New statistics on Iraqi deaths as a result of the sanctions
Iraq, Politics, 12/30/99

The Iraqi Ministry of Health has announced that 1.4 million Iraqis of all ages have died during the past nine years because of the embargo imposed on Iraq.

Statistics released by the Iraqi Health Ministry on Wednesday for the period between August of 1990 and November 1999 said that the number of deaths among all ages was 1,250,901.

The statistics stressed that number of the deaths included 502,492 persons whose ages do not exceed five years and another 748,409 persons whose ages are above five years.

The Iraqi ministry added in its statistics that the mortality rate among infants reached 108 per each 1,000 births, and mortality among women of reproductive age has reached 296 for each 100,000 births.

The ministry indicated that the reasons for the deaths mostly result from breathing inflammation diseases, malnutrition, diabetes, heart diseases, high blood pressure, kidney and liver diseases and diarrhea.

U.N. Votes To Return Iraq Monitors

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - After a year of stalemate, the Security Council narrowly approved a new U.N. policy for Iraq today that would restart weapons inspections and offer to suspend sanctions if Baghdad cooperates.

Russia, France, China and Malaysia abstained - a major blow to U.S. and British efforts to send Baghdad a united signal that the Security Council would stand for nothing less than full compliance with its demands.

The resolution passed 11-0, with the four abstentions. At least nine votes in favor were required for passage.

Iraq has already indicated it would reject the resolution, saying it was an American inspired attempt to impose its ``evil'' will on the Security Council.

U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq ground to a halt a year ago, just before U.S. and British air strikes that were launched to punish Iraq for failing to cooperate fully with weapons experts.

Iraq has said inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission cannot return and has demanded sanctions be lifted - not suspended. Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait can only be lifted when inspectors report Iraq is free of its banned weapons.

The resolution passed today would establish a new inspection agency for Iraq called the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMOVIC, to resume overseeing the destruction of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons, and missiles to deliver them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency remains in charge of monitoring Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

The resolution offers to suspend sanctions against Iraq for renewable 120-day periods if inspectors report that Iraq has cooperated ``in all respects'' with them and shown progress toward answering their questions about its disarmament.

``Today's resolution does not raise the bar on what is required of Iraq in the area of disarmament; but it also does not lower it,'' Deputy U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh told the council.

Knowing the Iraqi position, the Russians and Chinese had wanted sanctions to be suspended soon after Iraq allows inspectors to return, and didn't want to require Baghdad to complete specific disarmament tasks.

The United States and Britain pressed for Iraqi answers to outstanding questions about its disarmament and a longer waiting period before sanctions could be suspended.

France said it wanted to work for more consensus, and finally said today it would abstain.

In the end, the resolution is intentionally vague on the specific amount of cooperation that would be required to trigger the suspension of sanctions.

With that ambiguity, today's vote marks the start of what will surely be a lengthy and acrimonious debate on when and whether Iraq has met the conditions for suspension.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said the real test will depend on the composition and work of the new inspection agency and whether it can ``free itself from the harmful heritage,'' of its predecessor, the U.N. Special Commission, which Russia says was biased.

China's U.N. Ambassador, Qin Huasun, said he was abstaining from the vote because there were serious questions about whether the resolution could be implemented.

``If Iraq cannot see any hope at the end of the tunnel by implementing the resolutions, as is the case with the draft resolution, how could it be willing and ready to offer the cooperation we hope for?'' he asked.

Regardless the level of Iraqi cooperation with inspectors, the resolution does allow for immediate improvements in the humanitarian situation in Iraq by removing the $5.26 billion limit on the amount of oil Baghdad can sell over six months through the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Iraq, however, has said it won't pump beyond the $5.26 billion ceiling - a pledge diplomats and Arab officials say shows Iraq doesn't want to give the appearance of accepting any element of the new resolution.

Iraq Starts Loading Oil (12/16/1999)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq has started shipping oil under the latest phase of the U.N. oil-for-food program, officials Iraq's oil export agency said today.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a 2 million barrel tanker was being loaded on the Persian Gulf, with another waiting at the Mina al-Bakr terminal, Iraq's export outlet on the Gulf.

The renewal of a six-month term of the U.N. oil-for-food program was approved by the U.N. Security Council Friday. These will be the first international shipments of crude under that deal.

Iraq is banned from most international commerce but allowed to export up to $5.2 billion in oil every six months in order to buy food, medicine and other essentials for its people, and spare parts for its oil industry.

The first Kirkuk crude shipment under the current phase from Ceyhan was expected to start on Dec. 18, with 1 million barrels headed for Turkish refiner Tupras, Dow Jones Newswires reported today,

The officials declined to say whether Iraq will stick to its previous daily export level of nearly 2.3 million barrels. If high oil prices hold and previous export levels are maintained, Iraq can collect the $5.2 billion in less than four months.

