Iraq Granted Hearing by U.N. on Sanctions

Despite American objections, the U.N. Security Council agreed Wednesday to hear Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s most trusted international negotiator make an official plea for the removal of sanctions against Iraq.

The envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, is expected to argue that the sanctions should be lifted because Iraq has complied with “almost” all the U.N. resolutions that brought an end to the Persian Gulf War.

The plea, scheduled to be made at the United Nations on Monday, is unlikely to move council members. But it is another step in a recent series of diplomatic maneuvers between Hussein’s regime and the United Nations that could lead to serious discussions about halting the sanctions.

The Bush Administration objected to the council’s agreement to hear Aziz for the second time this year. “We told them we don’t want him,” an American diplomat said. “We don’t think he contributes to the process.”

The sanctions, imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, prohibit all commerce with Baghdad except for the importation of foods and medicines. Only after the Security Council determines that Iraq has met all of the resolutions that ended the war are the sanctions to be lifted.

Among the most important of those resolutions is one that requires the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and another that institutes a long-term monitoring program to ensure that new weapons do not replace them. The Iraqis insist--and the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq acknowledges--that Baghdad has satisfied the most important provision, the destruction of its nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range ballistic missile programs.

But commission chairman Rolf Ekeus said the Iraqis remain vehemently opposed to long-term monitoring, contending that it is an unjust infringement on the nation’s sovereignty.

In any case, consideration of ending the sanctions would fly in the face of a vow by President Bush and would present President-elect Bill Clinton’s Administration with a serious predicament.

Bush has long said the United States will never agree to halting the sanctions as long as Hussein is in power. But the insistence has long troubled diplomats and other U.N. members--with the exception of Britain--who regard that position as unjust. Further, such a requirement has never been part of the U.N. resolutions.

“That was a Bushism,” said an American diplomat who was part of the U.S. mission to the United Nations when the Administration set the condition more than a year ago.

Once the Bush Administration has left Washington, Clinton could face intense international pressure to lift the sanctions if Iraq fulfills the resolutions--even with Hussein firmly in control of Baghdad.

One area in which the special commission has found Iraq wanting--besides agreeing to long-term inspections--is failing to provide a complete list of foreign suppliers who funneled equipment and materials to Iraq for use in its nuclear weapons program.

Under a “carrot” plan proposed by Ekeus during meetings with officials in London and Paris, the Security Council would lift the embargo on Iraqi oil sales if Hussein provides the list of suppliers and pledges to accept long-term monitoring.

The French evidently have been amenable to the approach. “Our position . . . has nothing to do with the reign of Saddam Hussein,” said a French diplomat at the United Nations. The British, however, were evidently cool to the idea.

Even more critical, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Sahaf sent a bristling letter to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali two weeks ago that made it clear Ekeus’ carrot was simply not large enough to tempt Hussein.

Sahaf accused the Security Council of waging “the most ferocious campaign in the history of the United Nations, using all means of intimidation, coercion and pressure” against Iraq, resulting in a virtual “commission of genocide against the people of Iraq.”