BAGHDAD/NEW YORK, 9 May 2003 — Two American soldiers were shot dead yesterday in separate attacks in Baghdad as the United States said it will introduce a resolution today calling for the United Nations to lift sanctions against Iraq immediately and phase out the oil-for-food aid program over four months.
In the the most brazen attack, an Iraqi walked up to a soldier on a bridge and opened fire with a pistol at close range, according to senior US Army officers.
The officers said the slain soldier belonged to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The fate of the assailant was not known.
In the second attack, a US Army 3rd Infantry division soldier was killed when a sniper shot him in the head in east Baghdad, said Capt. Tom Bryant, spokesman for the army’s V Corps.
On Wednesday, the military said, two Iraqis shot at reconnaissance elements of the 3rd Infantry Division with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades as they traveled north of Baghdad. The unit returned fire, the military said, killing one assailant.
Also Wednesday, near the northern town of Baiji, a convoy from the 4th Infantry Division came under rifle and machine-gun fire.
At the United Nations, US Ambassador John Negroponte asked the Security Council to schedule consultations this morning to circulate the US draft resolution. Washington has started circulating key elements to the 15 Council members, and several have received the full text.
The draft resolution proposed ending UN sanctions on Iraq and giving Washington and its allies the power to spend Iraq’s oil money to help the Iraqi people. The eight-page draft would remove all sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 except for an arms embargo. This would not be conditional on a report by UN arms inspectors as demanded by other Security Council members.
The draft would phase out the current UN oil-for-food humanitarian program over four months. It would allow Iraq to sell oil again without UN controls. The money would be deposited in an “Iraqi Assistance Fund” for humanitarian purposes and reconstruction. This new institution would have an advisory board that would include envoys from the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
But decisions on where to spend the money would be made by the United States and Britain and their allies in the war that deposed President Saddam Hussein, in consultation with an Iraqi interim authority until an Iraqi government is established.
The draft does not call for the return of UN arms inspectors to verify that Iraq no longer has weapons of mass destruction, as specified in some 16 earlier UN resolutions.
Ambassador Negroponte said the Bush administration did not see “any role for the UN (inspectors) for the foreseeable future.” “The coalition has taken over the process of inspecting in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction,” he told reporters.
The document asks Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a special coordinator to supervise UN humanitarian assistance. This person would operate alongside the United States and Britain, designated as occupying powers, who would have authority in Iraq for 12 months. The coordinator would play a nominal role in establishing governing institutions, promoting human rights, legal and judicial reforms, and helping build an Iraqi police force.