Iraq hit the financial target long before the end of the previous six-month phase, and the U.N. Security Council removed the cap to enable the country to compensate for shortfalls under earlier phases.

France Pushes for Iraq Resolution

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - In a final attempt to get all Security Council members behind a new U.N. Iraq policy, France said Wednesday it wants key ministers attending a meeting in Berlin to make the resolution more specific so it can be easily implemented.

After eight months of negotiations, the vote on an Iraq resolution backed by the United States and Britain was postponed Monday and again on Tuesday as diplomats struggled to send a strong message of unity to Iraq. France, Russia and China still have problems with the text.

France's U.N. Ambassador Alain Dejammet said it was ``logical'' for foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France and Russia to discuss the Iraq resolution on the margins of a meeting with fellow ministers from Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada that starts Thursday in Berlin.

``Since ministers have an opportunity to meet, it seemed, of course, completely wise to seize this opportunity ... to reach a consensus,'' he said. ``It's easier to discuss around the table than by phone.''

The resolution would resume U.N. weapons inspections, which stopped a year ago, and offer Iraq the possibility of having sanctions suspended if it cooperates with the weapons inspectors. Iraq claims it is already disarmed and is demanding that sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait be lifted in exchange for allowing inspectors back in the country.

Britain amended the resolution Monday to address Russian and Chinese concerns about the level of Iraqi cooperation with inspectors required before sanctions could be suspended. France raised concerns Tuesday that the language in the text left too much room for interpretation about what Iraq must do to get sanctions suspended.

Of the proposed discussion between ministers in Berlin, Dejammet said, ``Of course, it's an attempt in the last moments of this negotiation, and some positions are very well entrenched, but if there is still a possibility to improve it'' that chance shouldn't be missed.

``Otherwise, we'll meet with difficulties, with ambiguities, which will remain'' and could prevent the council from implementing the resolution.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, the current Security Council president, said he wanted to vote soon.

``I expect this to come to closure quite soon and for what we've mapped out as the endgame on this to be concluded very shortly,'' he said.

Iraq says French move toward Britain on sanctions "regrettable"

Baghdad said Sunday that word of a French decision to back Britain in the UN Security Council,
which is hotly debating the sanctions against Iraq, was "regrettable."

"Our diplomatic sources have indicated that France will vote in favour of the latest British
resolution, which in substance is no different than earlier proposals," Deputy Prime Minister Tareq
Aziz told reporters here.

"This position is regrettable since France had previously said it supported a strict interpretation and
application of (UN) resolutions," Aziz said, adding: "If France backs this proposal, it is abandoning
its earlier stance."

He said the British plan "does not lead to a lifting of the embargo and imposes new conditions that
were not among earlier resolutions."

The French foreign ministry announced earlier this month that the five permanent Council members
-- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are edging closer to consensus on the
contentious issue.

Under an existing resolution, sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait can be
removed only when Baghdad has destroyed all all its weapons of mass destruction -- chemical and
biological as well as missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometres (90 miles).

Iraq says it has already done this and demands a full and unconditional lifting of sanctions but
Britain and the United States insist Baghdad allow a "robust arms control system" back into the
country to verify the claims.

Major Council powers have been wrangling for months about the content and wording of a new
resolution overhauling the sanctions and diplomats have said further debate would be postponed
until Aziz makes a visit to Moscow next week.

Aziz said he would use his visit to ask for Russia's help in taking a "firm stand" against the British
proposal.

Russia's ambassador to Moscow said Saturday that "deep differences" remain on the Council,
stressing that Russia's position was "different on several points" from those of Washington and
London.

"According to reports from New York, the Americans and British are trying to get this proposal
pushed through as soon as possible, without a serious examination, in order to put their plots into
action," Aziz said.

"Iraq is going to reject this proposal and they know it," he said.

He said the two nations had been "embarrassed by the status quo and are seeking to dupe world
opinion by pretending to offer a solution that promises a suspension of the sanctions."

Baghdad has vowed that UN weapons inspectors, removed on the eve of the US-British air war
on Iraq in December, will never be allowed to return.

Iraq Says Western Planes Bomb School, Injuring 8

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq said U.S. and British planes
attacked a primary school in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq
Sunday, injuring eight people.

``U.S. and British warplanes bombed this morning a primary
school in the city of Mosul, injuring eight civilian citizens
including women and three children,'' the official Iraqi News
Agency quoted a military spokesman as saying. It said the
school, nearby houses and two cars were damaged.

