epic MEDIA alert: DISPEL FALSE SPIN ABOUT SMART SANCTIONS

epic MEDIA alert: DISPEL FALSE SPIN ABOUT SMART SANCTIONS

Recent press attention given to this latest trial balloon provides a media window for us to counter the evolving U.S.-British "smart" sanctions proposal. Voices in the Wilderness USA/UK, EPIC, CESR, the Campaign of Conscience and friends urge you to take the time to fire off some letters to the New York Times and other papers. We have included some useful quotes
below.

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I. EPIC MEDIA ALERT Brief on SMART SANCTIONS

II. USEFUL QUOTES

III. Editorials
* NEW YORK TIMES, Recasting the Iraq sanctions
* CHICAGO TRIBUNE, At last, sanity on Iraq
* NEW YORK TIMES, Saddam Wins Again
* WASHINGTON POST, Article - Allies Work to Modify UN's Iraqi Sanctions
* SEATTLE TIMES, End the Iraq War

IV. Wire Stories
* Reuters - UN Council Powers Discuss Easing Iraqi Sanctions
* AP - Iraq Rejects 'Smart Sanctions' Plan
* Reuters - UN Envoys Query Quick Adoption of New Iraqi Plans
* AP - U.S. Switches Iraq Policy
* AFP - Brits propose abolishing UN embargo on non-military trade with Iraq

V. EPIC Lobby Days. Register by June 4th! Visit http://saveageneration.org
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I. EPIC Media Alert Brief: SMART SANCTIONS

[May 21, 2000] Proponents of maintaining comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq portray the problem as simply being a shortage of food, medicine and consumer goods. The U.S.-British proposal would ease restrictions to allow more civilian goods to enter Iraq. However, by only allowing commodities into the country, "smart" sanctions will fail to address Iraq's massive unemployment, hyper-inflation, widespread poverty and failing infrastructure. Although any improvements to the UN humanitarian program are welcome, such steps should not be presented as a solution to Iraq's humanitarian crisis.

Iraq's economic needs are more fundamental than shortages of food, medicine, and civilian goods.

Concerns about Iraq's civilian infrastructure, expressed since 1991, were dramatically underscored last August when Iraq's Mussaiyab power station failed completely, bringing the national power grid close to "a catastrophic system failure." [Secretary-General's report of 29 November 2000, para. 99]

Iraq has to be in position to rehabilitate infrastructure. This cannot happen if goods are constantly being held up, blocked or delayed by New York or UN bureaucracy. Nor can it happen without direct access to funds generated by the large-scale export of oil to finance the rehabilitation of war-damaged civilian infrastructure and pay doctors, teachers, public works
employees, trash collectors, civil engineers, judges, and other public servants essential to civil society in Iraq.

In the press, the U.S.-British proposal is causing a lot of confusion and generating a false spin. In an editorial, the New York Times claims that "In return for a relaxation of the trade ban, Mr. Hussein would have to allow the U.N. to resume weapons inspections" - something explicitly denied by U.S. officials in yesterday's wire reports. Unfortunately, the confusion appears to be working. The Chicago Tribune describes the proposal as a "momentous policy change" with Colin Powell backing away from his earlier commitment to "re-energize the sanctions regime." The reality, of course, is exactly the opposite.

The "new proposal" maintains the pillars of existing U.S. sanctions policy. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Iraqi Government, which is resistant to any measures that might extend the life of sanctions, has rejected the proposal (see AP story below).

Below you will find recent editorials and articles from the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, the Washington Post, and the Seattle Times along with contact information for writing letters to the editor. Help set the record straight. Write a letter to one or more of the papers below today.

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II. USEFUL QUOTES (from Voices in the Wilderness UK)

OIL-FOR-FOOD AND THE ECONOMY

* '... the humanitarian situation in Iraq will continue to be a dire one in the absence of a sustained revival of the Iraqi economy which in turn cannot be achieved solely through remedial humanitarian efforts' (UN Humanitarian Panel Report, March 1999). [By retaining the oil-for-food framework, the British proposal prevents such a revival, basically continuing to run Iraq's economic life on the model of a refugee camp with 22 million inhabitants.]

* Oil-for-food 'does not contain the elements of comprehensive planning and economic revival that we believe to be essential in order to reverse the dangerously degraded state of the country's civilian infrastructure and social services' (Human Rights Watch, January 2000).

* 'An emergency commodity assistance program like oil-for-food, no matter how well funded or well run, cannot reverse the devastating consequences of war and then ten years of virtual shut-down of Iraq's economy.' (Human Rights Watch, August 2000)

* Oil-for-food was 'never intended ... to be a substitute for normal economic activity' (UN Secretary-General's Report, March 2001), the absence of which 'has given rise to the spread of deep-seated poverty' (S-G Report, November 2000).

