By the OGJ Online Staff
WASHINGTON, DC, June 1 --The US Friday sought to reassure its allies that the administration of President George W. Bush is committed to changing the decade-old United Nations sanctions against Iraq.
As an important first step, US diplomats over the past week removed objections to more than $1.2 billion in disputed oil contracts stalled under the UN oil-for-aid program. And in a related effort, the US, along with other members of the UN Security Council, voted unanimously Friday to extend the aid program an additional 30 days to give diplomats time to negotiate the terms under which some sanctions could be lifted.
The oil-for-aid program is usually renewed every 6 months, but the US and the UK have presented a proposal designed to lift trade bans on civilian goods. Smuggling military equipment into the country would still be illegal, however, and the UN would expand inspections.
"The sanctions, as we have said before, need to get back to their original purpose, which is to be focused on control of Iraq's ability to develop weapons of mass destruction; and that we and others in the Security Council want to provide the civilian goods that the Iraqi people need," a State Department spokesman said Thursday on the eve of the Security Council vote.
Iraq earlier this week rejected the so-called "smart sanction" proposal before it was formally presented to UN diplomats. Iraq said the US-UK plan would continue to give the UN, and not Iraq, control of oil sales. Under the current oil-for-aid program, money received from oil contracts is strictly controlled by the UN and earmarked only for humanitarian relief and the purchase of oil equipment needed to maintain production. Goods purchased with those petrodollars are distributed via the UN and not the Iraqi government.
The new plan would allow Iraq in most cases to trade with other countries, provided the goods in question were for civil and not military needs. The main focus of upcoming debates between UN diplomats is expected to be over so-called "dual-use" items that could have both military and civilian applications.
Sanctions were first imposed on Iraq in 1990 following the Gulf War, a conflict orchestrated by then-President George Bush with help from a top military advisor Gen. Colin Powell, now US Secretary of State.