U.N. Retaliates With Embargo on Oil, Arms : Sanctions: Security Council’s stunning unanimity in striking back at Iraq is seen as a victory for Bush.

Acting with swift and resounding unanimity, the United Nations Security Council on Monday imposed a worldwide economic and military embargo on Iraq for invading Kuwait and setting up a puppet regime to run its oil-rich neighbor.

The resolution, approved 13 to 0 with 2 abstentions, requires all 159 member nations of the global organization to stop importing oil from Iraq and Kuwait and to halt nearly all exports to the Baghdad regime, including arms.

It was only the third time in U.N. history that such sweeping sanctions were imposed, following earlier embargoes voted against the white-minority governments of Rhodesia and South Africa.

The vote represented a major triumph for President Bush’s campaign to place broad-based economic pressure on Saddam Hussein to force him to withdraw his troops.

Experts on the oil trade cautioned that Iraq still might be able to sell oil on the black market or to oil-dependent countries that choose to defy the sanctions in order to keep their economies strong.

However, the sanctions are expected to significantly complicate and constrict Iraq’s chief method of producing income and to ostracize the nation in international commerce.

“These sanctions must be enforced,” Bush said at the White House after the vote. “We need to discuss full and total implementation of these sanctions, ruling out nothing at all.”

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in Washington to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis, added: “I cannot remember a time when we had the world so strongly together against an action as now.”

Iraq’s envoy to the United Nations termed the embargo “illegal” and the product of U.S. intimidation. “One superpower is trying to use the U.N. and the Security Council to realize its objectives, as if the Security Council was simply its foreign ministry,” Ambassador Abdul al Anbari said.

However, only two Security Council members did not vote for the resolution: Cuba and Yemen both abstained.

The Soviet Union, once Iraq’s main arms supplier and often at odds with the United States in U.N. affairs, voted for the sanctions. So did China, another permanent Security Council member along with the United States, Britain and France.

The Bush Administration has indicated that a naval blockade to stop tanker shipments from Iraq and Kuwait is being considered to back up the embargo.

Industry experts warned that it may be difficult to stop all sales of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil because those nations produce 4 million barrels a day, or about 7.5% of world output. Higher prices will provide a strong temptation to cheat.

“You’re dealing with oil, and you’re dealing with money--and the impact of that on a lot of countries is going to be very serious,” said Patrick Connelly, a specialist on the oil trade at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

In another analysis, the Middle East Economic Survey said it is doubtful that Saudi Arabia would increase its oil production to make up the shortfall. Increased Saudi production would be necessary to prevent oil-consuming nations from suffering significant adverse economic effects, but the Saudi government may be fearful of antagonizing Iraq, which has massed troops on its border.

But G. Henry Schuler, director of the energy program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the embargo could pinch Iraq.

“If Western Europe, the United States and Japan comply in good faith, there is very little Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil that’s going to move,” he said. But “the boycotting nations . . . are going to feel the pain long before the Iraqis feel the pain.”

In an important gesture of support, Turkish President Turgut Ozal said in a broadcast interview that as a result of the vote, he will close the pipeline across his country that takes Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean for shipment.

“We will obey the U.N. embargo,” Ozal said. Earlier in the day, Iraq had announced that it would halt the flow of export oil through one side of pipeline that passes through Turkey to the Mediterranean and that it had reduced the flow through the other side by more than half because of decreased demand.

Another pipeline for Iraqi oil crosses Saudi Arabia.

The Security Council resolution was the result of three days of behind-the-scenes lobbying by the United States. It came after the United States, Japan and the European Community had announced their own trade boycotts.

“Iraq must learn that its disregard for international law will have crippling political and economic costs, including but not limited to arms cutoffs,” said Thomas R. Pickering, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Iraq’s aggression must be and will be stopped.”

Other favorable votes were cast by Canada, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Finland, Malaysia, Zaire and Romania, all temporary members of the council.

The resolution calls on U.N. members to prevent their citizens from aiding in the transshipment of Iraqi or Kuwaiti products--language obviously directed at the Turkish and Saudi Arabian pipelines.

It also calls on all states to cut off loans or any other form of economic aid to Iraq but allows the shipment of medical supplies and other humanitarian assistance. The U.N. action came as the stock market tumbled and oil prices climbed over fears that Iraq might send its troops into Saudi Arabia and tighten its grip on the world oil market even further. It followed an earlier resolution, passed 14 to 0 last Thursday, condemning the invasion and demanding immediate withdrawal from Kuwait of an estimated 100,000-man Iraqi invasion force.

Iraq’s Anbari charged that the sanctions will “destroy the world economy. It’s going to destroy Third World countries. The United States and U.S. oil companies will make billions of dollars, but the poor Third World countries will suffer the consequences.”

But Pickering said it was Iraq’s “blatant aggression” that had plunged the gulf region into crisis.

Citing Iraq’s and Kuwait’s huge reserves, he said, “Thirty percent of the world’s oil is now under Iraqi control . . . thus threatening international economic health and stability.”

Compliance with the sanctions will hurt some nations more than others. Japan, for example, now imports 550,000 barrels a day from Iraq and Kuwait, or 12% of its consumption, and would have to make up for the loss elsewhere.

Brazil, which declared its support for the embargo, imports 30% of its oil from Iraq.

Turkey gains about $500 million a year from its pipeline operations for Iraqi oil and gets half of its oil supply from Iraq at a favorable price.

“We stand to suffer a great deal,” said Turkish Ambassador Mustafa Aksin in a telephone interview. “We are not a rich country, and we don’t have the room for maneuver that a country like Japan has, for example. But I think Turkey will do what is right.”

Latest U.S. government statistics show that West Germany, France, Britain and Japan all imported large amounts of oil from Iraq in 1988, indicating that they will need to replace part or all of this amount from other sources and probably pay a higher price for petroleum as long as the embargo lasts. Western Europe, Japan and the United States have accounted for 70% of Iraq’s oil sales in recent years.

Saudi Arabia could make up almost half of the 4-million-barrel daily shortfall with its surplus capacity if it chooses to do so, according to the Middle East Economic Review. The United Arab Emirates could supply another 600,000 barrels a day, and Venezuela has a 500,000-barrel-a-day spare capacity, the publication said.

U.S. imports of Iraqi crude oil amounted to 10% of total U.S. purchases of foreign oil in the first five months of this year. Kuwaiti oil represented a 2% share.

Shannon reported from United Nations and Eaton reported from Washington. Staff writer Douglas Jehl, in Washington, contributed to this article.

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