Global Policy Forum

By Edith M. Lederer

The United States pressed for a vote Monday in the U.N. Security Council to overhaul sanctions on Iraq despite Syria's reluctance to support the resolution.

Experts from the 15 nations on the powerful council met Monday morning to discuss Syria's proposed amendments, which would favor Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government.

One would include a reference to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which gives countries the right to self-defense "if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations." The proposal appeared aimed at responding to U.S. threats to topple Saddam. The five veto-wielding permanent council members - including Russia and the United States - introduced a resolution a week ago aimed at tightening the 11-year-old military embargo on Saddam Hussein's regime while easing the flow of civilian goods into Iraq.

The resolution was the result of months of negotiations between Russia, which is Iraq's most powerful ally on the Security Council, and the United States.

Diplomats had predicted a vote as early as last Wednesday, but Russia asked for a delay so President Vladimir Putin could take a final look at the new sanctions package and sign off on it. Then, on Friday, Syria circulated its amendments.

"We want to see a vote today," a U.S. official said. "We want to go forward with this."

Diplomats said the United States was unlikely to accept the Syrian demands, and Syria was likely to abstain.

The resolution represents the most far-reaching change in the oil-for-food program since it was launched in 1996 to help Iraq's people cope with sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The program is an exemption to sanctions, and was originally designed to provide food and basic humanitarian goods but has been expanded to cover public services such as education and water supply. It has become the mainstay of the Iraqi economy and is funded by oil sales.

Under the program, the U.N. committee monitoring sanctions must approve most contracts for humanitarian goods. But any of the 15 Security Council members can place an individual contract on hold.

More than dlrs 5 billion worth of contracts are currently on hold - about 90 percent by the United States and about 10 percent by Britain - on grounds that the goods have a potential military use. Iraq has criticized the Western allies for denying it badly needed humanitarian supplies.

The draft resolution contains a lengthy list of goods that would need U.N. review before shipment to Iraq, ranging from telecommunications and information technology equipment to sophisticated engineering items. All other humanitarian goods can be freely imported by Iraq.

Revamping sanctions is "important because there's been this issue that Saddam Hussein has used over and over again about the suffering of his people," the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"If we are able to pass the goods review list resolution, we will have gone a long way to addressing any outstanding humanitarian concerns. We will also have gone a long way from preventing Iraq from acquiring materials it needs to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction program," the official said.

Sanctions against Iraq cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors report that its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs have been dismantled along with the missiles to deliver them. Inspectors left Iraq ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes in December 1998, and Iraq has barred them from returning, maintaining that its banned weapons programs have been eliminated.

Since March, Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri has held two rounds of talks with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the return of inspectors, and a third round is expected, probably in early May.

Under the proposed new oil-for-food system, all humanitarian contracts ordered by Iraq would be forwarded to the U.N. office that runs the program. It would have to forward contracts to the two U.N. agencies responsible for dismantling Iraq's banned weapons within 10 days.

The two agencies - the U.N. Monitoring and Verification Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency - would, in turn, have 10 days to raise any objections. Syria has proposed cutting this total period from 20 days to 10 days. Contracts for items that are not on the list would be automatically approved. If either body identifies an item as objectionable, the contract would then be forwarded to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions. It would decide whether to allow the item's purchase, subject to monitoring, ask the supplier to substitute an item that isn't on the list, or reject it.

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