BY DOUG LORIMER
On May 22, the United Nations Security Council adopted a US-sponsored resolution which approved the Anglo-American military occupation of Iraq, lifted UN economic sanctions imposed in August 1990 and put revenue from sales of Iraqi oil under Washington's control.
The resolution was approved by the representatives of Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — the five permanent members of the council — and by all 10 non-permanent members, with the exception of Syria, which abstained.
The approved resolution was a revised version of a resolution presented to the council by the US on May 9. Announcing France's, Russia's and Germany's support for the revised resolution, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin declared on May 20: "the United Nations is back in the game".
Under the original resolution, the 13-year-old UN economic sanctions were to be lifted, the US and British occupying forces were to run Iraq for at least a year and the UN food-for-oil program — upon which 60% of Iraqis were dependent prior to the US invasion — was to be phased out after four months.
Whatever was not spent by the program in that period was to be transferred to an "Iraqi Assistance Fund" at the Iraqi Central Bank, now managed by former US deputy treasury secretary Peter McPherson. The UN secretary-general was to name a representative to an advisory board which would appoint the fund's auditors.
The UN World Food Program plans to spend US$1.85 billion on food aid over the next six months, leaving $11 billion from Iraq's past oil sales in the food-for-oil program.
Under the resolution approved on May 22, the food-for-oil program is to be phased out over six months. All future oil revenue is to go into a "Development Fund for Iraq" at the Iraqi Central Bank.
A billion dollars will be transferred into the fund at once from the existing food-for-oil program. All other unallocated oil-sales revenue is to go to the fund after UN expenses are met. The advisory board has been renamed the "advisory and monitoring board".
In a concession to Russia and France, which were owed hundreds of billions of dollars by Saddam Hussein's regime, the resolution calls for Iraqi oil-sales revenue to be immune from creditors' claims until December 31, 2007. The original draft called for unlimited immunity.
Under the resolution, the US and Britain are to be firmly in control of Iraq and its oil wealth "until an internationally recognised, representative government is established". However, in a concession to French and Russian demands for a say in the construction of a new Iraqi government, via the UN, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been asked to appoint a special representative with "independent powers" to work with the US and Britain to create "an Iraqi interim administration as a transitional administration run by Iraqis".
The occupying powers are "encouraged" to report regularly to the Security Council, which will review the implementation of the resolution within 12 months. The previous texts did not call for any UN review of the Anglo-American occupation. However, the resolution doesn't say the council can vote to end the occupation after 12 months.
As a bargaining chip to protect their commercial interests in Iraq and to get a say in the construction of a new Iraqi government, Paris and Moscow had been demanding the return of the UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix. Under previous council resolutions, the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq could not be lifted until UN weapons inspectors declared the country free of weapons of mass destruction.
Under the new resolution, the fate of the search for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction — the reason given by the US and Britain for invading Iraq in the first place — has been left for another day. The resolution expresses the "intention" of the council "to revisit" the weapons inspectors' mandate at some unspecified time in the future.
From Green Left Weekly, May 28, 2003.
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