From the NYTimes:
I'm glad that self-interest is not in the french, Russian, or US formulae; only what is good for the Iraqis.
OIL FOR FOOD
Billions in Aid From the U.N. Is in Limbo, Official Says
By FELICITY BARRINGER
NITED NATIONS, April 21 — The United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq has little prospect of releasing even $1 billion of its approximately $14 billion for emergency food and medical aid before its authorization runs out on May 12, the program's director said in an interview today.
And while Benon Sevan, director of the Office of Iraq Program, hopes to persuade the Security Council to extend the program's emergency authorization until June 3, he said its complexities and the political debates whirling around it made it unlikely that its outlays would reach 10 percent of the funds available, even with the time extension.
The program's future has been in limbo since last week, when President Bush called for an end to United Nations sanctions against Iraq. Because the oil-for-food program was created to ease the burden of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, ending the sanctions effectively means ending the program that controls most of the Iraqi economy.
The Iraqi government did the contracting for the program, offering billions of dollars worth of business to companies from countries with which it wanted to trade. In the seven years since the program began, one Security Council diplomat said today, Russian companies did twice as much business as any other country's firms — $7.3 billion in oil purchases and the sale of other goods since 1996.
Other leading trading partners were Egypt, at $4.3 billion, and France, at $3.7 billion. Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and China each did more than $3 billion in business through the program, the diplomat said.
The idea of cutting off the Russian and French contracts has wide appeal in Republican circles in Washington, where those countries' opposition to the war is remembered bitterly. But little has been said about the implications of doing the same to Egypt and Jordan, two of the countries the United States has worked most closely with in the Middle East.
In an interview today, Mr. Sevan turned away all questions about specific countries and specific contracts. "I don't look at contracts in terms of countries of origin," he said. "I look at the contracts in terms of what is required."
He added, "If we start going to a determination if something is good or bad by country of origin, we are playing politics and I don't want to be part of it."
Part of the delay in expediting emergency food and medical supplies to Iraq, Mr. Sevan said, stemmed from 10 days of procedural haggling among Security Council representatives on the program's oversight committee. More time was taken determining what aid was already on its way, and what would be needed.
"As I said yesterday," Mr. Sevan said, "my hands are tied and my legs are tied and I'm being asked to serve a seven-course dinner. That's the problem."
To unravel the web of contracts approved by a Security Council committee that included representatives from the United States and the United Kingdom could take months, Mr. Sevan indicated.
Currently, the escrow account for the program contains $10.3 billion earmarked for goods like health-related equipment ($437 million), electrical equipment ($1.3 billion), water and sanitation equipment ($513 million) and spare parts for oil production ($2 billion). An additional $6 billion of contracts have been approved, but until the oil starts flowing again, no revenue will come in to pay for them.
And it is unclear who will be in charge of the oil sales when they resume. Even the 8.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil at the Turkish port of Ceyhan cannot be sold, Mr. Sevan said, because there is no legally-sanctioned owner to sell it.
Mr. Sevan is to discuss these issues at a closed Security Council session on Tuesday afternoon. He will appear a few hours after Hans Blix, a chief weapons inspector, talks to the Council about his group's readiness to return to Iraq.
The debate over what role the United Nations will play in the new Iraq has brought the oil-for-food program into prominence. It has also revived longstanding criticisms over items like its administrative budget, paid for from a 2.2 percent share of all the oil sold under the program, which has totaled more than $1 billion.
Under United Nations supervision, designed to keep Iraq from importing the raw materials for unconventional weapons, Iraq's former government sold up to 2.2 million barrels of oil daily, and purchased goods ranging from electrical generators to spare parts for oil field equipment to the basic food rations for 60 percent of the Iraqi populace.
fred |
