Thu, Mar 27, 2003 page4

• Muddled UN begins haggling on aid

  DIVIDED NATIONS Security Council members could not agree on how to deal with Iraq before the war and have different ideas about what is next

  • REUTERS
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  Divided Security Council members haggled on Tuesday over restarting the UN oil-for-food program for Iraq, with the politics of war stalling agreement on a resolution.

  At the same time, the council agreed to an emergency meeting on the Iraqi crisis requested by the Arab League. But it was uncertain if anyone would push for a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US-British troops, which would probably fail for lack of votes.

  

  Iraqi children collect food parcels distributed by British Royal Marines as they deliver the first humanitarian aid to the port city of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq.

  PHOTO: AFP

  UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who suspended the oil-for-food program when the war began, proposed the UN take control of Iraqi contracts and adjust them to current needs whenever deliveries are made possible again.

  The program, which began in 1996, uses Iraqi oil revenues to pay for food, medicine and other civilian goods to ease the impact of sanctions imposed in August 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Some US$8.9 billion worth of contracts have been ordered and paid for by Iraq but not delivered.

  Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, conferred with Annan on Tuesday about adjustments in the oil-for-food program and other humanitarian concerns, a US official said. Annan, in a statement, said any UN role after the war beyond relief assistance would have to be decided by the Security Council.

  In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said US officials were trying to determine "what kind of role should be played by the UN, what authorities are needed, how to do it in a way that will make sure that the gains of the coalition military action are harvested."

  The only large funds, measured in tens of billions rather than millions of dollars, readily at hand for any relief come from the oil-for-food program, which was organized centrally by Iraq to feed 60 percent of the country's 46 million people.

  Struggling to forge a compromise, Germany's UN ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, who heads the committee monitoring the program, said he expected a resolution on adjusting the oil-for-food program soon, perhaps as early as today.

  "We are trying to find a solution that would reflect a compromise to which everybody has to contribute because there are very differing interests involved," Pleuger said.

  Diplomats said Russia, France, China and Syria -- staunch opponents of the war -- ?were wary of resolution language that would have the UN coordinate efforts with US and British troops and thereby legitimize the military action.

  In addition, Russia, Syria and others are not eager to see any contracts renegotiated in the program, which has many items not related to food or medicine, or to see Iraq's dwindling oil funds used for what they say should be a US-British responsibility to care for the population as a result of the war.

  Powell said he hoped for a solution soon regardless of political opposition on to the war. "I think we ought to all come together and see this as a humanitarian effort which has nothing to do with any of the positions one might have taken or not taken," he said.

  Council members also wanted to make sure that UN involvement did not lighten the American and British responsibility for the welfare of the Iraqi people, particularly in southern Iraq where water and electricity have cut off by thunderous ground and air assaults from allied armed forces.
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