No Date for Pope Visit to Iraq

By LEON BARKHO Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi and Vatican officials have completed preliminary talks on a proposed papal visit, but it's still too early to say when the pope might come, a senior Iraqi church official said Thursday.

The Rev. Joseph Habbi said the talks that ended Wednesday in Baghdad focused on the duration of Pope John Paul II's visit,
scheduling and other details.

``At this stage we can say nothing more because we have nothing concrete yet,'' he said, adding a joint statement from Iraq and the Vatican may be released in the next few days.

John Paul has expressed a desire to visit the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in Iraq, where the faithful believe biblical patriarch
Abraham was born, as part of a proposed tour of pilgrimage sites in the Middle East.

A delegation led by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a top aide to the Vatican's secretary of state, met with Iraqi Foreign Ministry officials to discuss the proposed trip. Vigano arrived in Baghdad on Saturday.

Early this month, Iraq's most senior Christian clergyman, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch Rafael Bedaweed, said he expected the pope to make his Iraq trip around Jan. 20.

But Habbi, who is Bedaweed's assistant, said Thursday it is still ``too early to set dates for the papal trip.''

Though preparations are underway, the Iraqi government has so far declined to issue a formal invitation. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said Wednesday the visit was still under discussion.

The fate of the visit has been uncertain since the Iraqi state media published a scathing attack on the pope by several Iraqi scholars who said the pontiff should not expect Muslims to cheer him.

The United States, Britain and Iraqi opposition figures have expressed fears President Saddam Hussein's government would use a visit to boost its international standing after years of isolation.

Albright Says Inspectors Not Needed to Control Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright said on Wednesday the United States could keep Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein in check with military air patrols
even if an attempt fails to get arms inspectors back into Iraq.

``It would obviously be better to have monitors on the ground,
but I believe that through our ... continued patrolling of the
northern and southern no-fly zones, we are able to keep
Saddam Hussein in his box,'' Albright said when asked how
crucial it was for the U.N. Security Council to approve a
comprehensive resolution on Iraq that, among other things,
would condition any suspension of sanctions on the return of
weapons inspectors.

The United States and Britain have tried to persuade Russia
and China -- both with veto power on the council -- to force
Iraq to answer key questions on disarmament before sanctions
are lifted. Moscow and Beijing have said the United Nations
should ease sanctions once Baghdad cooperates with a new
U.N. weapons commission.

The United States is due to resubmit another closely related
resolution on Iraq next week -- a six-month extension of the
$5.2 billion oil-for-food program meant to allow Baghdad to
feed its people but not to spend money on arms.

Iraq suspended its oil exports on Monday to protest a
two-week extension of the humanitarian export program
approved by the Security Council as a temporary measure
because Russia and the United States could not agree on terms
for the six-month deal.

Moscow wants to lift the cap on how much oil Iraq can sell and
it wants to let Baghdad buy $600 million in spare parts for its
oil industry.

Albright made it clear she saw passage of the comprehensive
resolution as very important but not essential. ``We have
believed in the importance of an omnibus resolution as a way of
specifically dealing with the issues that are of concern to us on
Iraq,'' she said.

That resolution, which is still being negotiated by council
powers, would reflect overall U.N. policy toward Iraq,
including arms inspectors -- kicked out of Baghdad in 1998 --
and standards for any suspension of sanctions.

``These are all things that would be desirable to get as a way of
stating where the majority of the council is on the issue and I
believe that there is increasing support for such a resolution,''
Albright said.

``But I think it is also important to understand that even without
it, we are still able to tell what Saddam Hussein is up to through
our national technical means,'' she added.

Iraq Will Still Buy, Distribute Aid

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iraq will continue to buy and
distribute humanitarian aid under the U.N. oil-for-food program
despite its suspension of oil exports, the United Nations said
Tuesday.

Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Saeed Hasan met with the head of the
U.N. program Monday night and delivered a message that
``Iraq wished the United Nations to continue normal operations
in implementing the oil-for-food program,'' U.N. spokesman
Fred Eckhard said.

The 3-year-old program is an exemption to the crippling U.N.
economic sanctions imposed on Iraq since its 1990 invasion of
Kuwait. It allows Iraq to sell $5.2 billion worth of oil every six
months to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies,
as well as to pay reparations stemming from the 1991 Gulf
War.

Iraq decided Monday to cut off oil exports after the U.N.
Security Council voted to extend the program for just two
weeks instead of the normal six months. There remained,
however, some question of whether Baghdad intended to shut
down the entire U.N. humanitarian program.

Hasan's message to Benon Sevan, executive director of the
U.N. Office of the Iraq Program, indicated that Baghdad is
waiting to see what happens during the next two weeks -
regarding both the oil-for-food program and a possible new
U.N. policy on Iraq.

