Council Orders Frozen Iraq Oil Assets Seized

In another burst of impatience with Saddam Hussein, the U.N. Security Council ordered the seizure of frozen Iraqi oil assets Friday to help pay for all that Iraq owes the United Nations under the cease-fire resolutions ending the Persian Gulf War.

By a vote of 14 to 0 with China abstaining, the Security Council adopted a resolution that details a complicated way for nations to deal with Iraqi oil proceeds that were not allowed to go to Iraq and Iraqi oil that was not allowed to be sold under the U.N. embargoes imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, 1990.

Much of the money will now go into a special U.N. account that Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is authorized to use for the financing of U.N. inspections in Iraq, the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the compensation for victims of the Iraqi invasion, and the supply of humanitarian aid to Iraqis. Iraq is supposed to pay for all this under U.N. resolutions, but it never has.

U.S. officials estimate that from $300 million to $1 billion will be turned over to the United Nations as a result of the resolution. Most of the oil proceeds are believed to be held in the United States, and most of the oil is reportedly held by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf, attending the opening sessions of the General Assembly in New York, tried to head off the Security Council action by promising that Iraq would resume negotiations with the United Nations over resolutions ordering the Iraqis to sell $1.6 billion worth of oil, with a proportion of the proceeds going to the United Nations as compensation for its programs in Iraq. Previous negotiations have ended in failure over Iraq’s insistence that the plan was an infringement of its sovereignty, and the foreign minister’s promise was evidently not taken seriously by most of the council members.

Sahaf also met with Third World members of the Security Council, offering to pay what Iraq owes to the United Nations if the trade embargo was lifted enough for Iraq to sell $4 billion worth of oil on its own. All Third World ambassadors except the one from China, however, voted for the U.S.-sponsored resolution.