Global Policy Forum

By Barbara Crossette

United Nations - Nearly a year after arms inspectors fled Iraq in the face of imminent American bombing, tempers flared in the Security Council on Friday over the inability of the major powers to agree on how to resume the process of disarming Saddam Hussein and lifting sanctions that have weighed on Iraqis for eight years.

In a polite but dramatic show of impatience with the council's five permanent members, who have been meeting privately for more than six months without producing a new disarmament plan, several of the 10 nations holding nonpermanent seats in effect told the group -- known as the P-5 and comprising Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- to stop stalling. "For over a year the council has failed in its responsibility to deal effectively with the Iraq problem," said Robert Fowler, Canada's representative. Argentina, Brazil and Gambia echoed that opinion.

What turned into an unexpectedly tense meeting had been called because Russia, breaking ranks with its four fellow veto-wielding members, objected to a renewal of the existing "oil for food" program, under which Iraq is selling about $7 billion in oil in the current six-month period to pay for food, medicine, farm equipment and the like. The council had been summoned to extend the program for two more weeks, which was done, to allow more discussion on it and on how the oil sales plan will relate to a larger disarmament resolution still in dispute.

Peter van Walsum, representative of the Netherlands and co-sponsor of a comprehensive resolution that would suspend some sanctions on Iraq in calibration with Iraqi compliance with arms inspections -- a resolution Russia has been resisting -- reflected a broader irritation many United Nations members feel at the way many council deliberations are sequestered and prolonged by the most powerful nations when they cannot reach agreement.

"We have been too intimately involved in the process for us to underestimate the difficulties," Van Walsum said of the vexed disarmament plan. "But we cannot conceal the fact that my delegation is far from happy with the way the Iraq file is being handled in the Security Council today.

"While the P-5 have been struggling with this issue for almost six months, we, the nonpermanent members, have had approximately no more than one progress report per month, courtesy of the United Kingdom delegation. It is possible that this way of functioning and this speed is acceptable to the permanent five. But we, the elected members, simply cannot go on telling the other United Nations members who have elected us that we are content to sit and wait for white smoke to emerge from the H-5 -- the P-5 -- chambers.

"I use the word H-5 because in my delegation we have started to call the permanent five the 'hereditary five.'"

Representatives of two of the five -- Sir Jeremy Greenstock of Britain and Sergey Lavrov of Russia -- sparred openly over what to expect in the weeks to come. Britain, the United States and to an uncertain degree France would like to see a comprehensive arms resolution ready for a vote when the two-week postponement of the oil program vote expires.

Lavrov, who asked for a second chance to speak in order to make his point twice, said there could be no "artificial timetables" or links between the two, a view repeated by China. Lavrov accused other nations of holding suffering Iraqis hostage to policy differences. Russia wants changes in the oil-sales program that would free more money and goods for Iraq. The Russians, who are owed billions of dollars by the Iraqis and foresee future lucrative contracts, would also lift sanctions before introducing arms inspections. No other permanent member now takes that position. The Russian delegation is now suddenly isolated and under considerable pressure to compromise, diplomats say.