Robert Holloway
AFP
May 22, 2003

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations Security Council ended 13 years of UN sanctions on Iraq with immediate effect today and gave the US-led forces there broad control of its economy and political future.

The 14-0 vote was a diplomatic victory for the United States and Britain, which won endorsement of far more authority than is conceded to an occupying power by the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

But, in an unexpected move, Syria denied them a triumph of consensus by boycotting the vote, taken almost three-quarters of an hour late in the presence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Less than 10 weeks ago, the military allies could persuade only two of the 13 other council members to back a proposal to disarm Iraq by force.

Today, the council asked them to help form an Iraqi-led interim administration “until an internationally recognized, representative government is established by the Iraqi people.”

In adopting Resolution 1483, it set up a new Development Fund for Iraq under the central bank and said the country’s oil revenues will be deposited in it and disbursed at the direction of the occupying powers.

The Fund will be used to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for economic reconstruction and for repairing Iraq’s infrastructure, the resolution said.

It will also finance “the continued disarmament of Iraq, the costs of Iraqi civilian administration and other purposes benefitting the people of Iraq.”

The resolution asked Annan to appoint a special representative for Iraq, to contribute to setting up the interim authority and to take part in an advisory board auditing the Development Fund.

Annan is expected to make an appointment quickly, his spokesman said.

In drafting the resolution, US and British diplomats resisted pressure to set a time limit to the occupation. Instead, the council agreed to review the situation 12 months from now.

Despite widespread skepticism about the existence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the resolution tacitly acknowledged that US and British forces had replaced the UN arms inspectors by encouraging them to “keep the council informed of their activities in this regard.”

During 12 days of intense negotiations, the co-sponsors — Britain, the United States and Spain — did make concessions, however.

US Ambassador John Negroponte’s spokesman Rick Grenell told reporters that 95 textual changes were made in the three revisions which followed the first draft on May 9.

Most of these were on the legal and financial implications of scrapping the sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

The resolution extends the UN’s oil-for-food programme in Iraq for six months to ensure the delivery of priority civilian goods.

Set up in December 1996 to cushion Iraqi citizens from the impact of the crippling trade embargo and financial restrictions on their country, the programme has since swollen into a $10-billion-a-year business.

Russia, in particular, has a large number of contracts to supply Iraq with trucks and oil industry spare parts. Many of these deals would have collapsed had the programme been phased out in four months, as originally proposed.

Under the resolution, $1-billion in unallocated oil-for-food money will be transferred immediately to the Development Fund, the rest following after various UN expenses have been met.

The resolution cut from 25% to 5% the proportion of Iraq’s oil income which goes to the UN Compensation Fund for damages resulting from the invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

In order to reassure Iraq’s major creditors, which include Russia and Kuwait, the resolution envisages a rescheduling of Iraq’s debt — estimated at up to $400 billion — through the Paris Club.

At the same time, it effectively establishes a moratorium on the debt by declaring Iraq’s oil revenues immune from legal proceedings until December 31, 2007.

In a concession to France and Spain, which have suffered oil spills along their long Atlantic coastlines, the resolution makes an exception for claims for ecological accidents.

It orders all countries to immediately freeze any funds or other assets belonging to the regime or family of Saddam Hussein and deposit them in the Fund, except assets which have already been frozen and are the subject of legal action in domestic courts.