Global Policy Forum

By Felicity Barringer and Elisabeth Bumiller

The French ambassador to the United Nations called today for the immediate suspension of most United Nations sanctions against Iraq, allowing unrestricted nonmilitary trade to resume. The move by the ambassador, Jean Marc de la Sablií¨re, was intended to avert a new Security Council showdown over the role of the United Nations and could also be an attempt by France to avoid the possibility of being frozen out of plans for a postwar Iraq.

The suspension of most sanctions — though not the United Nations arms embargo — would fall short of President Bush's call for the Security Council to lift all sanctions. But even though it is unclear how much the French proposal would extend civilian trade with Iraq, the move sends a clear signal that France is seeking to shed its image as a leading antagonist of the United States on the war in Iraq. Bush administration officials had a lukewarm reaction to the proposal. Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said it "may be a move, you know, sort of in the right direction." "But the situation is so much different" than it was when Saddam Hussein was in power, he "that there is no need for sanctions anymore, and we need all to look at how they can be lifted and how the Iraqi people can go back to a normal relationship with the world." Meanwhile, President Bush said in an interview with magazine reporters that he had no plans for another war, according to excerpts disclosed by Newsweek.

Despite speculation that Syria or Iran might be a future target, Mr. Bush said: "I have no specific operation in mind at this point in time. I can't think of a specific moment or incident that would require military action as we speak." White House officials also indicated publicly today for the first time that they were adamantly opposed to the quick return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq. They said that since a military team of American, British and Australian officials was now aggressively looking for biological and chemical weapons in Iraq, there was no need for a United Nations team led by Hans Blix to duplicate the efforts. Administration officials insisted that Mr. Blix's team would be a hindrance, not a help, and that they did not want two separate groups asking for the same documents and interviewing the same scientists.

"We are looking forward, not backward," said Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, when asked if the United States wanted weapons inspectors to return soon. "Saddam Hussein's regime is gone." Mr. Fleischer added that the White House had "high confidence" in the military team now searching for unconventional weapons.

In an interview this afternoon, Mr. Blix said he did not doubt the competence of the current inspection teams, some of whose members used to work for the United Nations. "I think the inspectors they're using are professional people," he said. "They will seek as objective information as they can." "But clearly there is a difference," he added. "International inspectors operate under U.N. rules. They are under statutory obligations not to take instructions from any government, and governments are also under obligation not to instruct them." "Therefore," he added, "testimony by international inspections, provided that has been prepared professionally, carries I think greater credibility with the international community."

Mr. Blix, in a pointed reference to the limited results of the current United States-led inspections, added, "We found as little, but with less cost." He paused, then added, "so far," making it clear he felt the American efforts could still bear fruit. While the Bush administration's public statements were generally dismissive, officials did not rule out the eventual return of United Nations inspectors led by Mr. Blix and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But with an indeterminate time required to stabilize the situation in Iraq — a condition Mr. Fleischer said would be necessary to ensure the inspectors' safety — it seemed unlikely that Mr. Blix, who has said he will leave his post when his contract expires on June 30, will still be in place if inspections resume.

White House officials said they were concerned that France might try to extract a price for its offer and repeated Mr. Bush's insistence that the United Nations immediately lift the sanctions, not just suspend them. Administration officials made it clear they did not trust Mr. Blix, who infuriated the White House before the war with what many in the administration considered an overly compliant approach to Mr. Hussein's government and an overly critical attitude toward the intelligence he was given. Whether he is there or not, the two inspection processes could easily be coordinated, Mr. Blix suggested. He said today that he told the Security Council: "I do not foresee any adversarial relations between the two. After all, we are both looking at the truth and they are trying to be as objective as they can."

Nonetheless, a number of officials in the administration said today that they would be willing to have the United Nations inspectors return to Iraq to verify any biological or chemical weapons that the military teams might find. The view is that a third-party validation would help convince a skeptical Arab world that the weapons had been found and not planted by the United States. "We're not at the point yet where inspectors can go in," one administration official said, adding, "As we talk about moving toward counting weapons and destroying them in a secure environment, then we can start talking about whether there is a need for outside inspectors." The suddenness of the French proposal left other nations on the Security Council struggling for ways to respond while keeping their options open.

The Russian envoy, Sergey Lavrov, went into the morning meeting saying: "What we are insisting upon is that Security Council resolutions must be implemented. We all want to know that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And the only way to verify it is to have inspectors in Iraq who would report back to the Security Council." When he emerged, he made similar points, but far less bluntly, and he said he was open to discussion of the French proposal. The United States' envoy, John D. Negroponte, told reporters after the morning meeting: "Our view is that in light of the dramatically changed circumstances in Iraq that sanctions should be lifted as soon as possible. So we now need to work with France and other countries to see how best that can be achieved and how quickly." The French proposal would permit commercial flights and the revival of the financial securities industry, but would not affect the current arms embargo.

Sanctions were initially imposed on Iraq in 1990 after Mr. Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Iraqi oil could not be legally exported and most trade with Iraq was forbidden. After that war ended, the United Nations made the lifting of the sanctions contingent on Iraq's compliance with the United Nations' disarmament demands. In 1995, in response to protests that the sanctions were depriving innocent Iraqis of food, medicine and other necessities, the Security Council created the oil-for-food program. This program, which started operation in 1996, established United Nations control over Iraqi oil revenues, which could be spent only under United Nations supervision. This program, Mr. de la Sablií¨re said, should be phased out gradually.

The head of the program, Benon Sevan, met with the Security Council this afternoon and emphasized that "you cannot just cut the umbilical cord," and further disrupt a program that has been suspended since the eve of the war. Even though the program has at least 8.5 million barrels of oil ready to deliver, one Council diplomat pointed out, none of it can be lifted from the tanks in the Turkish port of Ceyhan until a legally recognized authority assumes the ownership role once held by Mr. Hussein's State Oil Marketing Organization.

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