UNITED NATIONS, 23 May 2003 — The UN Security Council voted overwhelmingly yesterday to end 13-year-old sanctions on Iraq and gave the United States and Britain extraordinary powers to run the country and its lucrative oil industry.
Despite misgivings by many Council members, the 14-0 vote was a victory for the Bush administration, which made some last-minute concessions that opened the door to an independent, albeit limited, UN role and the possibility of UN weapons inspectors returning to postwar Iraq.
The only opposition came from Syria, Iraq’s neighbor and the only Arab member of the Council. Syria left its seat empty and did not cast a vote.
“The lifting of sanctions marks a momentous event for the people of Iraq,” US Ambassador John Negroponte told the Council after the vote. “It is time for the Iraqi people to benefit from their natural resources.”
Without UN action to lift the sanctions, Washington would have been in a legal no man’s land, with many firms unwilling to engage in trade with Iraq.
Some 8.3 million barrels of Iraqi oil stored at the Turkish port of Ceyhan can now be exported. “The oil is ready to flow. The tanks are full,” one Council diplomat said: “I think you will find it will move quite quickly.”
The final compromise in the seven-page resolution was an agreement by Washington for a Security Council review within 12 months on the implementation of the resolution. But the measure does not need to be renewed and stays in effect until an internationally recognized Iraqi government is established.
In Paris, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw referred to the divisiveness in the Council when Russia, China, Germany, France and others refused to approve the US-led invasion.
“We now face the task of rebuilding Iraq, building it up to a state far better than what went before, under Saddam. And with a bit of luck the international community can now move forward under the United Nations,” Straw said.
France, Russia and Germany, who voted in favor of the resolution, all said the document was far from perfect.
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said the resolution provided “a credible framework within which the international community will be able to lend support for the Iraqi people.”
Russia’s UN ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, told the Council, “Definitely, it was a compromise,” adding: “The significance is primarily that it creates an international legal basis for joint efforts to be made by the entire international community to deal with the crisis.” And Germany’s UN ambassador, Gunter Pleuger, said bluntly: “This resolution is a compromise. It does not fulfill every wish of all parties, but as compared to the initial draft of the co-sponsors, we have achieved substantial improvements.”
The UN sanctions were imposed a few days after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But after Saddam’s fall, the United States argued there was no reason for the trade and financial embargoes to continue.
The resolution would give the United States and Britain broad powers to run Iraq and sell its oil to fund reconstruction. It would also protect Iraq against lawsuits or attachments of its oil revenues until a permanent Iraqi government is established.
In Iraq, US forces had a firefight Wednesday with a group of Iraqis. They also captured a top Baath Party leader.
Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades at a US armored vehicle in the tense town of Falluja late on Wednesday, prompting heavy retaliation that killed two Iraqis. Residents accused the soldiers of firing indiscriminately.
The US Central Command said in a statement that Aziz Salih Numan, who was captured Wednesday, was a Baath Party regional command chairman responsible for west Baghdad. He was also a former governor of the southern cities of Karbala and Najaf. He was number eight on Washington’s list of most wanted Iraqis.