THE INFRASTRUCTURE

* 'The deterioration in Iraq's civilian infrastructure is so far reaching that it can only be reversed with extensive investment and development efforts.' (Human Rights Watch, Save the Children UK et. al. , August 2000).

* 'Regardless of the improvements that might be brought about - in terms of approval procedures, better performance by the Iraqi Government, or funding levels - the magnitude of the humanitarian needs is such that they cannot be met within the context of [the oil-for-food programme] ... Nor was the programme intended to meet all the needs of the Iraqi people ... Given the present state of the infrastructure, the revenue required for its rehabilitation is far above the level available under the programme.' (UN Humanitarian Panel, March 1999).

'SMART' SANCTIONS

The following quotes were in response to the 'smart' sanctions proposal mooted in February this year - a proposal very similar to the current one. * 'The British proposal of 'smart sanctions' offers and aspirin where surgery is called for' (The Economist, 24th February 2001)

* 'What is proposed is not so much genuinely smart as an attempt to make sanctions appear smarter and more presentable' (Neil Partrick of the Royal United Services Institute, quoted in the Guardian, 26 February 2001).

* 'It may be that all there will be is a change of presentation to re-focus domestic and international opinion on Saddam' (anonymous British official, quoted in the Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2001)

* '... if Britain released all the contracts currently on hold, the situation would only revert to that of two years ago, a UN diplomat said. "So they would be curing a problem of their own making"

As for the 'smart sanctions' Britain's partners have been told that these would also be in the framework of the oil-for-food humanitarian programme, in order to ensure that military items would be under strict control, while civilian goods would be waved through more expeditiously: "It sounds like they want to shake up the bureacracy. But it's like trying to shake up the
Gosplan in the Soviet Union," one diplomat said.' ('Easing' of Iraqi sanctions will make little difference, says UN, The Independent, 21 February 2001)

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May 20, 2001
Editorial, the New York Times

Recasting the Iraq Sanctions

Recognizing that the international embargo on trade with Iraq has become increasingly untenable, the United States and Britain will soon propose a reasonable narrowing of the sanctions to bar the shipment of arms and weapons-related material to Saddam Hussein's regime. Even nations that are weary of the 11-year ban on trade with Iraq should support restrictions
designed to prevent Baghdad from rearming and once again threatening its neighbors. But Washington and London will have to make a concerted diplomatic offensive if they hope to prevail at the United Nations Security Council and gain Mr. Hussein's assent for a plan that would return international weapons inspectors to Iraq.

A decade after the Persian Gulf war, most of the world has lost interest in isolating Iraq. Some nations are lured toward complacency by short memories of Mr. Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and the prospect of profitable business deals with Baghdad. The change in attitude is shortsighted, but with permanent members of the Security Council like France, Russia and China anxious to abandon the embargo, the United States and Britain have no choice but to fashion a new approach.

Under the British-American proposal, the Security Council would develop a specific list of military and industrial items that would be banned from sale to Iraq. Iraq would still be required to deposit all its legitimate oil revenues in an escrow account controlled by the U.N. Yet the country would be free to import whatever nonmilitary goods it wished, effectively ending the embargo on civilian commodities. The U.N. has permitted Iraq to import food, medicine and other essential items, but Mr. Hussein has cynically limited such purchases to stoke foreign complaints about the hardships the embargo has inflicted on the Iraqi people.

In return for a relaxation of the trade ban, Mr. Hussein would have to allow the U.N. to resume weapons inspections, which have been suspended since 1998. He is unlikely to accept the deal unless he is convinced that the Security Council is united in its determination to maintain an arms embargo and will not set aside the broader trade restrictions until he lets inspectors back into Iraq to monitor weapons programs. He may well reject the plan even if faced with an undivided Security Council, but there will be no hope of obtaining his agreement if France, Russia and China remain wobbly.

The plan will also prove unworkable if nearby nations like Syria, Iran, Turkey and Jordan are unwilling to enforce the prohibition on arms sales by carefully inspecting overland cargo shipments to Iraq. All these nations now openly permit the smuggling of banned goods in and out of Iraq. If the new diplomatic initiative fizzles, President Bush is sure to face escalating pressures to support Iraqi efforts to unseat Mr. Hussein. American financial assistance might be appropriate if there were an
organized, well-led opposition within Iraq, or in the Iraqi exile community, but that is not the case. Mr. Bush should not entertain any proposals to use American military forces or weapons in concert with Mr. Hussein's foes.

Engineering a change in governments is easy to champion but extremely difficult to execute, even in the rare cases when it may be justified and consistent with American principles. A bungled program to remove Mr. Hussein from power would embarrass the United States and recklessly endanger the lives of Iraqis who would like to see a democratic government installed in Baghdad.

