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France suggests end sanctions Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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France makes surprise Iraq proposal
NBC, MSNBC and news services
UNITED NATIONS, April 22 — In an unexpected move, France on Tuesday proposed suspending U.N. sanctions that hurt Iraqi civilians, an important step toward the U.S. goal of ending trade embargoes that have crippled Iraq's economy. But France also sought the eventual return of U.N. inspectors to verify that Iraq was fully disarmed of banned weapons, a demand the United States has rejected.
PRESIDENT BUSH called last week for sanctions to be lifted quickly so Iraq's oil revenue could be used to finance reconstruction.
But the issue -- as well as any U.N. involvement in postwar Iraq -- was expected to be heatedly debated at the, which was deeply divided over the Iraq war.
Russia and France, veto-wielding members of the council, did not support Washington's drive toward military action, which torpedoed U.S. efforts to gain support for a war resolution last month.
France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, appeared to pave the way for a compromise Tuesday with his unexpected proposal.
"We should immediately suspend the sanctions," de la Sabliere said. "And about the oil-for-food program, we think there should be some adjustment to the program with a view of a phasing out of this program."
The French proposal would end the U.N. ban on trade and investment in Iraq while leaving a 12-year arms embargo in place. The oil-for-food program was established in 1995 to allow Iraq to sell oil in return for humanitarian aid.
The Security Council imposed sanctions after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Under the resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq's nuclear,chemical and biologicalweapons have been destroyed, along with the long-range missiles to deliver them.
MENDING FENCES
The proposal suggested efforts to mend fences with Washington. Ever since U.S. officials blamed France for blocking a war resolution last month, relations have been strained.
Hawkish supporters of the Bush administration have hinted at reprisals against the government of French President Jacques Chirac, whose outspoken opposition to war bolstered support at home and among antiwar activists across Europe but alarmed the French business community.
France had considerable business relations with Saddam Hussein 's government -- French companies did $3.7 billion in trade with Baghdad under the oil-for-food program last year -- and has been fretting about being shut out of the reconstruction.
Last week, Chirac held a 20-minute conversation with President Bush, the first such contact between the two leaders in two months.
RETURN OF THE INSPECTORS
De la Sabliere went some ways toward meeting U.S. demands Tuesday, but a vigorous debate is still likely to hammer out the details of the next step for the United Nations.
The ambassador said financial and some trade sanctions needed to be suspended to enable Iraq to get back on its feet. But he said a final lifting of sanctions would mean the return of the U.N. arms inspectors, who could work with "the American team on the ground."
The United States, in contrast to other council members including Britain, has balked at supporting the return of the inspectors. Instead, it is recruiting former U.N. inspectors from the United States, Britain and Australia to verify any discovery of banned weapons by the military.
Russian Ambassador Sergei Lavrov had said his country wanted U.N. inspectors to certify that Iraq had been disarmed of all weapons of mass destruction, as required under U.N. resolutions. Asked about the French proposal, he said: "We are ready to discuss it."
John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said sanctions should be lifted rather than suspended as soon as possible, and "we look forward to working together with the delegation of France and other delegations toward that end."
As for the inspectors, who were forced to leave Iraq in the immediate run-up to the war, Negroponte did not see an early return. "For the time being, and for the foreseeable future, we visualize that as being a coalition activity," he said.
"The coalition has assumed responsibility for disarming of Iraq," Negroponte said. "Now that there is a somewhat more permissive military environment, the coalition effort will be substantially increased and expanded."
HARD NEGOTIATIONS
The oil-for-food program, which comes up for renewal in June, is the key to Iraq's ability to spend oil revenue for reconstruction. Oil proceeds are deposited in a U.N. escrow account, out of which food, medicine and other civilian goods for Iraq are bought.
"There will be some hard negotiations on the details," a council member predicted.
And overshadowing the debate is a wish to restore the credibility of the United Nations itself, which was battered by the angry debate over military action and the eventual decision by the United States and its allies to wage war without U.N. authority.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, speaking in Austria, said that "the U.N. is being challenged" but that he expected an agreement on the U.N. role in Iraq in the "not too distant future."
An entry point may be a donor conference the United States is proposing to help with reconstruction.
Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's budget chief, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Bush administration had no current estimate of how many billions of dollars it would take to reconstruct the country but that a number of countries were already providing or pledging assistance for the earliest stages of stabilizing Iraq and laying a foundation for rebuilding its oil-based economy.
Zakheim said antiwar nations such as France, Germany and Russia had not yet offered assistance. He would not say whether they would be welcomed as investors in Iraq's future
BLIX INTERVIEW
The Bush administration has demonstrated little willingness to grant a role to the United Nations, although it may do so at the behest of Britain.
In addition to anger over France's stance, the United States has accused chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix of hindering its drive for international support for the war.
Blix displayed some bitterness over the debate. In an interview with BBC Radio aired Tuesday, Blix said the United States and Britain appeared to have used "shaky" intelligence, including forged documents, to prove that Iraq had banned weapons.
Blix said it was "very, very disturbing" that U.S. intelligence failed to spot fake documents suggesting Iraq tried to buy uranium from the West African nation of Niger. He told reporters at the United Nations on Tuesday that the contract about "yellow cake" uranium "was more than shaky -- it was a fake."
He also told the BBC that U.S. officials tried to undermine his inspection team by telling the media that he withheld information about an Iraqi drone aircraft from the Security Council.
"They felt that stories about these things would be useful to have, and they let it out," he said. "It was not the case. It was a bit unfair and hurt us."
U.N. inspectors went back to Iraq for the first time in four years in late November and discovered no weapons of mass destruction during 3½ months of searching. Annan ordered all U.N. international staff, including the inspectors, to leave Iraq just before the war began March 20. He has said he expected them to return.
NBC's Linda Fasulo at the United Nations,
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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