European Flight to Iraq Tests U.N. Sanctions

About 115 European politicians, clergymen and members of nongovernmental organizations arrived here from Paris on Saturday aboard the latest flight to test United Nations sanctions against Iraq.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the plane landed at Baghdad airport in the morning. The trip was in apparent defiance of the United States and Britain, whose governments argue that such flights must first have the U.N. sanctions committee’s approval.

At least 10 countries--including Spain, Ireland and Russia, as well as Arab nations such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt--have sent planes to Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. They contend that humanitarian visits are not subject to the U.N. restrictions.

France allowed an aircraft to fly to Baghdad in September without giving the U.N. committee its usual 24-hour notice. Its latest delegation included former French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson.

The visitors received a warm welcome from Iraqi officials, including Abdul Razzaq Hashemi, head of the Iraqi friendship, peace and solidarity organization, and several lawmakers.

“America has turned [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein into the devil to justify its physical and military presence in the Middle East,” Cheysson said before departing from Paris on Friday.

“President Hussein is more popular now than he was before the embargo was imposed. It’s criminal. The poor and the young are suffering, and they have no say.”

Cheysson said he could not understand how other countries, especially Britain, had followed the example of the U.S. and accepted the sanctions imposed on Baghdad days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

“Britain has had a long relationship with the Middle East, and it especially knows how valuable Iraq is for oil and how weakening a country’s people in this way is historically a great mistake,” he said.

His words were echoed by former French envoy Gisele Halimi, who said: “Two thousand children are dying every week because the European Union and the U.N. are under the menace of American dictates.”

Halimi said the group would visit a childrens hospital and some of the poorest sections of Baghdad.