TAKE ACTION. Write a letter to the NEW YORK TIMES and EMAIL letters@nytimes.com

You can also send your letter to:
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
fax: (212) 556-3622

New York Times Policy: Letters to the Times should only be sent to the Times, and not to other publications. The Times will not publish open letters or third-party letters. When writing, be certain to include your name, address and a daytime and evening phone number. Letters should be limited to about 150 words. Writers of those letters selected for publication will be notified within a week. Letters may be shortened for space requirements.

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May 20, 2001
Editorial, Chicago Tribune

At last, sanity on Iraq

Britain is expected Tuesday to introduce in the United Nations Security Council a resolution that could mark the beginning of the end of the Gulf War. Backed by the United States, the British measure would end the international trade embargo of Iraq, retaining only restrictions against sales of arms and weapons-related goods. The resolution represents a long-overdue concession to reality by Britain and the U.S., which have found themselves increasingly isolated as more and more nations, disgusted with the effects of the embargo on the lives and health of the Iraqi people, demanded an end to it.

It also suggests that London and Washington have finally recognized what ought to be the sole aim of restrictions on Iraq: to prevent it from acquiring the means to threaten its neighbors and using them. For that purpose, an embargo on arms, backed by the threat of massive retaliation if Saddam ever dares to use a weapon of mass destruction, ought to be enough.

This momentous policy change, which the Tribune began urging on the U.S. back in 1998, could hardly have been predicted when the Bush administration came to office four months ago. Not only had two of the administration's top dogs--Secretary of State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney--been architects of the Gulf War victory in 1991, but Powell came in speaking of working with America's allies to "re-energize the sanctions regime."

An early tour of the Mideast apparently helped change his mind. The secretary discovered that our "allies" wanted nothing so much as to sleep with the enemy--or at least trade with him. And both among the allied and the indifferent, there was anger and unease with a policy that, by the UN's count, had caused the deaths of more than 1 million Iraqis since 1991.
Clearly, Powell perceived, it was time for Plan B.

A British official said Friday that it is London's and Washington's hope that, with the effects of the embargo on the Iraqi people removed as an excuse, the members of the Gulf War coalition will come together again in support of the arms restrictions. In other words, less should turn out to be more.

They certainly ought to come together. Through the 10 years since open combat gave way to cat-and-mouse evasions, Saddam has been unrelenting in his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since UN weapons inspectors were effectively barred from the country in 1998, the Iraqi dictator has been able to proceed unhindered in his quest. And he has given evidence that he still covets Kuwait as an Iraqi province.

Meantime, the sanctions regime has come, in the words of President Bush in a January interview with The New York Times, to resemble "Swiss cheese." Smuggling--of oil and all manner of other goods--has become commonplace. Baghdad's airport, renovated and rededicated, was reopened last year and does not want for traffic.

Britain's embargo-ending initiative is formally a resolution to change the terms of the oil-for-food program resolution, which must be renewed by June 4. That program has allowed Iraq for several years to sell specified amounts of oil, the proceeds of which go into a special UN fund, to be tapped to purchase food, medicine and other non-military goods. But the rules have
never been successfully enforced or followed.

Iraq, interestingly, is expected to oppose the British-American resolution in the UN. It demands that all restrictions on it be ended unconditionally.

Assuming the resolution passes, it will do nothing about possibly the most dangerous aspect of the Anglo-American relationship with Iraq: The two no-fly zones that the U.S. and Britain declared after hostilities ended 10 years ago to shield vulnerable ethnic and religious minorities from Saddam's depredations.

That could prove an even stickier wicket than the sanctions have been, especially if an Iraqi anti-aircraft gunner gets lucky one of these days and brings down an American or a British plane.

For now, it is auspicious that Britain and the U.S. have found the good sense and the gumption to back away from the ruinous embargo. Too bad it took so many years--and so many lives.

TAKE ACTION. Write a letter to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE

By mail, letters can be sent to:
Voice of the People
Chicago Tribune
435 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611
fax: (312) 222-2598

Letter must include your name, address and phone number. The more concise the letter, the better the chances for publication.

In addition, the Tribune frequently publishes guest editorials. Manuscripts may be submitted to the Op-Ed Page by mail, fax (312-222-2598). Because of the volume of submissions, the Tribune acknowledges only those that are used. Manuscripts sent by mail will be returned only if they are accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

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SADDAM WINS AGAIN
The New York Post

May 18, 2001 -- Saddam Hussein has reason to be smiling today. The United States and Britain have agreed on a proposal that will, for all intents and purposes, wipe out the decade-long international sanctions against him. Secretary of State Colin Powell proposes what the State Department acknowledges is "a significant change in our approach to Iraq." But unless
Washington is prepared to put its muscle where its mouth is, it won't be a better approach.

