| Iraqis want un control oil cash { May 9 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2712539http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2712539
Iraqis Want U.N. to Control Oil Cash, Not U.S. Fri May 9, 2003 08:55 AM ET By Nadim Ladki
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis on Friday welcomed U.S. and British moves to lift U.N. economic sanctions but called for the United Nations or an Iraqi interim government to take charge of the nation's oil wealth, not Washington.
The United States and Britain are pushing a proposal to lift nearly 13 years of sanctions and give them control of the Iraq's oil revenues for at least a year.
'It is a good initiative that should have taken place a long time ago,' said Ragheb Naaman, 43. 'But we don't accept that the revenues be controlled by the United States and Britain.'
Naaman, an employee at Iraq's Military Industrialisation Commission in charge of developing weapons, said: 'The regime (of President Saddam Hussein) is gone, why are they staying? This shows that they are occupiers not liberators.'
The sanctions, imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, have crippled the economy of the oil-rich country, pushing a majority of Iraq's 26 million people around the poverty line.
'These sanctions should've been lifted long time ago, look at our situation now,' said a man who named Ali. 'But, I guess, better late than never.'
The U.S.-British proposal would relegate the United Nations and other international institutions to an advisory role and phase out over four months the existing U.N. oil-for-food humanitarian program.
The United States and Britain, who sponsored the proposal along with Spain, want a vote at the U.N. Security Council by June 3, when that program, which gives the United Nations control over the oil revenues, needs to be renewed.
Without adoption of the resolution, no Iraqi, U.S. or U.N. entity in Baghdad has the legal authority to export oil.
'We should run ourselves, not be controlled by Washington or London,' Ali Hamad said.
'The whole of Iraq is now theirs so the sanctions should be lifted. They are taking Iraq's wealth,' Ahmad Dulaimi said. 'The United Nations and not the United States should run the country until we have our own government.'
According to the proposed resolution, decisions on where to spend the money would be made mainly by the United States and Britain.
They would make those decisions in consultation with an Iraqi interim authority Washington is now setting up until a new elected Iraqi government is formed, which could take years.
The oil-for-food fund has some $13 billion in outstanding contracts for food, medicine and other civilian goods ordered by the ousted Iraqi government.
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