09/28 23:35 Iraq Says Its Oil Output Is Being Limited by U.S., U.K. Actions
By Stephen Voss
Caracas, Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq's oil production is being limited by U.S. and U.K. delays in authorizing spare parts vital for its oil industry, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said.
Speaking at a press conference after the OPEC summit in Caracas, Ramadan said U.S. and U.K. officials on a United Nations sanctions committee are holding back the equipment.
``Their goal is quite clear, they want to reduce the capacity of Iraq to produce oil,'' he said.
Iraq is the fourth-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and pumped 2.9 million barrels a day in August, according to Bloomberg estimates.
Iraq has been under UN sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and exports oil under a UN program that uses most of the revenue to buy food and medicine. The rest is earmarked for spare parts and reparations to victims of the invasion.
Iraq is currently in its eighth 180-day phase of the oil-for- food program and is scheduled to begin the ninth phase in December.
When asked whether Iraq could guarantee that it would not hold back exports when the program is renewed, for political or other reasons, Ramadan said: ``We are not going to hold oil supplies off and Iraq never held back oil supplies under any circumstances as long as it has the will to do so.''
He then went on to say that some things are ``beyond our will,'' citing the U.S.-U.K. blocks on spare parts.
The U.S. and U.K. have said they withhold authority on imports of some parts because they might be used to construct weapons.
UN Inspectors
Sanctions on Iraq can't be lifted until the UN has declared Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction. UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 shortly before a U.S.-U.K. bombing raid on suspected weapons sites, and the inspectors haven't been allowed to return since. A new inspection commission recently reported it was ready to return to Iraq though it hasn't set any date.
Ramadan reiterated that inspectors, or ``spies commission'' as he called them, won't be welcome in Iraq, adding that following many years of inspections and the 1998 bombing raid, ``there is nothing to inspect.''
The Iraqi vice-president also criticized a decision this week by a UN compensation commission in Geneva that approved a claim by Kuwait Petroleum Corp. for $15.9 billion from Iraq to cover damage to oil fields caused by Iraqi troops during the Persian Gulf War. At the same time, the commission reduced the quantity of Iraqi oil revenue set aside for compensations to 25 percent from 30 percent.
``All reparations are unfair and unequitable,'' he said.
Attacks Condemned
Asked whether Iraq should apologize to Kuwait for the failed invasion, Ramadan instead condemned U.S. and U.K. attacks, and the continuation of the embargo that he said has ``killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.'' The U.S. and U.K. warplanes patrol so-called ``no-fly'' zones over northern and southern Iraq, using Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti airbases.
Ramadan confirmed speculation earlier during the OPEC summit that Kuwait had blocked an Iraqi request for the 11-member organization to issue a statement condemning UN sanctions.
``The statement was adopted by Venezuela and by other members except two regimes that are loyal to the U.S., that is Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,'' he said.
He also repeated Iraqi accusations that Kuwait is stealing oil from Iraqi oil fields near the border between the two countries. Asked whether he had discussed the accusations with the Kuwaitis at the summit meeting, Ramadan replied ``there is no dialogue with the Kuwaiti regime, either in Caracas or anywhere else.
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