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FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=834&n
cid=731&e=10&u=/nm/20030502/wl_india_nm/india_114187
U.N. Council May Modify
U.S. Call To End Bans On Iraq
Thu May 1, 8:48 PM ET
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
- Chances are slim the U.N. Security Council will lift sanctions against
Iraq next month despite U.S. President George
W. Bush 's call to end the bans and
get the United Nations out of Iraq's oil business.
Diplomats said on Thursday
a suspension or phase-out of the sanctions was more likely to be approved
by June 3, the day the U.N. Iraq oil-for-food program must be renewed.
Or they said the June 3 date would be moved back.
The Bush administration
has demanded that all sanctions, except for an arms embargo, be lifted
to set Iraq's economy free. It would end the oil-for-food program, which
gives the United Nations control over oil pricing and other contracts.
U.S.-led forces invaded
Iraq in March and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein in a war
that deeply divided the Security Council.
Russia and France
have reservations about stopping the embargoes immediately
and Britain has not yet signed on to all the U.S. proposals.
The oil-for-food program,
which began in 1996, puts Iraq's oil revenues
into a U.N.-administered fund out of which suppliers of food,
medicine and other goods Iraq orders are paid, with $12 billion now
in the account.
Some 60 percent of
Iraqis are totally dependent on the program,
designed to ease the impact of sanctions imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait
in August 1990.
The United States is
not expected to produce a draft resolution for a week or so, with administration
officials saying differences still persist between the U.S. military,
which wants one "omnibus" resolution,
and the State Department, which advocates step-by-step measures.
At a meeting called by
Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday, Security Council members said
they were waiting for concrete proposals from Washington. U.S. Ambassador
John Negroponte told them, "We didn't expect to put forward anything
this week but we would hope to do it as soon as possible," one
envoy at the session reported.
Annan has urged the
council to unite,
saying on Wednesday,
"The
overriding objective must be to enable the Iraqi people to take charge
of their own destiny."
BRITISH RESERVATIONS
Britain, which is expected
to co-sponsor and lobby council members for the resolution, has substantial
reservations about the U.S. proposals that
sideline the United Nations politically as well as U.N. arms inspectors.
"They
certainly don't like what they have seen," said one
administration official.
The U.S. proposals,
diplomats said, want the Security Council to
transfer Iraq's oil wealth to a new Iraqi administration, with
World Bank oversight.
The measure would ask
the council to appoint a U.N. envoy in an advisory role but
exclude U.N. arms inspectors
from verifying that Iraq is clean of weapons of mass destruction.
Bush administration officials
argue that since the sanctions were imposed to restrain Saddam Hussein's
government after he invaded Kuwait, there can be little justification
for keeping them in place now that he is gone.
But Russian President
Vladimir Putin made clear this week he would
not end sanctions without U.N. inspectors verifying that Iraq was free
of weapons of mass destruction as Security Council resolutions
demand.
Moscow wants the oil-for-food
program to stay in place until an Iraqi government is formed and recognized
and allow Annan to sign for
oil contracts.
France appears more flexible,
advocating suspending the sanctions while the oil-for-food program is
phased out, and a total lifting of the embargoes after inspectors verify
Iraq is clear of dangerous arms. Council diplomats note that France,
unlike Russia, has given few concrete details.
Britain wants the United
Nations to participate in reconstruction as well as forming a new government.
But Prime Minister Tony Blair said in his recent talks with Putin that
the world body should not
play a dominant role.
"Getting
the balance right between the coalition and the United Nations
is where the debate is," a British diplomat said.
Annan suggested a primary
role for the United Nations in "political
facilitation," code for helping to forge an Iraqi government,
as it did in Afghanistan. He also
wants U.N. weapons inspectors back in the country and the
sanctions phased out, but said the world body should not take charge
in Iraq.
While the United States
could just let the oil-for-food program lapse on June 3 by vetoing any
resolution to renew it, such an action would raise legal problems and
probably deter multinational companies,
whose investment and trade is sorely needed by Iraq, from doing business
there.
[TVOTW
Insert -
To the Iraqi's - their oil is their bank!!
Bush just marched in and held it up -
killing thousands of innocent Iraqi's in the process.
Take me to the
Bush
"Federal" Scandal]
FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=834&n
cid=731&e=10&u=/nm/20030502/wl_india_nm/india_114187
Take
Me To A Related Article.
