Global Policy Forum

By Dafna Linzer

Irked by a U.S.-British plan on Iraq that was forged in secret and thrust at them with a demand for quick action, the other permanent members on the U.N. Security Council seem set to rebel - splitting the powerhouse nations once again over how to deal with Baghdad.

Dueling initiatives - one formally submitted by Britain, the other by Russia - fractured the inner-core of the council along traditional lines Tuesday. Washington and London called for an overhaul on sanctions by June 4. Moscow, Paris and Beijing said they need more time. Any one of the five could use their veto power to torpedo a resolution. French, Russian and Chinese diplomats complained, some privately, that the British proposal went too far, too fast.

One French diplomat said the two English-speaking allies made a mistake by trying to push through a complex and technical plan - that includes lists of hundreds of so-called military items that would be banned from Iraq - in just eight working days. And a Russian official was angered that the lists - which were given to the permanent members on Monday - were held back from the 10 rotating members on the council. The U.S.-British proposal seeks to reform what goes in and what is kept out of Iraq by detailing prohibited items rather than goods that are allowed to be imported. Diplomats from the two nations say the new plan is designed to keep President Saddam Hussein from rearming 11 years after he invaded Kuwait and lobbed missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Saddam has rejected the proposal. An Iraqi state-run newspaper on Wednesday quoted Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz as saying Baghdad would stop selling oil through the oil-for-food program if the changes are adopted. ``Not a single barrel of oil shall be sold through the program if the Security Council adopted the draft resolution with the American elements and American ideas recommended,'' Aziz told foreign diplomats in Baghdad on Tuesday night, according to Al-Thawra newspaper.

In a report to the Security Council Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Iraq in recent months has already reduced its participation in the oil-for-food program - established in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell oil for humanitarian goods.

The U.S.-British proposal would be worked into a resolution for extending the oil-for-food program, which comes up for its six-month review in June. Acting U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham said the lists of items that would be prohibited for Iraq were still being worked on. ``It's a highly technical exercise,'' but, he said, they would be circulated ``in the near future.''

In any case, China's deputy ambassador Shen Guofang said his government needs time to study the lists and accompanying explanations, which diplomats said were about 30 pages long. ``I doubt we can reach any consensus shortly,'' Shen said Tuesday, adding that a routine extension of the existing oil-for-food program might be the best way to go right now. That's what Russia, a key Iraq supporter, is offering, along with a few added incentives for Baghdad, including the reduction of Iraq's compensation payments to victims of its 1990 invasion.

Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, would not comment on the Russian proposal. But he rejected the other one outright, saying Iraq opposed attempts to change the nature of its trade with neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Syria. The British plan would allow the three, which have lost billions of dollars in trade with Iraq over the last decade, to legally import up to 150,000 barrels a day and pay for it in cash or goods.

The five permanent members of the Security Council have been at odds over how to deal with Iraq ever since U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in December 1998, complaining that Saddam was not cooperating. Shortly afterward, Britain and the United States carried out air strikes against Iraq. The two allies also maintain strict no-fly zones over Iraqi air space - leftovers from the Gulf War. Their tough line against Iraq has left them open to criticism. Some say that was the impetus for the joint initiative, worked on behind closed-doors for months, which aims to lift sanctions on civilian goods. U.S. and British officials say they also wanted to rob Saddam of a way to blame the West for the humanitarian crisis facing his people.