Posted on 03/20/2003 7:13:24 PM PST by HAL9000
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council to enable him to take over the Iraqi oil-for-food programme and change it to meet the needs of those hit hardest by war.The programme, which allows Iraq to export oil and import humanitarian goods exempt from UN sanctions, is run as a joint venture by Baghdad and the United Nations. Its budget is close to 10 billion dollars a year.
The programme was suspended on Monday, when Annan ordered all international staff working for the United Nations to leave Iraq.
Senior UN officials said staff were "ready to redeploy as soon as possible and will not wait for the whole of Iraq to be safe before redeploying."
Asked how long Iraq's 23 million people could hold on before the programme was restored, the officials said "we estimate there are six weeks of reserves in terms of food, if there is no displacement of population."
In a letter to the council, Annan recommended changes to the programme's mandate, adopted on April 14, 1995 in council Resolution 986.
In an annex to the eight-page letter, he suggested elements for a new resolution, saying the changes were the "minimum" necessary for the programme to operate.
But Annan stressed that the United Nations was not picking up the bill for humanitarian relief in Iraq from the United States and Britain.
"The primary responsibility for ensuring that the Iraqi population is provided with adequate medicine, health supplies, foodstuffs and materials and supplies for essential civilian needs will rest with the authority exercising effective control in the country," he wrote.
Senior officials said the UN would still have to rely on the Iraqi state system to distribute supplies.
"With such a large number of persons, it is quite impossible to replicate the system," they said.
At present, all Iraq's oil revenues go into a UN-administered escrow account and imports must be approved by a Security Council committee. But Baghdad sets the priorities for imports and distributes the goods, except in three administrative regions in the Kurdish north of the country.
On the import side, Annan asked "as a matter of urgency" for authority to review government priorities and to redeploy resources that had already been imported.
The UN and its humanitarian agencies should have the power to renegotiate or cancel contracts with Iraq's suppliers, he said.
He noted that there were about 8.9 billion dollars worth of "contracted supplies that have not yet been delivered" and said "the priorities of the need for some of these supplies might change" after hostilities began.
Senior officials said the figure included 2.4 billion dollars worth of food.
Annan asked the council to extend the UN's function as distributor of emergency humanitarian relief from the Kurdish north to the whole of the country.
And he said it should also be able to distribute relief to Iraqi refugees who fled the country because of the war.
He also sought the power to "establish alternative locations for delivery and inspection of humanitarian supplies" which are monitored by UN observers to ensure that no weapons or other banned goods enter the country.
As far as Iraq's oil exports are concerned, Annan said "the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) should be allowed to continue to retain ... the authority to conclude oil contracts with national purchasers."
He asked the council to authorize "the use of additional oil export routes under appropriate monitoring."
At present, Iraq is allowed to export only through its own port of Umm Qasr or by pipeline to the Turkish terminal at Ceyhan, on the Mediterranean.
According to the Kuwaiti news agency, Umm Qasr was captured on Thursday by British troops -- a report denied by Iraqi television.
The UN makes loads of money off the sanctions regime. Kofi probably wants his cut. France and Russia are scrambling.
What's that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? Sounds like the UN.
There are other threads reporting this tragedy...
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