Powell has long favored what he calls "smart sanctions" against Iraq. And he's apparently convinced President Bush, who recently called the sanctions "Swiss cheese."

Which they are - because neither the Clinton administration nor the rest of the West were willing to lift a finger to enforce them. Iraq's supporters simply thumbed their noses at America and blithely ignored the embargoes. The new plan would ban for export to Iraq only a specific list of arms and military-related items. Baghdad would even be allowed to import "dual use"
goods - material with both civilian and military uses. And Saddam would not have to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq before the plan takes effect.

Score a big one for the Butcher of Baghdad - his diplomatic war of attrition paid off.

Saddam will eventually have to allow inspections if he ever wants all sanctions ended. Which means one of two things: Either he figures he can outlast Western impatience or a new confrontation with Iraq will become necessary.

The West has repeatedly refused to back up its weapons inspectors. To what extent will the West enforce even these limited sanctions?

If past is precedent, the answer is: not at all.

Meanwhile, U.N. officials admit that Saddam openly pockets huge payoffs from private companies and illegal surcharges on foreign oil sales - none of which goes to his starving population.

The U.S.-British proposal may look good on paper. But in the real world, it will neither relieve Iraq's suffering nor bring Saddam any closer to abandoning his quest to build a deadly arsenal of mass destruction.

TAKE ACTION. Write a letter to the NEW YORK POST

To fill out the on-line form and submit your letter via the New York Post's website, click here - http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/editor.htm

You can also send your letter to:
Letters to the Editor
The New York Post
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-8790

The New York Post Policy: Letters to the Post should only be sent to the Post, and not to other publications. When writing, be certain to include your full name, address, email address, and a daytime phone number. Letters should be no more than 200 words. Writers of those letters selected for publication will be notified within a week. Letters may be shortened for
space requirements.

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May 17, 2001
The Washington Post

Allies Work to Modify UN's Iraqi Sanctions:
U.S., Britain Want to Ease Pressure on Civilians
By Colum Lynch and Alan Sipress

UNITED NATIONS, May 16 - The United States and Britain will launch a diplomatic campaign next week to overhaul the 11-year-old sanctions on Iraq, marking the first substantial step by the Bush administration to carry out a new policy for confronting Baghdad.

British officials, working with their American counterparts, said today they were preparing to offer, as early as Monday, a draft Security Council resolution that would eliminate most restrictions on Iraq's civilian imports while tightening controls on military goods and oil revenue.

"This is a very big shift. We are effectively ending sanctions on ordinary civilian imports and replacing it with a very tightly focused control regime," a British diplomat told reporters. "If our proposals are adopted by the Security Council, Iraq will have no excuse for the suffering of the Iraqi people."

In recent months, U.S. envoys have been meeting in Europe with British, French and Russian officials to lay the groundwork for the resolution. The Bush administration has sought to reach agreement on the contours of a new sanctions policy before June 4, when the United Nations is scheduled to decide whether to renew the oil-for-food sanctions program.

"We have been working on this for a long time," said James B. Cunningham, the acting U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "We hope to adopt the resolution by the end of the month." While pushing for "smart sanctions" that could win renewed international support, the Bush administration also has been reviewing other elements of its Iraq policy. U.S. officials said they expect to complete an evaluation this month of how best to enforce the two no-fly zones over Iraq and provide support for opposition groups trying to oust President Saddam Hussein.

The broad outlines of the sanctions plan have gained a "reasonably positive response" from France, Russia and China, Iraq's traditional advocates on the 15-member Security Council, according to the British official. U.S. and European officials have said France is upbeat about the overall proposal, since it could satisfy a longstanding French demand for the lifting of
civilian sanctions, while Russia and China have withheld detailed comments.

But U.S. and European officials said they expect intense negotiations among the five permanent Security Council members over the specifics of the new plan, in particular the list of items that would still be barred from Iraq.

Under the proposal, Iraq would be free to import any goods not specifically designated for the council's review. Last week, after an internal Bush administration debate among State Department and Pentagon officials over which items could pose a military threat, the United States and Britain agreed on a proposed list and presented it to Russia, China and France.

The list would include all military imports and many "dual use" items, such as high-powered computers and advanced telecommunications equipment, that have both civilian and military applications. "There will effectively be no sanctions on all other goods entering Iraq," the British official said.

U.S. and European officials said they expect negotiations among council members about whether to allow the resumption of international investment in Iraq's oil industry, a step that could benefit French, Russian and Chinese companies. They also anticipate tough bargaining over whether Iraqi revenue deposited in the U.N. account could be used to pay off Baghdad's
debts, a change favored by Russia, which is owed several billion dollars.

