US/British bloody mindedness on Iraq continues

South News, 22 October 1997

The United States and Britain were frustrated on Wednesday Oct 22 in their efforts to impose new Security Council sanctions on Iraq. Egypt and Kenya joined Russia, France & China in opposing the US-British resolution to establish delayed automatic travel ban on Iraqi personnel.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov told UN reporters, I don't see any probability that new sanctions will be introduced now. He said the latest inspection report does not warrant immediate activation of these procedures. The decision marked a sharp diplomatic setback for Washington and London and underscored divisions within the council over policy toward Iraq.

It's not over yet, U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson threatened after daylong consultations. British Ambassador John Weston said a new draft would be sent to the capitals of the 15 member states overnight and a vote would take place Thursday. Weston said, in a gesture of total bloody mindedness, that if Russia, France and others objected to the new, softened draft, then the co-sponsors reserve the right to revert to an earlier version of it.

The new resolution threatens to impose the travel ban whenever the chief inspector, Ausralian diplomat Richard Butler, reports to the council that his teams have been barred from any sites. The draft document also requires Butler immediately draw up a list of Iraqis who have interfered with inspections or helicopter flights of U.N. arms experts since June. And it would continue the suspension of the council's regular review of trade sanctions until next April. This means that no easing of the inhuman trade embargoes imposed on Iraq in 1990 could even be considered until then.

But Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon, said Iraq's main goal now would be a partial relaxation of sanctions. The question of the sanctions we have been living under for the last seven years is the issue for us, Hamdoon told reporters. He said the council should respond to Iraq's efforts to comply with the United Nations by giving further encouragement over the coming months so that we could lift the sanctions.

Last week, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said that if the council continues to maintain sanctions indefinitely, the situation will become absolutely unacceptable, a statement the US press interpreted as a threat to ban weapons inspectors altogether.