It's not a "leak proof presidency" judging by the acid rain fallout. U.S. unable to sideline Germany
U.N. Security Council refuses to kowtow to Washington over next chair of Iraq Sanctions Committee
By Aaron Kirchfeld
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The United States failed to disqualify Germany as the next chair of the Iraq Sanctions Committee after France and Russia rejected alternative U.S. recommendations, a U.N. diplomat said on Wednesday, making it likely that Germany will head the committee that oversees the oil-for-food program that regulates Iraq's imports and exports.
“In the halls of the United Nations, Chile was not really considered a realistic option to chair the Iraq Sanctions Committee, and Spain is set on leading the Counterterrorism Committee because of its own domestic problems,“ the U.N. diplomat told F.A.Z. Weekly, referring to the two candidates the United States had endorsed as alternatives to Germany.
U.N. and U.S. diplomats said the United States would not endorse Germany's bid to chair the Iraq Sanctions Committee, apparently because of the countries' conflicting policy toward Iraq and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's refusal to commit to military involvement in a U.S.-led war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
“U.N. Security Council members refused to back Washington's bid to instal Chile as the head of the Iraq Sanctions Committee,“ because committee chairmanship is traditionally passed to countries within the same region, the U.N. official told F.A.Z. Weekly. Diplomats expect the Security Council to replace current chairman Norway with Germany, which held the same post in the mid-1990s.
Asked about possible differences between the United States and Germany on how sanctions are implemented against Iraq, the diplomat said, “Germany has supported Security Council efforts to fine-tune and reshape the sanctions to minimize collateral damage.“
A German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the ministry had no official notice that Washington opposed Germany's chairmanship. Germany “is prepared to assume leadership of the Iraq sanctions committee and will, at the very least, be involved with the committee,“ she said.
“I don't see why there would be any preprogrammed conflict between the United States and Germany,“ Green party Iraq expert Reinhard Weisshuhn told F.A.Z. Weekly, referring to possible conflicting views of the sanctions on Iraq.
Germany is Iraq's 20th-largest trade partner. German companies have had trade volume of $419 million with Baghdad through the sanctions program since the beginning of 1997, according to U.N. diplomats.
Weisshuhn also said his party, which governs in a coalition with the Social Democrats, is generally in favor of the oil-for-food program, which allows Iraq to trade oil for food, medical supplies and other civilian goods under the general embargo against trade with Iraq, imposed by the U.N. Security Council after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait in August 1990.
Both the Greens and SPD have expressed their support of the changes to the sanctions' criteria earlier this year by the Security Council because they specify more clearly which goods can and cannot be exported.
But U.S. and U.N. officials reported initial resistance to German chairmanship in Washington, since the White House fears that Schröder's government may challenge U.S. policy on Iraq. The decision on who will replace Norway will be made at the beginning of next year.
This is not the first time that the United States has been opposed to German leadership of a U.N. committee on Iraq. Hans von Sponeck, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq between late 1998 and early 2000, stepped down under pressure from the United States after he strongly criticized the sanctions as being “a true human tragedy that needs to be ended.“
Sponeck has recently co-authored a 60-page report on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions, which accuses the United States and Britain of ignoring the consequences of the embargo, which the report says include death caused by poverty, malnutrition and inadequate medical care as well as hindering the country's inability to rebuild after the Gulf War.
The main problem is that some export goods needed for medical treatment and infrastructure repair and construction can potentially be used to produce weapons, the report says. These goods, which include mundane items such as plastic bags, are regularly knocked off the export list by the sanctions committee.
Meanwhile, Berlin's daily Tages- zeitung has reported that Iraq's 12,000-page report on its weapons program lists over 80 German companies that have delivered equipment, parts, basic materials and technological know-how to Iraq that could be used for the development of atomic, chemical and biological weapons.
Tageszeitung also reported that despite the fact that most of these deliveries were made before the 1990 embargo, the U.S. government was “very interested“ in the details of German-Iraqi cooperation. The paper said that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has already requested more information.
While the German government still says it will not commit troops to military action against Iraq, it did vote last month to extend German military participation in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom.
Dec. 19 |
