MIDEAST : Tough Stand on Iraq Sanctions May Make U.S. Odd Man Out

When the time comes every two months to review sanctions on Iraq, American diplomats scurry about here and abroad to make sure that U.N. ambassadors and their foreign ministries support the tough, unyielding stand of the United States.

“The Americans tell us that it is a matter of national security that they take very seriously,” an ambassador on the Security Council said. “That is a hard argument to oppose.”

So the Security Council dutifully keeps the sanctions on.

But the argument may be easier to oppose if and when the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq rules that the Saddam Hussein regime has complied with the U.N. resolutions demanding both the destruction of all weapons of mass destruction and perpetual inspections to ensure that these weapons are not amassed again.

Rolf Ekeus of Sweden, who heads the commission, believes Iraq, after several years of deceit and ornery resistance, is finally on the right track toward compliance. He said recently he hoped to be able to report Iraq’s full compliance before the end of the year.

After extensive talks in Baghdad a week ago, Ekeus and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz signed a joint statement that described Iraq as ready “to expedite the process of establishing ongoing monitoring and verification in a spirit of goodwill.”

A literal reading of the resolutions suggests that the Security Council should lift the embargo on Iraqi sales of oil once the Special Commission issues its report. But U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright insists Hussein must first establish a record of trustworthiness.

There are signs that France, the nonaligned countries on the Security Council such as Nigeria and Djibouti, and some senior U.N. officials are losing patience with this position.

“Here is what is going to happen,” said a European ambassador on the Security Council. “In six months or so, the Special Commission will issue a report saying that the Iraqis have been wonderful boys, have agreed to everything, are in full compliance, have told us everything we need to know, and so on. Then some countries will say the Iraqis have fulfilled the letter of the law. But the United States will insist on keeping sanctions because the Iraqis have not shown the proper trustworthy attitude. Then there will be a confrontation.”

The issue began soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The George Bush Administration announced that, no matter what the U.N. resolutions said, it would never vote to lift sanctions as long as Hussein was still in power.

The Clinton Administration has never gone that far. But, in practice, with the Iraqi leader still around, Baghdad will have difficulty passing the American test of trustworthiness.

A confrontation could present serious problems for the Administration. The United States could prevent a majority of the Security Council from lifting sanctions by using its veto. But that is something it has not done since the end of the Cold War, and the Administration would probably be reluctant to use this power.

The complex issue of Iraqi sanctions involves several resolutions and types of sanctions. The Security Council has ordered all countries to refuse to sell anything to Baghdad but food and medicine, and it has ordered them to refrain from buying oil and all other exports from Iraq.

The Special Commission, headed by Ekeus since it was set up by the Security Council in April, 1991, is charged with overseeing the destruction of all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and all long-range missiles; it also must set up the ongoing inspection system.

According to the key resolution on sanctions, once the Security Council agrees that Iraq has complied with the provisions about these weapons, the embargo on oil and other exports “shall have no further force or effect.”

But other resolutions require Iraq to recognize Kuwait as a separate country, refrain from persecuting the Kurds and other minorities, and compensate those injured in the war. Critics maintain that Iraq’s record on these is worse than its record on weapons destruction.

The Administration insists that the two sets of issues must be viewed as a whole--so long as Hussein is persecuting Kurds, he can’t be trusted to cooperate with perpetual inspections. But some diplomats and U.N. officials believe the American approach offers Iraq no incentive to comply with Security Council resolutions, and they are beginning to be troubled by it.