New Approach to Iraq Gathers Steam in U.N.

A new Security Council policy toward Iraq is beginning to emerge from the wreckage of diplomacy left in the wake of the U.S.-British bombings last month, diplomats said Friday.

Support among council members is building for a dual approach: separate meetings of technical experts to assess the status of Iraq’s disarmament and the humanitarian needs of its citizens.

What’s needed, diplomats said, is a foundation for any future modification of the U.N. disarmament program, which seeks to ensure that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein does not rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

“I have the impression we are on a good track,” said Brazilian Ambassador Celso L.N. Amorim, the council’s current president. Under a plan gaining support on the council, he would chair the committee examining disarmament.

The meeting would be attended by members of the U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM, charged with finding Iraq’s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons components and by executives of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Under a Canadian proposal, the humanitarian situation in Iraq would be studied by a committee headed by the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

After the bombings, Iraq made it clear that it would not allow UNSCOM back in the country.

“Unfortunately, in part of the debate we get a lot of polemics about what has happened . . . but we want to move forward,” said British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, expressing what he said was the view of the majority of the 15 members of the Security Council. “I think we will come back to the really important area, which is how to have a regime that controls Iraq, how to get Iraq’s cooperation and how to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people by removing the unintended consequences of sanctions.”

Greenstock said divisions certainly remain among council members on how to move forward.

“It is going to take time to move the council toward a consensus,” he said. “But coming out of the discussion--although it is political, it is contentious--is absolute agreement in the Security Council that Iraq is a country that must not be allowed to maintain or develop a WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capability. And we are talking about how to do that.”

Russia and France have proposed replacing the current U.N. method of arms inspections with a less intrusive system that would try to ensure that Iraq does not stockpile weapons of mass destruction. The plans would largely eliminate surprise searches for armaments.

Greenstock said his government is “extremely interested” in discussing the ideas in the French proposal, even though it does not agree with all of them and “lots of things have to be filled in in order to get a credible approach toward Iraq.”

Canadian Ambassador Robert Fowler added: “What we want to do is manage this great body of knowledge, the massive data that has been accumulated over seven years by UNSCOM. In some manner or other we have to analyze that . . . before we decide what is next for Iraq.”