WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- After weeks of argument that at one point threatened to revive the bitter trans-Atlantic rows that set the United States and France at odds before the Iraq war, the U.N. Security Council has voted 14-0 to end all non-military crippling sanctions on Iraq and to give the United Nations a major role in rebuilding the battered country.

President George W. Bush can now head to the Group of Eight summit later this month in France in the comforting knowledge the main outstanding dispute between the Anglo-Americans and the French and Russians is settled.

But the fallout from the Iraq disputes is not over, with big questions still to be settled on the future of French and Russian oil contracts signed with the Saddam regime, and with both sides claiming diplomatic victory in Thursday's U.N. vote.

"We can consider that the U.N. is back, and at bottom that is now the key issue: to make sure that the U.N. can resume its place" in handling the crisis," said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

"I think it's a step in the right direction of moving forward together," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Paris, told a briefing organized by the French-American Press Club. "So, this is a wonderful day for the people of Iraq who have been liberated and now they can see, I hope, with a very, very overwhelming vote, the United Nations as a group, through the Security Council, coming to assist them."

There could still be trouble ahead. The French view is that the Anglo-Americans are now fully responsible for the post-war situation in Iraq, wide open to international criticism if the security and political crisis continues, and will yet have to accept the French were right all along to argue that winning the peace would prove a great deal harder than winning the war.

The French also maintain that the British and Americans now longer have a monopoly over Iraq's political future. The resolution calls on the United States and British forces to form an interim Iraqi-run administration until "an internationally recognized, representative government is established by the people of Iraq."

A senior U.N. official, probably the High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello from Brazil, is to be appointed to work with the U.S. and British occupying forces to set up the new Iraqi government.

The Anglo-American view is that the United Nations has now in effect given retrospective endorsement to a war that the world body refused to regard as legitimate two months ago. London and Washington have also now managed to shrug off much of the responsibility and potential cost of Iraq's reconstruction onto the United Nations. They now also hope that the U.N. agreement will make it easier for the NATO alliance as a whole to play a role in the security of Iraq, as NATO already does in Afghanistan.

The United States made a series of concessions to win agreement on the fourth draft they and their allies at the United Nations had presented. They gave the U.N. weapons inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Authority the right to come back to Iraq and make their own reports on the fate of Saddam Hussein's vaunted weapons of mass destruction. This could lead to embarrassment in the future for the United States if the independent inspectors conclude that there was no such weapons of mass destruction threat, cited by the U.S. and Britain as a central justification of the war.

"The international consensus behind the Security Council resolution is a huge step forward for the people of Iraq to help secure peace and build a new government with the legitimacy it needs to succeed," Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation, told United Press International. "Ensuring significant U.N. involvement in ongoing relief and reconstruction efforts in Iraq is not only essential for the country's quick recovery, but also assures that the U.S. does not have to carry the burdens of reconstruction alone."

"United Nations involvement provides legitimacy, which is crucial to the success of an interim authority in Iraq," Wirth added. "The American hard-liners made some concessions to get this agreement, but so did the French."

"The lifting of the sanctions is fantastic, it will enable economic activity to start again. It's a psychological boost for the people," UNICEF's Geoffrey Keele told reporters in Baghdad. "But by simply lifting it tomorrow it does not mean that everything becomes better tomorrow. This is a complex situation. The entire social infrastructure of the country is extremely decayed, it has been decaying for the last 20 years."

The immediate impact of the agreement will be to allow the 9 million barrels of Iraqi oil currently stored in Turkey to go onto the international market (where they are worth some $250 million). Nobody would buy the oil while questions about its ownership risked legal dispute. But that will be Iraq's only oil income for some time. Iraqi oil output is currently 275,000 barrels a day, barely half Iraq's internal demand, and even that cannot be handled by Iraq's damaged refineries. Experts think it will take up to 3 years and several billion dollars of investment before Iraq can become a major oil-exporting nation again.

