What inspections?
The US-proposed Security Council resolution on Iraq maintains tight control of the country's political and economic affairs and opens the door for a long stay by the "coalition of the willing". Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
The powerful blasts in Saudi Arabia that targeted Americans residing in the oil-rich kingdom on Monday partly overshadowed the opening of debates yesterday (Wednesday) at the United Nations Security Council on the US-proposed resolution outlining its plans for running Iraq. However, lengthy and complicated negotiations are expected to mark Security Council debates on the draft resolution.
The resolution, sponsored by America's war coalition members Britain and Spain, maintains strict control over Iraq's political and economic affairs, offers the UN and the international community an advisory role, left open the duration of stay of occupation troops and neglected any reference to UN weapons inspectors and their role in verifying that the country was clean of alleged weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason listed by the Bush administration to launch the war against Iraq.
The first step in the draft resolution is an immediate lifting of the 13-year-old economic sanctions, imposed by the United Nations after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. While the United States was the driving force behind the tight sanctions on Iraq, which resulted in severe hardships for Iraqi civilians, their immediate removal is now a top priority for the US administration. Lifting the sanctions would allow the US to use the country's oil revenues to pay the costs of its presence there and begin reconstruction projects.
Iraq's oil revenues, now under UN control, would be turned over to a new "Iraqi Assistance Fund" whose monies "shall be disbursed at the direction" of the United States and Britain for reconstruction and humanitarian purposes. The new fund would have an "advisory board" that includes officials appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Offering an incentive to its hard-line adversaries on the Security Council -- namely France and Russia -- the draft resolution calls for phasing out the UN-sponsored Oil-For-Food Programme over four months and fulfilling contracts signed before the downfall of the former Iraqi regime. The programme started in 1996 and allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy food and medicine under strict UN supervision. Iraq used the programme to award contracts to countries that supported its call for an immediate lifting of the sanctions, including Russia, France, Egypt and Jordan.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes said that there are now roughly 7,000 contracts in the Oil-for-Food Programme that amount to about $10 billion. "This resolution calls for honouring those contracts that are in the pipeline for a four-month period, and what happens after that will have to be addressed at that time," he told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
Seeking to speed up negotiations over the detailed resolution, US officials have set 3 June as a deadline for approving the resolution. The Security Council could decide to renew the Oil-For-Food Programme on that date. US officials said that approving the draft resolution was needed in order to start improving the chaotic living conditions in Iraq and to resume oil exports.
In his briefing to reporters, Holmes, who recently visited Russia and Germany to gain their support for the draft resolution, said he sensed a "pragmatic view" in his discussions in both countries and among other Security Council members. "The general impression I have from all of the countries on the Council is they want to be pragmatic," he said. "We want to put the disagreements of the past behind us. We want to move on. And we want to move on because it's imperative for the benefit of the Iraqi people that we do this," he added.
That "pragmatic" approach was expressed in statements made by French, Russian and German officials this week who referred to their views on the draft resolution as "questions" rather than objections. Nevertheless, a long list of critical issues remains.
In an interview in Le Monde newspaper, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the draft offering the United Nations a role in humanitarian aid and reconstruction was "too timid and imprecise", and suggested it be expanded. He also proposed that a "strict, reasonable" deadline be set for ending the occupation of Iraq and that any extension should be agreed upon by the Security Council, which in turn should receive quarterly reports on the progress of reconstruction.
The US draft asks Security Council members to "endorse the exercise of the responsibilities stated in this resolution by the [occupation] authority for an initial period of 12 months from the date of the adoption of this resolution, to continue thereafter as necessary unless the Security Council decides otherwise". Asked whether the US reference to a 12-month period meant that this was the period it planned to stay in Iraq, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld vehemently disagreed. He said that this was only an "initial period" that could later be extended. The commander of US troops in the Gulf, General Tommy Franks, meanwhile, refused to predict how long the US would stay in Iraq, stating that they may stay as long as "one, two or three years" depending on the security situation and the emergence of a new Iraqi government.
In his interview with Le Monde, de Villepin repeated France's earlier contention that the sanctions should be suspended before a final lifting of the embargoes. He said UN resolutions call for weapons inspectors to verify that Iraq no longer has weapons of mass destruction. However, he said, details on when inspectors could return would have to be worked out between the inspectors and the coalition. The proposed US drafts make no reference to the UN inspectors or their role in verifying any alleged seizures of banned weapons in Iraq by the United States.
While some countries and UN officials welcomed the fact that for the first time the US and Britain officially recognised their status as an "occupying power" in Iraq, human rights activists say that admission was intentionally delayed so that the US could avoid lawsuits for possible war crimes committed in Iraq prior to the declaration on 8 May. After recognising their role as occupiers, the US and Britain can be held accountable to international agreements providing protection to populations under occupation, such as the Third Geneva Convention and the Hague Agreement.
Since the fall of Baghdad on 9 April, officials in Washington have referred to themselves as a "liberation force" and refused to officially declare the end of hostilities. In Belgium on Monday, a group of relatives of civilians who were killed in Iraq during the US invasion said they would file a lawsuit alleging war crimes against General Tommy Franks.
