A Little Less Suffering in Iraq

Some relief for the 20 million sorely beset Iraqis is at last in sight. By finally accepting a deal first offered by the U.N. Security Council more than five years ago, President Saddam Hussein has made it possible for Iraq to resume selling limited amounts of oil on the world market. Close U.N. monitoring will aim to ensure that oil revenues will be used chiefly to import food and medicine. Shortages in those areas have caused widespread hardship and contributed to thousands of deaths.

The new agreement validates the stand-firm position taken in the Security Council by the United States and Britain. That tough stance reflected the experience-based conviction that Hussein could not be trusted to spend any new oil income on humanitarian needs. Throughout the period of sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Hussein has made sure that those on whom he depends most for survival--senior military officers, the security services, the ruling Baath Party leadership, members of his clan--were provided with not just the necessities of life but imported luxuries as well. The suffering caused by the sanctions fell instead on ordinary Iraqis.

The on-the-ground U.N. oversight of how humanitarian supplies are distributed, a condition long resisted by Hussein, is intended to make sure they reach those most in need, including millions of Kurds in the northern part of the country. Other U.N. sanctions on Iraq, linked to its giving up all of its unconventional arms, remain.

Iraq sits atop the world’s second-largest proven reserves of oil. Before its invasion of Kuwait it sold about 3 million barrels a day and earned about $12 billion a year, accounting for nearly all of its foreign exchange.

Iraq’s new agreement with the United Nations permits it to sell $1 billion worth of oil over 90 days; at current prices that would be about 700,000 barrels a day. The agreement is renewable if the Security Council determines that Iraq is fully honoring its conditions.

Iraq’s modest reentry into the world oil market, expected to occur within a month or so, is not welcome news to the Persian Gulf oil producers who took over Iraq’s share of the market. At a minimum, Iraqi exports should help to prevent oil prices from rising. Because the other producers probably will be reluctant to cut their outputs, Iraqi exports could in fact work to push prices down. The accord that made possible the easing of the sanction on oil sales is a victory for a sound policy, firmly pursued.