unity have taken on a strange aspect. This weekend, diplomats from the Council’s member states met at a retreat outside of Princeton, New Jersey, at the request of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Annan said he hoped the meeting would “give the members of the Council a chance to reflect among themselves…discuss how the Council can be made more effective, how their deliberations can be improved and how they decide which issues to get engaged in.”

One UN diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the main reason for the unprecedented retreat was to focus the Council’s attention on Iraq to see whether the UN executive body could form a unified stance once more.

For mponths such unity has been elusive and few officials believed there would be any immediate change in the deadlock.

The Council’s five permanent, veto-holding members hold opposing views on how to deal with Iraq, and have stuck to them, two months after beginning what was intended as a “comprehensive review” of UN-Iraq relations.

The United States and Britain insisted that Iraq must allow the return of the weapons monitors and that sanctions be maintained. By contrast, Russia, France and China wanted a quick end to most sanctions, including the embargo on Iraqi oil sales, and claimed that Baghdad has complied with most disarmament demands.

The comprehensive review that began in April did little to shift either side from its stance.

UN technical experts told the Council then that Baghdad had destroyed the vast bulk of its weapons of mass destruction, but that more work needed to be done – an argument which only helped solidify the two sides in their opposing positions.

Even on smaller matters, agreement has been difficult to achieve.

Take the case of the effort by Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov during the past week on how to handle the existence of some toxic chemicals at a Baghdad office of the expelled UN monitors, the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM).

Lavrov argued that the chemicals – including small amounts of VX nerve agent – could pose a hazard. But the Russians appeared willing to defer to Iraq’s desire not to allow UNSCOM members into the country, while the United States and others insisted that the UN monitors were best qualified to do the job safely.

“Someone needs to go and close that office,” said US Ambassador Peter Burleigh. “I don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a technical problem that needs to be addressed by technical people.”

After some debate, the Council diplomats agreed on sending a small team, including a technical expert from UNSCOM, to seal up the Baghdad office but the problem still may not be solved.

Iraq must approve visas for the UN staff and it has not backed down from its policy since December of barring UNSCOM members. If a solution to a minor problem like closing an office proved difficult, the thornier issues – particularly the sanctions – appeared nearly impossible.

Most of the countries on the Security Council favoured either ending or easing the embargo – which the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – held responsible for the deaths each month of some 5,000 infants through malnutrition and preventable disease.

The US government was unlikely to allow any change as long as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is in power and all efforts to bridge the gap have failed.

In recent months, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands proposed compromises in the Council, which would include steps to allow greater humanitarian exemptions for Iraqi oil sales and the deployment in Iraq either of UNSCOM or a body similar to it.

Yet none of the compromises have brought the five permanent members together, and testimony by UN experts in recent months have not budged them an inch.

One senior UN diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, told IPS: “We can’t keep providing testimony; at some point, they have to make a decision.”