The draft resolution would maintain the existing escrow account into which Iraqi oil revenue is deposited and then spent on imports that meet Security Council conditions. It would also likely allow the resumption of international commercial flights to Baghdad.

The Bush administration plan would authorize Iraq to export oil through Syria under U.N. auspices in an effort to halt the smuggling of more than 100,000 barrels a day outside international control. It would also allow the U.N. to compensate countries neighboring Iraq with money from the escrow account if Baghdad retaliated against them for cooperating with the
import restrictions.

Iraq has asked Russia to oppose the new resolution and has put its neighbors on notice that it will punish them if they support the plan. Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz warned Jordan and Turkey on Monday that Iraq will cut off trade with them if they cooperate.

Alan Sipress reported from Washington.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company

TAKE ACTION. Write a letter to the WASHINGTON POST

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Monday, May 14, 2001
Editorial, The Seattle Times

END THE IRAQ WAR

Collateral damage, a military term made famous by Timothy McVeigh, is his term for the children he killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. Americans recoiled at that. But we should also recoil at the collateral damage our economic sanctions are inflicting on the people of Iraq. Hans von Sponeck, who was the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq for 17 months, describes a society whose social and business leaders have "died out, emigrated or become deprofessionalized." Former doctors peddle food at roadside stands. The remnants of the business class have become Mafiosos dependent on enforced scarcity. Iraqi paper money, with its imposing bust of Saddam Hussein, buys almost nothing.

Iraq was once a middle-income country. It had electricity, medicines, sanitary sewers and urban water safe to drink. Its health statistics were fairly good. According to the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund, Iraq now has an under-5-year-old mortality rate of 12.8 percent - a rate of child death comparable to Haiti, Cambodia or Uganda.

Defenders of sanctions blame all this on Saddam Hussein, because he started the Gulf War and because he insists on staying in power today. That is true, as far as it goes.

But don't excuse the United States, which destroyed water-treatment plants with guided bombs. In a 100-hour war, the water-treatment plants had no strategic importance. In a 10-year embargo, they did.

Von Sponeck is a German, the son of a general executed on orders of Adolf Hitler. Von Sponeck was 6 years old when World War II ended and the GIs, with their cigarettes, candy bars and Marshall Plan, dealt with a vanquished people. He wonders what Germany would have been like had the Allies left it in ruins, forbidden to recover.

"No country has ever been punished by sanctions after a war," he says.

Ten years of sanctions have left an estimated 300,000 to 1.5 million Iraqis dead. CBS' Lesley Stahl used the figure of 500,000 dead when she interviewed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1996. Was such collateral damage worth it? Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."

The United States is the safest nation on the planet. No nation dares to attack us. Scott Ritter, who headed the U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq, told the City Club of Seattle recently that Iraq has no ability to make chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in militarily significant amounts.

It is worth noting that when Saddam Hussein did have chemical weapons, he used them only against the Iranians and the Kurds. Ritter said flatly that at present, "The Iraqi military is a threat to no one other than the indigenous people of Iraq."

Iraq's neighbors have reason to keep it that way through deterrence and military sanctions. There is no remaining rationale for economic sanctions. Trade sanctions do not promote human rights or dislodge dictators; they shut a country in and make it impossible for millions to make a living.

Saddam Hussein is much to blame for the ensuing "collateral damage" - of course. But blame also those who shut the door on an entire nation in their pursuit of one man.

TAKE ACTION. Send a copy of the SEATTLE TIMES editorial to your Senators and Representatives along with a brief cover letter urging them to openly work to change U.S. policy toward Iraq. Send a letter to your Representative at: The Honorable (full name), U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515. Send letters to your Senators at: The Honorable (full name), U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510.

Also, write the Seattle Times and voice your support for their important editorials concerning Iraq. Express your hope that Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) will heed the call and work to build support for an end to the sanctions in the U.S. Senate!

Send letters to:
Letters Editor
The Seattle Times
P.O. Box 70
Seattle, WA 98111
Fax: (206) 382-6760

Letters must include your full name (no initials), home address and daytime and evening telephone number(s) for verification.

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OVER THE WIRES

Five wire stories on the U.S.-British proposal below (which also clear up the ambiguity in yesterday's New York Times piece - relaxing the import embargo isn't conditional upon the weapons inspectors returning) plus an apparent admission from an anonymous British official that in the late '80's the British and American Governments behaved in a manner that was 'no[t] sane.'

