Iraq Asking U.N. to Let It Sell $1 Billion in Oil to Buy Food

Iraq has asked the U.N. Security Council to partially lift sanctions to allow Saddam Hussein’s government to sell nearly $1 billion worth of oil to buy food and humanitarian items to help its civilians recover from the Persian Gulf War.

“The situation with regard to food and basic humanitarian needs in Iraq is currently critical and exceeds the resources available to the Iraqi government and to international humanitarian organizations,” Iraqi Ambassador Abdul Amir Anbari said in a letter Tuesday to the council’s sanctions committee.

But Western sources said the request will be scrutinized in light of Iraq’s treatment of its Kurdish minority, and it is expected that a series of tough questions will be asked of the Baghdad government when the committee takes up the request today.

“The committee will want to know what has Iraq been doing with the oil it has been producing,” said a U.S. diplomat. “Is it being used for tanks and helicopters?”

Iraq’s letter to Austria’s U.N. ambassador, Peter Hohenfellner, chairman of the sanctions committee, said $942.5 million is needed over the next four months for food and basic humanitarian needs. The letter estimated that the Baghdad government will need about $2.8 billion over the next year.

“The Iraqi government requests the committee to . . . allow the export of oil or oil products in order to provide the financial requirements for the import of foodstuffs and basic humanitarian needs for the coming four months,” the letter said.

It included a shopping list of goods Iraq said it needed, including rice, cooking oil, meat, coffee, starch, dry yeast, soaps, razor blades, batteries and spare parts for bakeries and flour mills.

The council adopted an embargo on virtually all trade with Iraq soon after that nation invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2. On April 3, the Security Council passed a permanent cease-fire resolution ending the Gulf War. Under its terms, the council can partially lift sanctions if it finds that Iraq is complying with the resolution’s tough terms.

Decisions of the sanctions committee, established by the council to enforce trade restrictions on Iraq, must be unanimous. U.S. diplomats said Tuesday that Iraq’s request will be judged by several yardsticks.

These include not only its treatment of Kurdish refugees but whether the Baghdad government meets the council’s test in disclosing the location of all its remaining chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles as well as any nuclear materials.

The cease-fire resolution calls for U.N.-supervised elimination of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as well as continuing inspection within Iraq.