Britain, U.S. Move to Ease Iraq Trade

In a significant policy shift, Britain--with support from the United States--on Wednesday proposed lifting U.N. sanctions on civilian goods going to Iraq while keeping bans on military materials and tightening smuggling controls.

The move would end a decade-long U.N. embargo that is widely viewed here as having failed to prevent President Saddam Hussein from rearming his military. Neighbors and supporters of the Persian Gulf nation have been increasingly brazen about defying the controls, smuggling goods in and oil out.

The U.S. had long resisted any changes to the sanctions regime without evidence that Iraq has abandoned development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But faced with a losing propaganda battle and a potential security threat, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ordered a review of U.S. policy toward Iraq.

Now the U.S. and Britain are seeking to more sharply focus the sanctions.

“The goal of this process is to control effectively Iraq’s ability to buy weapons, to control Iraq’s ability to threaten its neighbors, especially to control Iraq’s ability to threaten its region with weapons of mass destruction,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. “On the other hand, we will smooth out the process and enable civilian goods to reach the Iraqi people.”

The United Nations imposed sanctions after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Troops from a U.S.-led coalition drove out Iraqi forces the following year and severely damaged Hussein’s military. Iraq has long complained that the sanctions have led to hunger and deaths among its people.

Under the present sanctions, Iraq cannot import anything unless specifically permitted by the U.N. In the proposed program, it could import everything except militarily useful items.

That should ease red tape on basic items from sewing machines to car parts, goods that often get caught up for months in the U.N.’s complicated approval process.

At the same time, the U.S. and Britain are circulating a highly specific list of “controlled goods” that would be banned. The list would include military goods and some “dual-use” commercial items that could be utilized by Iraqi forces.

The measures would maintain controls on Iraq’s oil revenue, which is used to buy humanitarian goods under an existing program known as “oil-for-food.” They also would maintain the requirement that Iraq allow U.N. inspectors to check whether the country has abandoned development of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq expelled inspectors in 1998.

Iraq has said that it will not cooperate with the new sanctions plans and has warned its neighbors that it would halt oil exports if they do. Diplomats, meanwhile, have denied that the approach signals a bow to Hussein.

“This is returning to the core objective of what the resolutions were all about, which is preventing Iraq from presenting a threat to its neighbors, preventing Iraq from rearming,” said a British official who would speak only on condition of anonymity. “We also want to remove any suspicion that these controls are in any way responsible for the humanitarian situation in Iraq. . . . Now Iraq will have absolutely no excuse to claim that sanctions or controls are responsible for the welfare of the Iraqi people.”

The British draft resolution will be circulated next week in the 15-member Security Council with the idea of seeking a vote on it before the next six-month phase of the oil-for-food program begins June 4. If accepted by the council, the new program will end the complicated procedures that Iraq goes through twice a year to have orders of new goods approved. The U.N. will still check contracts, but the process is expected to be much faster.

The French have offered tentative support for the draft. The Russian and Chinese representatives said Wednesday that they are still studying the proposals, though they are expected to back the new plan after informal discussions.

British diplomats said the proposals were developed jointly with the U.S., although their nation is, for the moment, the lone sponsor of the resolution. The U.S. might join in introducing the resolution next week, the British official said. “We haven’t decided exactly how we’re going to choreograph it.”

The draft resolutions echo proposals that the U.S. has been pushing.

After weeks of consultations with Middle East leaders, European allies and U.N. officials, the United States has circulated several papers at the world body, U.S. officials said Wednesday. They cover the full range of issues in the Bush administration’s new Iraq policy, U.S. officials said, which is centered on four principles: blocking Iraqi development of weapons of mass destruction; curtailing illegal oil smuggling through Syria, Iran, Turkey and Jordan; maintaining U.N. control of Iraqi oil income; and easing sanctions to allow the faster flow of civilian goods to the Iraqi people.

But State Department officials cautioned that serious work remains. The U.S. has built on the foundation of ideas laid out by Powell during a Middle East swing in February, but the effort has no “final structure” yet, said a senior administration official who requested anonymity.

Senior U.S. officials have fanned out in Europe and the Middle East in recent weeks to consult with key players, particularly the Russians, Chinese and French--the three permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that have pressed hardest for scrapping sanctions. The U.S. and Britain are the other permanent members.

While British officials said that they had “a reasonably positive response” from Iraq’s neighbors--which depend on trade with the isolated nation yet face the greatest threat from a rearmed regime--several governments have expressed concern that their nations will face economic losses or retribution if they play by the rules.

Norwegian Ambassador Ole Kolby, head of the U.N.’s Iraq sanctions committee, said the proposed policy is “quite a big change, but it’s very much along the lines we have been discussing. This is what we have been trying to do.”

But some at the world body questioned whether the changes would be effective.

“The sanctions regime never stopped Saddam and his cronies from making money, and the new program won’t be any better,” said a U.N. official who has spent time in Iraq. “They may win some propaganda points, but they won’t gain more control.”

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Farley reported from the United Nations and Wright from Washington.