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Reuters - Monday May 21 3:27 AM ET

UN Council Powers Discuss Easing Iraqi Sanctions
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Key members of the U.N. Security Council discuss on Monday new British-U.S. proposals to liberalize sanctions against Iraq, with Russia and China raising doubts a resolution could be adopted within two weeks.

The afternoon meeting among ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, the council's permanent members with veto power, is the first joint session on the new measures, although experts from the five have spoken informally in various capitals.

The aim to get a vote in the 15-member council by May 31, before the next six-month phase of the U.N.-Iraq humanitarian oil-for-food program begins on June 4.

In an effort to counter critical world opinion of the decade-old sanctions, Britain, working with American officials, last week announced proposals to drop embargoes on all non-military imports to Iraq, from bicycles to whiskey. Military supplies will still be banned outright, and ''dual-use'' items will require specific authorization from the council's sanctions committee.
The United Nations would still control the bulk of Iraq's oil revenue through an existing escrow account that handles payments for imported goods.

But the proposals, designed to make the Baghdad government responsible for hardships of ordinary Iraqis, will not include any tough monitoring of borders, as the United States wants, because such plans have not gelled yet, council sources said.

However, they said a British-drafted resolution, expected to emerge on Tuesday, is expected to refer to ``closer cooperation'' with Iraq's neighbors without giving specifics.

U.S. officials have stayed in the background in revealing details of the draft resolution, with Britain doing most of the briefings, despite a U.S. memo distributed last week outlining American policy ideas, some of which will not be in the draft.

``DUAL-USE'' LIST WILL BE FOCUS OF DISPUTE

The British plan expands the so-called fast-track for civilian goods that can go to Iraq without approval from the council's sanctions committee. At the same time a list of items that can be used for military and civilian purposes has been drafted by the United States and Britain. Despite the seeming concessions to Iraq, Russia and China say there is too little time to adopt a resolution by May 31 and to dissect and agree on the list.

``I am very suspicious that this will not be possible,'' Russian diplomat Gennady Gatilov told Reuters.

And Moscow's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, at a news conference with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on Friday had few encouraging words. ``Our U.S. partners put forth their vision, their approach to this issue. We have also our own proposals,'' he said.

Russia and China, along with France, have been advocating a suspension of the sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwaiti in August 1990.

To get the embargoes suspended or lifted, Iraq has to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors to make sure it no longer has programs for weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad has refused to allow the inspectors to return since the December 1998 bombing raids by the United States and Britain.

The new plan would not require Iraq to let arms inspections resume before sanctions on consumer goods could be lifted.

Iraq has never liked the oil-for-food accord, which allows it to sell unlimited amounts of oil, with proceeds put in a U.N. escrow account to pay suppliers of goods Baghdad orders.

It believes any tinkering with the plan would only nail down sanctions for years to come, especially if the five powers took a unified position, which they have not done for years.

``Iraq's main goal is getting control of the oil revenue,'' said Raad Alkadiri, analyst with Washington-based Petroleum Finance Co. said. ``This will look like a further institutionalization of sanctions rather than a loosening of sanctions,'' he said.

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AP - Monday May 21 4:07 PM ET

Iraq Rejects 'Smart Sanctions' Plan

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - President Saddam Hussein said Monday that Iraq rejected a British proposal to ease U.N. sanctions.

``We have nothing new to tell our friends and brothers, except that we are going to refuse what is called the smart sanctions,'' Saddam said during a Cabinet session in comments broadcast on Iraqi TV.

He said the proposal represented a ``declaration that the embargo imposed on Iraq has failed to achieve its basic goals.''

``In spite of the fact that the embargo has inflicted harm on Iraq, it made America lose significant part of its reputation in the international arena,'' Saddam said.

``America has suffered a strategic loss while our loss took only the form of wounds and bruises that could be considered a sacrifice representing people's honor.''

He said the decision was made without consulting anyone outside the country.

``Our decisions are made inside (this) meeting place. What we should do is to be calm and, at the end, we will take only whatever appeals to us.''

The British plan would allow Iraq to import all kinds of goods except those on a U.N. list of military-related items. It would also permit commercial and cargo flights in and out of Iraq as long as they are inspected at their departure points. However, the proposal seeks to tighten border controls around Iraq and to stop Baghdad's efforts to gain control of its oil revenues through smuggling and illegal surcharges.

The stated goal of the proposed measures is to ensure that sanctions do not hurt Iraqi citizens while preventing Baghdad from reviving its weapons-building programs.

The proposal is the first significant easing of the U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

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Thursday May 17 4:01 PM ET

UN Envoys Query Quick Adoption of New Iraqi Plans
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China and other U.N. Security Council envoys raised doubts on Thursday whether a dramatic British-American offer to ease sanctions against Baghdad could be approved quickly. Iraq objects to any plan short of lifting the embargoed entirely.

