The oil from postwar Iraq was expected to start flowing to the world’s markets after the UN security council yesterday gave America the legal cover to occupy the country and control its resources.
The security council decision saw Russia, France, Germany and China swallow their misgivings to legitimise the outcome of a war they strenuously opposed. The vote was seen as a victory for the Bush administration after failing to persuade the council to authorise the war.
Diplomats said the Europeans and China were motivated more by a desire to stave off the threat posed to the UN system by another bitter confrontation than to support a US-led occupation of Iraq.
”It’s been a very important day in the United Nations because the international community has come back together,” the prime minister, Tony Blair, told a news conference in Berlin.
”We’ve provided a vital role for the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq and that is good for the Iraqi people obviously. It is also good for the international community.”
The resolution ends 13 years of crippling economic sanctions against Iraq, imposed after its invasion of Kuwait.
More importantly, it establishes America as the real authority in Baghdad. It affords the US and Britain as occupy ing powers unprecedented control over Iraq for at least the next year. The US administration will have a mandate to rule until a viable Iraqi government is established.
The main object of the resolution was to give the US occupation administration the authority to export Iraq’s oil, and so raise the money needed to rebuild the country after the war.
Analysts have calculated that expanded oil exports could bring Iraq about $22-billion a year, of which some $13-billion was expected to go towards reconstruction.
The resolution also provides the legal green light for companies which want a share in the business of reconstruction.
The most immediate practi cal outcome of the resolution will be the immediate opening of accounts holding more than $3-billion in oil revenues.
The Iraqi Development Fund will receive a first infusion of $1-billion; Russia is expected to be the largest beneficiary of the other funds held in escrow as the UN deals with outstanding contracts from the oil-for-food programme. The resolution calls for the programme to be phased out over the next six months.
Almost as immediate, diplomats said, would be the release for sale of eight million barrels of Iraqi oil, now being held at Turkish ports pending questions about its ownership.
Of the original opponents to the war on Iraq, Syria remained the only one holding out. It boycotted yesterday’s meeting, removing any risk of a repetition of the bitter pre-war rows which threatened the collapse of the UN, and the resolution passed 14-0.
The smooth passage was the result of concessions by the US, designed to carve out a larger role for the UN in Iraq. The most significant was the upgrade in status of the UN role to ”special representative”.
The post, to be appointed by the secretary general, Kofi Annan, is the most senior in the UN system, and misgivings about the postwar scene in Iraq could be allayed further by suggestions yesterday that one of the frontrunners for special representative was Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian diplomat recently appointed UN high commissioner for human rights.
Under the resolution, the special representative will be empowered to ”collaborate” with the US in the formation of a new Iraqi government, but there is no explicit requirement for UN assent.
The resolution also made a nod in the direction of the UN by calling for its inspectors to join US teams in investigating Iraq’s main nuclear facility.
The French ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sablière, admitted to reporters the resolution was ”not perfect”, but said it would allow the international community to give some support to the reconstruction. – Guardian Unlimited Â