By Barbara Crossette
The chief arms inspector for Iraq, Richard Butler, told the Security Council on Tuesday that he was disappointed with Iraq's cooperation with resumed inspections, particularly the refusal to produce any documents that the inspectors requested.
The council took no action beyond noting his report and agreeing to continue discussing the issue.
Diplomats described the meeting as not confrontational, with no real challenges to Butler, as the Iraqis have demanded. He was asked by some council members to explain why the U.N. Special Commission, which monitors the weapons program, needed to see the documents.
The tension and crisis atmosphere of the last two weeks is gone from the council, and there seems to be a general agreement by critics and supporters of Iraq that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq should have time to demonstrate amply how he intends to proceed before punishment or rewards are rendered. "This is not a crisis," Shen Guofang of China said. "This is a problem." Sergei Lavrov of Russia also took a low-key approach, diplomats said, describing the confrontation over documents as something that should be worked out between Butler and Iraq.
In Washington officials sought to portray firm resolve in dealing with Iraq a day after having signaled a new policy of patience. Officials used somewhat tougher language than they did on Monday in addressing the refusal on documents that relate to suspected weapons sites. "I don't believe Iraq should be in the position of declaring unilaterally that documents are irrelevant to the needs and requests of the UNSCOM inspectors," Defense Secretary William Cohen said at a news session with Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping of Germany. "So we will continue to follow it. But much depends upon the level and degree of cooperation on the part of the Iraqis."
White House press secretary Joe Lockhart would not say whether Iraqi resistance would set off American military action. "We remain very skeptical of their intentions," Lockhart said.
David Leavy, a National Security Council spokesman, said Washington was not satisfied with Iraq since it agreed 10 days ago to resume unfettered access.
At the United Nations on Tuesday morning the Security Council voted, over Iraqi objections, to renew for an additional six months the program under which limited quantities of oil are sold to pay for civilian programs. The unanimous vote without a debate was taken after several delegations, led by Russia, had proposed changes to the plan at the behest of Iraq. The changes received no support, diplomats said, because the plan is demonstrating some success at improving conditions in Iraq. Childhood malnutrition has, for example, leveled off, officials say, and more than $444 million in medicine has been imported in two years.
"These delegations dropped their requests in favor of a very quick consensus," said Antonio Monteiro of Portugal, chairman of the council's Iraq sanctions committee. "This is very positive. It shows the awareness of the humanitarian impact of this operation."
Iraq has not said whether it will continue in the program, however. It is left to the Iraqis to decide in consultation with the United Nations how the money will be allocated, and the Iraqi proposals have to be reviewed in New York before goods are bought. In recent months Iraq has expanded its requests from basic goods like food and medicine to items like telephone equipment and computers for schools. Under the program Iraq has built up or renewed commercial ties with a range of nations. Last week Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf wrote to the council, asking that the current six-month phase be extended only an additional two months because Iraq was incapable of producing the $5.2 billion in oil now allowed to be sold every 180 days.
Iraqi officials would also like a shorter renewal period, because they are pressing to have sanctions lifted so that oil can be sold freely, making the program irrelevant.
They complain that the United States and Britain are holding up approval of imported equipment and chemical supplies that independent experts said Iraq needed to upgrade its oil fields and pipelines. The first shipment, barrels of chemical agents to clean crude oil, did not begin to arrive in Iraq until this week.
U.N. officials say much of the reason that Iraq has been unable to meet the target stems not as much from missing parts and supplies as from the fall in oil prices. The United Nations takes nearly one-third off the top of earnings under the program for a compensation fund that benefits victims of Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait and for protected Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. The program also pays the expenses of the U.N. Special Commission.
In the midst of what could be drawn-out negotiations on several fronts with Iraq, officials in Baghdad confirmed Tuesday that the Iraqi representative at the United Nations, Nizar Hamdoon, would leave at the end of the year and that his replacement would be his deputy, Saeed Hasan, an economist educated at the Sorbonne. Hamdoon, the ambassador to Washington in the 1980s who is widely considered to have been an effective voice for Iraq there and in New York since 1992, said in an interview that he expected to return to a post in the Foreign Ministry.