Diplomats expect intense negotiations among the five council powers with veto power -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - over the specifics on the new plan, such as a list of goods that would still be barred from Iraq.

And France is known to be pushing for foreign investments, which the United States and Britain oppose.

Britain, working with its American counterparts, is preparing to offer as early as Monday a draft Security Council resolution that would eliminate bans on civilian goods imported to Iraq but tighten controls on military-related materials.

The aim is to get a vote in the 15-member council by May 31, before the next six-month phase of the U.N. humanitarian oil-for-food program begins on June 4.

But the measure is not expected to contain details on how to stop smuggling at Iraq's borders as the United States wants, a risk in loosening restrictions without stepping up controls. A British official conceded on Wednesday ``the neighboring states are very worried about economic retribution from Iraq.''

To go into force, the resolution would need a list of military-related items banned as well as new procedures that drop much of the current methods of approving Iraqi goods.

China's deputy representative, Shen Guofang, told reporters he hoped the oil-for-food program would be rolled over on the same terms and then followed by a separate resolution. The new proposals ``contain a lot of detailed things and complicated elements. We hope it will be separate,'' Shen said.

France, diplomats said, is expected to advocate relaxed restrictions on foreign investment, now limited to helping Iraq upgrade its oil industry. ``For France, freeing the economy means foreign help in goods and services,'' one envoy said.

Russia, excepted to take the toughest position, appeared unimpressed by the proposals. ``There are too many unclear points in the proposals and questions, to which we have not got answers in the course of preliminary consultations,'' Sergei Ordzhonikidze, a deputy foreign minister, said in Moscow, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States are permanent members of the Security Council with veto power.

Baghdad, wants sanctions lifted entirely or a de facto withering away of the embargoes, which were imposed in August 1990 after its troops invaded Kuwait.

For Iraq, any move to tighten or liberalize the sanctions appears to be putting another regime in place to keep the embargoes going for years to come. A Thursday editorial in al-Thawra, mouthpiece of the ruling Ba'ath Party, said alleged ``smart sanctions aim to strengthen the embargo imposed on Iraq for more than 10 years and is a plan to avoid world criticism.''

Iraq has been under blanket trade sanctions since it invaded Kuwait, except for humanitarian supplies, with an increasing amount of civilian goods allowed in over the past several years.

To ease the impact of the sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, an oil-for-food deal began in late 1996. This allows Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of oil, with proceeds put in a U.N. escrow account. The funds are then used to buy goods Baghdad orders.

Currently, food and medicine as well as such items as bricks and educational materials, are allowed to reach Iraq without being approved by the council's sanctions committee.

Under the new plan, other supplies from bicycles to sewing machines can be imported without the committee's consent.

But the draft resolution would maintain the existing escrow account into which Iraqi oil revenues are deposited. The United Nations then pays suppliers of goods Iraq orders.

``In essence, we are ending sanctions on ordinary civilian imports and replacing it with a very tightly focused control regime,'' said the British official briefing reporters. ``If our proposals are adopted, Iraq will have no excuse for the suffering of the Iraqi people.''

To get sanctions suspended entirely, Iraq has to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors to make sure it no longer has programs for weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad has refused to allow inspectors to return since the December 1998 bombing raids by the United States and Britain.

The new British draft is separate from inspection demands, contained in December 1999 resolution that Iraq rejects.

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Thursday May 17 6:37 PM ET

U.S. Switches Iraq Policy
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is abandoning an unpopular 11-year campaign to deny Iraq consumer goods in the hope that the plight of the Iraqi people would cause them to turn against President Saddam Hussein. Lining up with Britain, which stood virtually alone with the United States on maintaining harsher sanctions, the Bush administration also is urging
tighter controls on export to Iraq of arms and weapons-related items.

The policy shift took four months to crystallize as Secretary of State Colin Powell vied with the Pentagon and other sectors of the administration over imported items with potential application to Iraq's military. Even now, as American diplomats consult with other governments on a prospective U.N. resolution to be introduced next week to lift the economic sanctions, administration officials are debating privately which so-called dual-use items to ban and which to approve for export to Iraq, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press.

``We're working toward what will be a significant change in our approach to Iraq in the United Nations,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday. ``The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq.''

Powell is inclined to take a lenient view of such items as water pumps and refrigerated trucks, which theoretically could be used for military purposes but are much more likely to lessen the pain of the Iraqi people. A list is being compiled of items that would remain off-limits to Iraq, their value and their use. At the same time, American diplomats are resisting efforts by other governments to go further in the direction of leniency.

