UNITED NATIONS, 29 March 2003 — The UN Security Council yesterday voted unanimously to tap billions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenues to purchase food and medicine for Iraq’s people who face a possible humanitarian crisis in the war.
The council approved a resolution by 15-0 to restart the oil-for-food program, on which 60 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people are totally dependent for food, after a week of rancorous negotiations.
The program was suspended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who evacuated more than 300 relief workers before US and British forces invaded Iraq. The resolution would authorize Annan, for the next 45 days, to make “technological and temporary adjustments” to the program, such as reviewing Iraq’s contracts to make sure health supplies and foodstuffs had priority.
But it does not deal with Iraq’s oil exports and the future of Iraq’s lucrative oil industry, which the US has said it wants to use for reconstruction needs.
