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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Supplement Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'Not a chicken farm'
President Saddam Hussein's government has embarked on a new diplomatic and media campaign to persuade the United Nations to lift the economic sanctions it imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It is seeking Arab and international support as the Security Council prepares for the next biannual extension of the oil-for-food deal later this month. This was designed by the UN to help alleviate the sufferings of 22 million Iraqis living under nine years of devastating sanctions.The Iraqi campaign is a personal crusade launched by President Hussein himself. In remarks carried by the Iraq News Agency on 6 May Saddam described the oil-for-food programme "as an attempt to turn Iraq into a chicken farm. Our enemies want to turn us into chickens who have nothing to do but look for food. The aim is to provide us with bread that is bought with money from our oil but we refuse to be turned to chickens or worms."
Iraq's deep sense of grievance over the oil-for-food programme is also apparent in the letter from Iraq's Foreign Minister Mohamed Said Al-Sahaf to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in which he says that the programme had failed to relieve the hardships of the Iraqi people.
"Iraq calls on you to shoulder your responsibility by declaring that the programme has never and will never ease the great sufferings of the Iraqi people. The only logical solution is to lift the embargo without further conditions," Sahaf insisted.
The Iraqi state-controlled media were also there trumpeting official complaints that the deal meets only a fraction of the needs of the Iraqi people. The ruling Baath Party daily Al-Thawra called for the programme to be cancelled, charging that it had turned "into one of the weapons of aggression against Iraq and its people."
Babel, the influential newspaper owned by Saddam's son Oday, scoffed at the Security Council calling it the "American and British tool" for prolonging the sanctions. "The council is dead and it is time that it was buried for ever," it said in an editorial on 8 May.
All this has meant that the campaign, the most aggressive by Iraq since the inception of the programme in December 1996, is clearly targeting the programme which allows the sale of $5.26 billion worth of oil every six months to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to Iraq.
What does Baghdad seek to achieve with this campaign? Iraq has repeatedly said it fears that the oil-for-food programme will become permanent. Baghdad has not formally said it would continue the programme, but its recent denunciation reflects increasing concern that the United Nations has done little to ease the sufferings of its people.
Part of Iraq's strategy seems to count on recent sympathetic statements by Annan himself. The Secretary General seemed in agreement with Iraq when he admitted last month in his two-year review of the programme that the programme could not meet the overwhelming needs of the Iraqi people. Though he did not specifically call for the lifting of the sanctions, Annan asked the Security Council to consider arrangements to allow additional funding for Iraq. Despite the good intentions, such proposals are not expected to receive Iraq's official agreement as it insists on a total lifting of the sanctions.
Another strategy being adopted by Iraq is the mobilisation of support among Security Council members ahead of the expected discussions in the Council scheduled for 24 May. The discussions being promoted by Iraq's supporters at the Council -- mainly Russia, France and China -- are aimed at reaching a compromise that would give Baghdad an incentive for cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors to continue their disarmament work in Iraq. But given the intransigence of the US and the UK over Iraq it is hard to imagine that such a compromise could be reached during next week's deliberations. Both the US and Britain remain adamant that Iraq should comply fully with all UN disarmament resolutions and not merely accept cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Indeed, there are signs that hardline members will raise recent accusations made by the head of the programme in Baghdad, Benon Sevan, that Iraqi warehouse are "literally overflowing" with medicine that had been purchased but not delivered to needy Iraqis.
The possibility, therefore, for a new confrontation between Iraq and the United States is hard to exclude, especially if Baghdad decides to take its campaign further and refuses to renew the oil-for-food deal which expires on 25 May.
Although the Iraqi government has not yet signaled any intention of doing so, it may choose that course in order to draw the world's attention to the severe hardships caused by the sanctions. Iraq's reasoning for this is that even if it allows the UN weapons inspectors back, and even if it comes clean on all its weapons, the American administration will not lift the embargo as long as Hussein is in power.
Saddam Hussein is accustomed to playing for high stakes & seems set on getting as much mileage out of this as he can. Iraq may not be a chicken farm, as he says, but the Americans do not show any sign of dropping their guard just because Saddam threatens to resume the cycle of ultimatums, defiance and suspense.
