2 Cite Iraq Sanctions in Resignations

The resignations this week of two U.N. officials overseeing aid to Iraq have spotlighted the United Nations’ conundrum in trying to make Baghdad play by the world’s rules: Economic sanctions, the officials say, are enriching the country’s elite while hurting the general population. And they no longer want to be part of it.

Hans von Sponeck, who was responsible for distributing humanitarian goods in Iraq, and Jutta Burghardt, the local director of the World Food Program, stepped down this week, calling the situation there “a true human tragedy” that has no end in sight. Von Sponeck’s predecessor, Denis Halliday, quit in 1998 for the same reasons.

“The sanctions are taking their toll on the wrong people in every respect,” Von Sponeck said by telephone Thursday from his office in Baghdad. “I consider it ethically unacceptable.”

An economic embargo imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 has blocked most imports and restricted oil exports until Iraq can show that it has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction. Since 1995, the sanctions have come up for renewal every six months. By now, the embargo has turned into a nine-year standoff, although the oil export limits were lifted in December.

The sanctions have reduced Iraq’s GNP by 75% and doubled the child mortality rate, according to a 1999 UNICEF report. Malnutrition and mental illness are growing, Von Sponeck said, and the chronic deprivation is “ripping holes in the fabric of society.”

But instead of compelling the Iraqi government to cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors to have the restrictions lifted, the embargo has given President Saddam Hussein a foreign enemy to blame.

“People are resigning because they could no more be silent on the genocide which is taking place in Iraq,” said Saeed Hasan, the Iraqi ambassador to the U.N.

But U.S. officials, who are driving the hard-line policy in the Security Council, say the true blame for Iraqi suffering lies with Hussein.

The embargo does not restrict the import of food or medical supplies; until December, it limited the amount of oil Iraq could sell to buy them. The Security Council resolution in December lifted the ceiling on oil sales, and with the price of oil the highest in nine years, Hussein’s choices about how to provide for his people will be more conspicuous, a U.S. official said.

Indeed, while chronicling the decline in health, the UNICEF report and others also criticize Iraq for not rushing aid to its people. Food is distributed quickly, but nearly half the humanitarian goods languish in warehouses.

“There seems to be a lack of concern from the government of Iraq to mobilize its resources efficiently,” said Richard Garfield, a Columbia University professor who studies the humanitarian impact of sanctions on Iraq. “The attitude is that ‘it is a problem created by foreigners, and we wash our hands of it.’ ”

But the embargo is losing some of its bite. For profit or principle, Iraq’s neighbors and allies are sneaking around the sanctions. A Russian tanker was caught allegedly smuggling Iraqi oil this month; dozens of others elude interception, according to the State Department. Iraq was able to smuggle out a record $70 million worth of oil in January, or about 100,000 barrels a day, a State Department spokesman said.

But most of that money goes into the pockets of members of a powerful elite running the black market. “There’s no indication that the money is going to humanitarian purposes,” a U.S. official said Thursday.

Even grass-roots and church groups are getting into the act, openly defying the sanctions to make a philosophical point. Jordanian schoolchildren mistook a ban on nuclear graphite to include pencils and collected 3 million of them for their counterparts across the border. Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness has organized 30 trips to Iraq to deliver medicine and toys.

The Dec. 17 Security Council resolution on oil exports offered the best chance for change yet: It lifts the ceiling on oil sales and promises to speed up the U.N. approval process for goods requested by Iraq--especially parts for oil production. But it doesn’t suspend sanctions until there is certified compliance from Baghdad, a vaguely defined process.

Canada proposed refining the sanctions to hit the regime where it hurts--freezing overseas bank accounts and travel privileges--and to expand aid to ordinary Iraqis. So far, the proposal has been ignored. Three permanent members of the Security Council--France, China and Russia--abstained from the December vote.

“The resolution wasn’t designed to help the humanitarian situation,” said Phyllis Bennis, author of “Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s U.N.” “It was designed to keep the sanctions in place, with a bit of softening around the edges.”

Von Sponeck and Burghardt say they think so too. “Right from the beginning, I had question marks about the job,” Von Sponeck said. “But I also had optimism. I had no more optimism after the resolution.”

He says he hopes that his decision to end his 36-year career at the U.N. over the issue will send a strong signal. “If my decision to resign is a small contribution to the process of rethinking the resolution,” he said, “then it is all worth it.”

But the bottom line, for now, comes from the U.S., the driving force behind efforts to keep up the sanctions. While Von Sponeck argues that the December resolution offered “only false hope,” U.S. officials contend that it offers Iraq’s only hope. “If they don’t cooperate, it’s very simple,” said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. “The sanctions will stay on.”