U.S. Presses for Fast Vote on Iraqi Sanctions, Oil
Correction A May 15 article about the U.N. Security Council incorrectly attributed a quotation in the final paragraph. It was Secretary of State Colin L. Powell who said: "There are some outstanding issues, and we will be working on these issues in the spirit of partnership in trying to come to a solution." News From Iraq • Plan to Secure Postwar Iraq Faulted (The Washington Post, May 19, 2003) • Iraqi Clerics Urge Anti-U.S. Protest (The Washington Post, May 19, 2003) • Kurds' Influence in Kirkuk Rises Along With Discord (The Washington Post, May 19, 2003) • More News from Iraq
Subscribe to The Post By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 15, 2003; Page A24
UNITED NATIONS, May 14 -- The Bush administration pressed the U.N. Security Council today to vote as early as next week on a resolution that would lift sanctions on Iraq and permit the United States and its military allies to export Iraqi oil to finance the country's reconstruction.
John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the 15-nation council's failure to act quickly to end the 13-year-old embargo could jeopardize the country's capacity to make a swift recovery from years of war and misrule. "The sanctions need to be lifted as soon as possible," he told reporters after a closed council meeting. "The oil tanks are almost full in Iraq; the crude is about to reach the point of just sitting there and waiting to be exported."
In an attempt to broaden support in the council, Negroponte offered to circulate a "modified" draft resolution Thursday that "attempts to take into account many" of the council's concerns over the United Nations' role in Iraq.
U.S. officials said the administration is considering new language that would help assure the council that it intends to give the United Nations a significant role in postwar Iraq and subject use of Iraqi oil revenue to independent international scrutiny. They said they are also prepared to commit to providing the council with periodic briefings on the status of U.S.-led efforts to disarm Iraq.
But the officials suggested that the administration would insist on retaining control of the country's oil revenue and achieving a clear council mandate to rule the country until a democratically elected government is in place.
"We put forward a resolution that is pretty minimalist in terms of what we need to be able to do to help the Iraqi people to establish a democratic path," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said at a news conference at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. "And so, we expect cooperation from all Security Council members."
Although there is wide support in the council for an end to sanctions, Russia, France, Germany and other key members assert that the U.S. resolution lacks a central enough role for the United Nations, and grants excessive powers to the United States and Britain to manage Iraq's economic and political future.
Several representatives raised concerns about a provision in the U.S. resolution, which Britain and Spain co-sponsored, that would grant the United States and its allies control over Iraq's oil and shield Iraq's oil revenue from foreign debtors owed billions of dollars. "So far, immunity has been granted only to the U.N.," Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger told Bloomberg News. "If you protect a state, what would prevent Kuwait or Venezuela from saying, 'We are oil producers, too, and want immunity.' "
Russia and France, two key commercial partners with the former Iraqi government, have also expressed concern that a U.S. proposal to phase out the U.N.-run oil-for-food program in four months would place ordinary Iraqis who rely on it for their subsistence at risk and jeopardize more than $10 billion in contracts for products that were approved before the fall of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Under the terms of the oil-for-food deal, which was established in December 1996, Iraq is permitted to export oil, subject to U.N. supervision, to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.
The U.S. resolution would transfer authority to spend and manage Iraq's oil proceeds from the United Nations and Iraq to the United States and Britain. A transitional Iraqi government, which the United States is hoping to put in place in a matter of weeks, would have a consultative role in determining how their oil profits are spent.
An international advisory board, including representatives from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, would have the power to chose auditors to monitor the use of Iraq's oil revenue.
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told the French newspaper Le Monde this week that there must be "undisputed international control" over Iraq's oil industry and revenue. He also insisted that the United Nations' role in overseeing the establishment of a new Iraqi government must be strengthened.
"Who, if not the United Nations, can confer international legitimacy?" De Villepin said. "At the end of an initial phase of making the country safe, the United States will have progressively to take responsibility for the political transition."
Despite the differences, most council members expressed a desire to move beyond the political battles that sharply divided the council before the war. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, speaking in Moscow with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said that Russia has "decided not to focus on our past disagreements" over the war. "There are some outstanding issues, and we will be working on these issues in the spirit of partnership in trying to come to a solution," he said.