February 23, 1999
Baghdad -- Iraq will not buy anything from the United States, Japan, Britain and Switzerland under the U.N.-approved oil-for-food program, a government newspaper reported today. The al-Ittehad weekly said the government has prepared a list of 33 countries that will remain eligible to supply Iraq with food, medicines and other humanitarian goods.
The list includes Saudi Arabia, which angered Baghdad by abetting U.S. and British airstrikes on Iraq late last year. Japan also fell out of favor with Iraq for supporting the United States and Britain in their military policy toward Iraq. It is not clear why Iraq wants to ban Swiss imports.
The oil-for-food program has allowed Iraq to buy food and other humanitarian items every six months from the money it earns by selling oil, in an exception to the U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Since the 1991 Gulf War freed Kuwait, the United States and Britain have maintained military pressure on Iraq and in mid-December launched punitive strikes on the country. Their warplanes continue to spar with Iraqi defense forces.
The oil-for-food program began in December 1996 and during the last two years, Iraq has imported millions of dollars worth of goods from the four countries it has now reportedly blacklisted. Iraq had said in the past that it prefers to deal with countries that support its demand for lifting the sanctions.
A U.N. spokesman said Iraq is free to deal with any country it wants. ``Iraq has signed many contracts with American companies in the past despite conflicts and they can choose countries they want to buy products from,'' said Onukaba A. Oja, a spokesman for the oil-for-food program in Baghdad.
The program initially allowed Iraq to sell $2.2 billion worth of oil every six months; the amount was later raised to $5.2 billion. But a U.N. statement said that even though the latest, fifth phase that began in December 1998 is about to reach the halfway point, Iraq has been able to export only $1.3 billion in oil. Iraq blames the low revenue on the slump in world oil prices and the dilapidated state of its oil wells.