The U.N. sanctions on weapons and consumer goods were imposed as part of a U.S.-led drive to reverse Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War, which liberated Kuwait but left Saddam in power. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, who is in charge of international organizations and oversees U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations, is ending a trip to Europe, where he consulted with French, Belgian and other officials on the resolution to lift sanctions due to be introduced next week.

British officials have said they received positive responses to the proposal from, among others, France, China and Russia, besides the United States and Britain the only members of the U.N. Security Council with veto power. To varying degrees, all three have opposed the current sanctions.

In Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister said too little is known about the new proposal to determine his country's position now. ``It is clearly premature,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze told the Interfax news agency and said it does not resolve political problems Russia insists be settled.

Boucher said the proposal ``obviously will be a subject'' of discussion between Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Powell when the Russian visits Friday, seeing both the secretary of state and President Bush. For Powell, who is inclined to take a more moderate course in foreign policy and security than Bush's harder-line advisers, the policy shift reflects both his own instincts and advice offered by Arab and other governments.

``The point is to work together to help the Iraqi people at the same time as we control the ability of the regime in Baghdad to develop weapons of mass destruction,'' the State Department's Boucher said.

The plan would not require Iraq to let international arms inspections to resume before consumer sanctions could be lifted, Boucher said. ``That was never part of the picture,'' he said.

On the other hand, Boucher said, to get all sanctions removed Iraq must let the inspectors return. They have been excluded for 21/2 years.

********************************************************

Agence France-Presse (AFP)
16 May 2001

British diplomat proposes abolishing UN embargo on non-military trade with Iraq

by Robert Holloway
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (AFP) - Britain has circulated proposals to other members of the Security Council to end the 10-year-old UN embargo on trade with Iraq for all non-military goods, a British diplomat said Wednesday. He said the aim was to "return to the core objective" of preventing Iraqi rearmament after its defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, while depriving Baghdad of the opportunity to blame sanctions for the suffering of its people.

But he said the proposals did not replace "the comprehensive framework of Resolution 1284," which insisted that Iraq allow UN arms inspectors to return but offered the possibility of suspending sanctions if it cooperates with them.

The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a bombing campaign by US and British aircraft, and Iraq has said it will not allow them back in. The diplomat, who asked not to be identified, said he hoped the proposals would be included in a draft resolution for adoption by the council before June 3, when the current 180-day phase of the Iraq oil-for-food programme
expires.

The programme has since December 1996 enabled Iraq to export crude oil under UN supervision, using part of the revenue to import basic necessities approved by the council's sanctions committee.

The programme was designed to alleviate the sufferings of the Iraqi people, whose standard of living has collapsed since sanctions were imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and occupied the emirate for seven months. If the council accepts the British proposals, it will mean an end to much of the "cumbersome bureaucracy" in the oil-for-food programme, the diplomat said.

"Until now, nothing has been allowed into Iraq except contracts approved by the sanctions committee," he said.

"We are going to change that, and allow in everything except a range of goods related to conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction."

Import contracts would be checked against a list of prohibited goods being compiled by the arms inspectorate UNMOVIC (for UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.

He said the new list would be more detailed and more precise than ones in current use and would be based in part on the July 1996 Wassenaar arrangement, signed by 33 countries and covering conventional weapons and sensitive dual-use goods and technologies.

If an import contract contained no listed items, it would be allowed to go ahead, but if some items were on the list, the sanctions committee could do one of three things, the diplomat said. Possible options would be to reject the contract outright; to insist on deleting objectionable items; or to use officials with the oil-for-food programme in Iraq to monitor the use of the goods to ensure they were not being used for military purposes, he said.

"There will be a range of items which will never be allowed into Iraq; there are some goods which no sane person would want Saddam Hussein to get his hands on," he added.

But, he said, the proposals would mean an end to the highly controversial practice of putting "holds" on contracts by the sanctions committee.

At present, 3.7 billion dollars worth of contracts have been blocked, almost all of them by Britain or the United States.

This more than any other aspect of the oil-for-food programme has driven a deep wedge between these two and the three other permanent Security Council members: China, France and Russia.

The five are also divided over the scope of an air embargo contained in the original sanctions resolution, and the diplomat said the draft resolution would probably lift the ban, provided means were in place to verify that Iraq could not import banned goods. "We don't have a philosophical objection to commercial flights going to Iraq; the issue for us is not trade but inspection," he said.

He said the financial mechanism which gives the UN complete control of Iraq's oil revenues and allocates part of that money to compensating Kuwait for war damage, would remain intact.

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EPIC wishes to thank Gabriel of Voices in the Wilderness UK for contributing to the alert.

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EDUCATION for PEACE in IRAQ CENTER (EPIC)
1101 Penn. Ave SE, Washington, DC 20003
202-543-6176; 202-546-5103 (fax)
http://saveageneration.org

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