Bush is pushing to lift sanctions. The big fight will come when the Oil for food program is up on May 5th, and the UN no longer has control of the Oil revenues. The Russians, et al, need this to leverage the US, and won't have it available.
Bush Urges U.N. to Lift Economic Sanctions Against Iraq
By JOEL BRINKLEY
[W] ASHINGTON, April 16 ? President Bush urged the United Nations today to lift the economic sanctions against Iraq that have been in place since the first Persian Gulf war, challenging members to recognize the American and British military success despite the strong opposition that many nations showed to the latest war.
"Now that Iraq has been liberated, the United Nations should lift sanctions on that country," Mr. Bush said, speaking to workers at a Boeing plant in St. Louis, where some advanced warplanes used in Iraq are made.
Many members and perhaps a majority of the Security Council, led by France, Germany, Russia and China, vigorously opposed the war in Iraq, and now several of them, led by France, are pushing to give the United Nations the central role in Iraq's transitional government ? an idea Bush opposes.
Calling on these same nations to vote to lift sanctions on Iraq would require them to give indirect approval of the war, or at least of its outcome. But because the economic sanctions forbidding trade with Iraq were put in place in 1991 to pressure the government of Saddam Hussein, it might be hard now to argue that they should not be lifted.
"Organized military resistance has virtually ended," Mr. Bush said, "and the major cities of Iraq have been liberated. One week ago, Baghdad was filled with statutes and pictures of the dictator. They are kind of hard to find today."
REST AT:
nytimes.com |