The resolution gives the United States and Britain broad control over Iraq and its oil reserves, but calls for the creation of a Development Fund to channel resources and the establishment of an advisory board, including the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials, to monitor oil sales.

"Transparency in the use of any oil revenues is of utmost importance for the transition in Iraq and the success of the interim administration," Wirth said. "Involving international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank, in the monitoring of these funds is essential for conferring legitimacy."

And from the BBC:

New resolution addresses key issues

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New resolution addresses key issues

By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

Passage of the new Security Council resolution on Iraq will mean a new era for a country which has suffered from 13 years of sanctions and a generation of oppression by Saddam Hussein.

The new draft envisages a greater role for the UN in Iraq

Now the sanctions will be lifted and a process will begin under which the occupying powers will administer Iraq, spending its oil money on rebuilding the country, until a new government can be elected in one to two years.

In the meantime, an interim Iraqi administration will be put in place with limited executive powers though with the task of paving the way for a new constitution and elections.

Work to agree on the administration has been delayed by the chaos in post-war Iraq and another conference of Iraqis has been put off until July.

Review of occupation after 12 months

The breakthrough came when France, Russia and Germany, which all opposed the war, indicated that they would accept the latest American, British and Spanish draft after a clause was inserted reviewing the implementation of the process after 12 months.

Earlier they had drawn back from confrontation with the US and UK after concessions which emphasised the role of the UN in Iraq.

This role was expanded from a rather vague supporting position in the first draft to a much more central function in the second, allowing a UN special representative to be involved fully in the setting up of new institutions.

Weapons inspectors might be allowed back

And it was made clear that weapons inspectors might be allowed back in at some stage. Dr Hans Blix, the chief of the inspections organisation, is leaving in June and this might be an opportunity to re-examine the inspectors' mandate.

It is an open diplomatic secret that the Americans do not particularly like Dr Blix and that they want to leave decisions on the inspectors until he has retired.

A change of mandate is referred to in the text without being specific as to what it might be. But it could be that they would check on finds made by the occupying forces.

However there is no requirement that sanctions have to stay until Iraq is declared free of weapons of mass destruction as has been the case previously.

Classic diplomatic move

It was a classic diplomatic manoeuvre - make concessions which you probably knew were going to have to be offered and then let your critics claim they have made progress.

It seems to have worked and it shows that to some extent it is back to diplomatic business at the UN.

The wider hope is that this agreement will also heal some of the wounds inflicted by the disagreements over the war, though France and Russia will say that their acceptance does not confer retrospective legitimacy on the war.

The sense among British officials in London was that France and Russia had taken a strategic decision to work with the US and UK. "The negotiation has not been the bloodbath which some had predicted," was how one diplomat put it.

Quite how far peace has really broken out between members of the Security Council will be tested over the next few weeks and months.

One test will be the G8 summit in Evian at the beginning of June. There the major players, including Presidents Bush and Chirac, will be gathered.

Other key changes to the resolution which helped get agreement included:

A clause calling on member states to "contribute to conditions of stability and security." This is designed to give UN cover to the multinational stabilisation force now being organised.

Russia is owed billions of dollars in oil contracts with Iraq
The Assistance Fund (into which the oil money will go) has been given a name change to the Development Fund, making it less colonial.
An International Advisory Board acting as watchdog is now also called a Monitoring board to strengthen its position.
A billion dollars will be transferred into the fund at once from the existing Oil for Food programme.
This is to give the fund something upfront.
The Oil for Food scheme will continue for another six months, not four.
Existing food contracts will be honoured though frozen until further decisions if not regarded as necessary now.
Iraq's oil will be protected from creditor claims until 2007 except in the case of oil spillages.
This timeframe is designed to give Iraq some financial space before issues of its unpaid debt arise.
These debts will be dealt with on an international basis, something aimed at satisfying the Russians.
The spillage exception is a concession to France and Spain worried about oil leaks onto their beaches.

