BY LAURA GARZA
UNITED NATIONS - The government of Iraq has agreed to enter into negotiations with the United Nations to be allowed to sell oil and earn revenue, under strict UN control, to pay for desperately needed food and medicines. The talks were set to begin February 6. In the past, Baghdad has stated that the conditions set by the UN Security Council for any oil sales violate Iraq's sovereignty and has refused to submit to them.
Sanctions against Iraq, in place since August 1990, have devastated the economy and caused a dramatic rise in disease and malnutrition. The 1990-91 U.S.-led war against Iraq, ostensibly waged in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, left tens of thousands dead. Since then, Washington's successful efforts to maintain the harsh sanctions has led to the deaths of as many as 576,000 children, according to estimates of a UN agency. Over the past five years the mortality rate for children under the age of five has increased fivefold.
The horror of what has been wrought by the imperialist- sponsored sanctions has not moved the Security Council to lift them. But in response to increased calls for easing or ending the sanctions, the Security Council passed a resolution in April setting conditions to allow the sale of some oil by Iraq. The move sought to give the appearance an effort was being made to allow the Iraqi population some relief.
At the same time Washington made it clear it would not allow a general easing of the sanctions. On January 22 the government of Jordan decided to cut in half its trade volume with Iraq, currently about $1 billion a year, citing the failure of Iraqi authorities to pay Jordanian traders for goods supplied. In this context the Iraqi government announced it would enter into negotiations on the limited oil sale allowable under the April resolution.
The conditions set by the Security Council would permit up to $2 billion in oil to be sold over six months. The money would go into an account under UN control. About two- thirds could be spent on food and medicine, with the proviso that $150 million go to the Kurdish zone in the north. The remaining revenue would be taken by the United Nations to pay "reparations" to the Kuwaiti regime or to cover the cost of UN expenses in Iraq. Other conditions include the demand that the oil be transported through Turkey.
Before the imposition of the sanctions, Iraq, which sits on the world's second-largest known reserves of crude oil, earned about $18 billion a year from petroleum sales. After the Gulf war Saudi Arabia ended up assuming Iraq's entire market share, raising its exports of oil from 5 million barrels a day to 8 million. The Saudi rulers and others in the oil market will be pressed to cut production or watch prices drop if the Iraqi oil is suddenly back on the market. A flurry of articles in the big-business press cited the worries of oil companies that have benefited from a measure that cut out a major competitor.
The opening of the negotiations coincides with the fifth anniversary of the 1991 end of the Gulf War. A spate of articles and television specials have raised the question of what the U.S. rulers gained by their bloody assault. Former president George Bush stated in a PBS interview with David Frost that he believed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein would be overthrown after the defeat in the war. "I miscalculated," said Bush. "I thought he'd be gone." But Bush also repeated he did not think Washington could have risked going any further by ordering an advance into Baghdad, citing the problem of ending up with U.S. troops "involved in an urban guerrilla war." He emphasized, "This is not a formula that I wanted to contemplate."
In a TV special aired by CNN in January, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the U.S. forces during the Gulf war, attempted to justify the massive U.S. bombing of the road from Kuwait City to Basra. As television pictures showed graphically the killing zone, where as many as 150,000 fleeing human beings were slaughtered by the U.S. Air Force's "turkey shoot," Schwarzkopf's comments could be seen as a transparent lie by many.
Washington is keeping the pressure on Iraq and asserting its domination in the region. In the last several months the U.S. government has once again amassed ships, jets, and troops in the area. A total of more than 20,000 soldiers, mostly on U.S. ships, are now stationed in the Middle East. A dozen Navy cargo ships with tanks, armored vehicles, and other military hardware are docked off the coast of Bahrain. The Clinton administration has not been able to secure the agreement of any government in the region for the massive stockpiling and bases it would like to have permanently in place. So the Pentagon is relying on stocks from ships docked in the area.
Washington has gathered enough to equip a full marine division and an army brigade. There are now 35 U.S. military vessels afloat in the Persian Gulf, including the aircraft carrier Nimitz.