The Hindu : Controversy over Iraq reconstruction becoming curiouser

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 24, 2003

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Controversy over Iraq reconstruction becoming curiouser

By K.K. Katyal

NEW DELHI APRIL 23. With the United States calling for the removal of sanctions on Iraq, and France and Russia favouring the U.N. route for this purpose, the controversy over reconstruction of the shattered country is becoming curiouser and curiouser. The divergence, according to diplomats here, is not unexpected, but the pungency of the rhetoric is surprising.

It marks a reversal of the roles of the two sides of the global divide before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The U.S. then was not prepared even to look at any arrangement, remotely suggesting the lifting of sanctions. France and Russia, on the other hand, wanted the U.N.-mandated inspections to be continued, the implied suggestion being that the absence of any evidence of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction could facilitate the removal of the 12-year-old embargo.

Why the change of positions now? The sanctions are governed by a resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which stipulated the conditions for lifting them. The resolution also provided for a framework — oil-for-food programme — for the intervening period, under which Iraq's oil was sold and its essential supplies purchased through the U.N.-supervised channels. Now that it is in occupation of Iraq, the U.S. wants the U.N.-supervised arrangement to end.

According to a U.S. spokesman, "we need to transition from the oil-for-food programme as soon as possible and help restore a normal trading relationship with the global economy". This was followed by a categorical statement by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, — "Now that Iraq is liberated, the United Nations should lift economic sanctions on that country."

The sanctions could not be removed without a resolution of the Security Council. The U.N., thus, would have to come into the picture in matters related to post-Saddam Iraq — a prospect not to the liking of the U.S. A no-holds-barred blame-game is on now, with each side reading motives into the stand of the other. France has now suggested immediate suspension of the civilian sanctions — obviously to avert a confrontation with the U.S. Washington, however, is not impressed. Here are two samples, one each from the rival sides.

A commentator in New York Times, William Safire, has this to say: "The Chirac-Putin bedfellowship wants to maintain control of the U.N.'s oil-for-food programme under which Iraq was permitted to sell oil and ostensibly use the proceeds to buy food and medicine for its people. Iraqis now desperately need all that the country's oil production can buy. But Jacques Chirac cares little about reconstruction of basic services; he is more concerned about maintaining U.N. control — that is, French veto control — of Iraq's oil." The commentator approvingly quotes a Senator's remark that this was "sophisticated international blackmail".

Some in the U.S. have urged Moscow to write off the debts incurred by Saddam's Iraq for purchase of weapons from Russia. "Here's the way the government of new Iraq can save some of the money it now loses by Russia's eager participation in blackmail in the Security Council: Declare that the $10 billion owed by Iraq under Saddam to Russia for unused tanks and planes will be repaid on the day Vladimir Putin repays the debts incurred by Russia under the Czars," the paper's commentator says, with biting derision.

According to a Russian daily, Nezavisimaya, from Moscow, "the lifting of sanctions only because the Americans have occupied Iraq and established `peace, freedom, equality and brotherhood' is not a legally acceptable reason. Russian experts believe that the world must play by the accepted rules. The U.S. may neglect them and present — for propaganda or any other purpose — the demand for compliance with the U.N. procedure as an attempt to `stifle' the Iraqi people."

Another daily says that the main purpose is not that "Washington's puppets would snatch the oil money" but that the lifting of sanctions would provoke a dramatic fall in the prices of energy resources, which is vital for the U.S. economy.

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