I think it will be OK!

Got some addon info here!

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Robertson: Boosting Iraqi reconstruction

Thursday, May 22, 2003 Posted: 2338 GMT ( 7:38 AM HKT)

CNN's Nic Robertson

Story Tools

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The United Nations Security Council Thursday voted to end nearly all sanctions against Iraq, 13 years and two wars after they were imposed. The U.S.-backed resolution passed 14-0, with Syria's ambassador absent.

The measure also gives the United States and Britain -- part of coalitions in both wars against Iraq -- broad powers to sell Iraqi oil to fund reconstruction, and the authority to run Iraq until a new government is established.

CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson has spent a lot of time in Iraq and discussed with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer how the resolution will help win the peace in Iraq.

ROBERTSON: It should speed the reconstruction. One of the issues that many people in Iraq complained about over the years was the fact that they couldn't import the water pumps necessary to rebuild the sewage and fresh water systems in Baghdad and other cities. This will be a prime example of where lifting restrictions -- Iraq can sell the oil or the oil can be sold for Iraq -- allows this equipment to be more freely, and readily and quickly brought into the country, and it's turning things around quickly.

It's going to make that necessary difference for Iraqi people's lives. It's going to make them believe that the new U.S. civil administration and the coalition are there to help, and that's very important right now.

BLITZER: The impact should be pretty quick. The U.S. and Britain will have discretion how to release the billions of dollars already frozen in various Iraqi assets to various institutions within Iraq, and the flow of oil, the export, should get going relatively quickly.

ROBERTSON: Relatively quickly indeed. There are several millions of barrels of oil sitting in Turkey, ready for sale right now, just to give you some context. The oil-for-food program ran since late 1996. Under that program, Iraq exported about 3.5 billion barrels of oil. The revenue they generated from that was something in the order of $60 billion. They spent $11 billion over those six or seven years on food. They spent about half a billion dollars on the education inside Iraq.

So it's big numbers, but that is the kind of money that's going to be necessary to help regenerate the country. The sale of oil is really the only resource that the international community has to quickly generate money to rebuild Iraq. Getting that money flowing with those quick sales, like the sale of the oil that's already there in storage in Turkey, that's going to help a lot.

BLITZER: Nic, you spent a long time in Iraq. The people are pretty well-educated. There's a good middle class. They are capable of taking these billions of dollars in oil revenue and developing a thriving economy if they do it right. That's why this decision at the Security Council today is potentially so significant.

ROBERTSON: Absolutely. It's a country that knows how to work. It's a country that has worked before, back in the 1970s when the oil industry was nationalized, when the revenues started flowing into the Iraqi pocket and less to the international companies running many of the oil facilities at that time. The purse inside Iraq, the government's purse swelled measurably, when they went into the Iran/Iraq war in the beginning of the 1980s; they had a lot of money. There was huge spending on civil infrastructure, on ministries, on hospitals, on schools, etc.

To get that same money flowing again -- without the expenditures of Saddam Hussein's war with Iran, and without the U.N. sanctions -- Iraq and its people know very well how to run a very efficient and a very productive country.

BLITZER: And the fact that not only the United States and Britain, but France, Germany, Russia, the other members of the Security Council -- with the exception of Syria -- approved the resolution, that sends a powerful message to the people of Iraq that the international community now is basically united and wants to see the U.S., Britain and its coalition partners succeed.

ROBERTSON: Yes, that international legitimacy. The key is going to be transferring that impression that we have around the rest of the world to the people in Iraq and in Baghdad. It is going to be their understanding of the situation that obviously motivates them. And while we understand it, as an international legitimization of the new rules and regulations that will govern Iraq internationally, the people of Baghdad also have to understand that, and it's going to be very important to get that message out to the Iraqi people, and that is not so easily done. Iraq is a country this time that thrives very much on rumors and a lack of good, hard information.

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