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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Special Books Profile Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters New, 'improved' inspections for Iraq
The nearly decade-long UN Security Council sanctions regime designed to keep Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from amassing weapons of mass-destruction is showing new signs of life despite quickly dwindling international support. The Security Council decided in mid-December of last year to replace the ailing arms inspection agency UNSCOM (United Nations Special Committee) with the new, improved UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Committee). But while the UN breathes new life into the collapsed arms inspection effort, international support for the embargo itself is at an all-time low. Three permanent members of the Security Council; France, Russia, and China, voted to abstain from the resolution that created UNSCOM's successor, complaining that vague wording would enable America and Britain to obstruct the lifting of sanctions.
UN Resolution 1284 -- which established UNMOVIC -- is an Iraq resolution unlike any other. It lifts the dollar-ceiling on the amount of oil Iraq can sell under the "oil-for-food" programme, and ties the suspension of sanctions to Iraqi cooperation with arms inspections, rather than evidence of comprehensive disarmament. The scrapping of UNSCOM, more notorious for its rows and unpopular Chief Richard Butler than for tempered cooperation with Iraqis, heralds new hopes for ending the sanctions debacle satisfactorily. The most eagerly anticipated indicator of UNMOVIC's potential will be its chief inspector, to be named by Secretary General Kofi Annan by 14 January.
The choice of the new arms chief is every bit as delicate and politicised as the post itself. The ideal candidate will be a national of a country perceived neutral on Iraq, to satisfy the French, the Russians, and the Chinese, but someone with enough disarmament experience, and which the United States and Britain can trust to be firm with the Iraqis. The UNSCOM model of arms inspections, according to former UN Iraq Humanitarian Programme Coordinator Dennis Halliday, will never be used again. UNSCOM's Australian Chief Richard Butler sparred with Iraqi officials right from the agency's inception. Over the years, Butler was widely criticised as having turned his leadership into an extension of US State Department policy. It came to be known that members of his team were employed by American and British intelligence, and were accused of sharing classified UNSCOM information with their national employers. "The [new UNSCOM] will be a genuine international endeavour," Halliday said, "which will not make Washington happy but will do a more honest job."
The announcement of the establishment of UNMOVIC was not eagerly received by all members of the Security Council. The United States and Britain capitulated to many of the three other permanent members' demands, observers suggest, to deflect criticism from the increasingly unpopular embargo itself. Prominent NGOs have long been silent about the humanitarian toll of the sanctions, considerably easing the public relations burden that US and Britain have shouldered in making sanctions palatable to their Security Council partners. Concerned that condemning sanctions would be misinterpreted as lenience towards Saddam Hussein's regime, advocacy organisations have opted for quiet, public hand-wringing instead of demanding responsibility for the embargo's humanitarian costs.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) argued in a 5 January letter to the Security Council that a restructuring of the sanctions regime would keep the pressure on Saddam Hussein while decreasing its impact on the beleaguered Iraqi people. Iraq's mixed cooperation with the "oil-for-food" programme, said the group, was a reality the Security Council must deal with, rather than a justification it can use when faced with a public health crisis that its humanitarian programme has failed to offset.
"The Security Council has to face up to its own share of the responsibility," said HRW Middle East and North Africa Division Director Hanny Megally in a statement.
Banning non-military trade and investment keeps the Iraqi economy crippled, without directly impacting the government's ability to import weapons-related goods. Lifting the ban in conjunction with strict import controls would offset the risk involved in reviving the economy. The group also suggested the creation of an international war crimes tribunal to try Iraqi government officials for war crimes.
While individuals have for years argued that the UN sanctions are questionable under international law, HRW is the largest American advocacy group to question the ethics behind the Security Council's actions. HRW has called these a "means short of war" and suggested that the Security Council or any international actor "would be prohibited from imposing in times of war".
Whether Resolution 1284 is implemented, the embargo as a whole is restructured, and UNMOVIC evades the pitfalls that brought down UNSCOM depend on the mercurial whims of the State Department, the Security Council, and not least of all the Iraqi government. But these recent developments do make clear that a divided Security Council's integrity has been damaged by UNSCOM and the "oil-for-food" programme's failures. It also seems that criticism of the US and Britain will increase as they continue their dogged pursuit of a seemingly eternal embargo.
Compiled by staff