Hasan told reporters Tuesday that Iraq would decide whether
to resume oil exports only after seeing what the council decides
for the oil-for-food program after the two-week extension
expires.

Sevan's office reported that humanitarian work was continuing
normally Tuesday both in New York and in Iraq, Eckhard said.

Iraqi oil exports through Turkey ended early Monday, while
those through the Persian Gulf were expected to be finished
early Wednesday, Eckhard said.

``It's obviously not a responsible move in terms of the
oil-for-food program,'' said Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy
Greenstock, speaking of Iraq's decision to stop oil exports.

In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said ``there
has been a bit of a hitch'' and he expected ``very serious
discussions'' in New York to clear the way for Iraq to resume
oil-for-food sales.

The export shutdown was the latest fallout from a deadlock
within the U.N. Security Council over crafting a new policy
toward Iraq that has dragged on for months.

The United States and Britain are hoping to reach consensus on
a comprehensive resolution before the two-week extension of
the oil-for-food program ends on Dec. 4. Russia and China,
Iraq's closest allies on the Security Council, said there should
be no artificial deadlines.

Shen Guofang, China's deputy U.N. ambassador, called on the
other permanent council members Tuesday to work harder to
reach a compromise on the next six-month phase of the
oil-for-food program and on the comprehensive resolution.

Talks continued Tuesday among the five - the United States,
Britain, France, Russia and China.

There is also increasing pressure from the 10 elected council
members, who rotate every two years, for agreement on a
comprehensive resolution which would restart U.N. weapons
inspections and offer Iraq the possibility of lifting sanctions.

The terms of five members end Dec. 31, and there is no desire
in the council to drag negotiations into the new year and start
over with new members.

While Russia and China favor the suspension of sanctions soon
after Iraq allows U.N. weapons inspectors to return, the United
States and Britain are demanding a longer waiting period and
Iraqi answers to questions about its disarmament

$582M Paid to Iraq Invasion Victims.

Who will pay the Iraqi Children who suffered from the Sanctions..?

GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. panel that reimburses victims of
Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait has paid a new installment of
more than half a billion dollars, a spokeswoman said today.

The latest disbursement brings to $4.3 billion the amount the
U.N. Compensation Commission has given out to those who
suffered during the invasion, U.N. spokeswoman Elena
Ponomareva said. The funds come from authorized sales of
Iraqi oil.

The new amount - $582 million - has been handed over to 41
governments as well as international organizations for
distribution to the victims.

More than $420 million is going to 90,712 individuals who filed
claims of up to $100,000 each in damages, Ponomareva said.
About a quarter of the new allocation is being paid in sums of
up to $2,500 to 62,000 people who were forced to leave Iraq
and Kuwait because of the invasion.

Some $7 million is going to corporations, she said.

Under the oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to export $5.2
billion of oil every six months to buy food and medicine for its
people. The commission receives 30 percent of the revenue.

The United States is trying to extend the current program for
another six months, while Russia is trying remove the upper limit
on sales.

Iraq disagrees with current conditioned efforts to lift sanctions

An Iraqi official stressed on Wednesday that Baghdad is
committed to its stand rejecting any decisions released by the
UN Security Council that do not lead to lifting the sanctions
imposed on Iraq for more than nine years.

The chairman of the Arab and foreign relations committee at
the Iraqi National Council (parliament), Khaled Shehab
al-Douri, said that any "resolution or draft resolution which is
not conducive to lifting the siege cannot be dealt with or
accepted."

Al-Douri's assertions were made in comments on information
which said that the UN is close to adopting a British proposal
aimed at organizing the relations between Iraq and the UN
Security Council. That British proposal avails the UN
inspectors in charge of investigating the disarmament of the
Iraqi mass destruction weapons while suspending the economic
embargo.

Al-Douri stressed the importance of abiding by UN resolution
687. He added that what is needed is the "implementation of
UN resolution 687, which we have accepted and implemented
all of its items." Iraq by saying this is repeating its view that Iraq
has met its obligations under the UN resolutions.

Previous Stories:
UN names new UNIKOM commander 11/11/99
Iraq refuses to receive UN human rights mission 11/6/99
UN and Iraq fail to agree on money for oil industry
improvements 10/30/99

U.N. Extends Iraq Oil-Food Program

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council
approved a two-week extension of the U.N. humanitarian
program for Iraq today but remained deeply divided on a new
long-term policy toward Baghdad.

The 15-member council voted unanimously on the brief
extension for the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was set to
expire Saturday, but differences remain on how and when it
should be expanded in the future.

Britain and the United States say the next two weeks offer a
major opportunity for reaching agreement on a comprehensive
resolution on Iraq, but China and Russia said today there are
still major problems.

The five permanent council members - the United States,
Britain, Russia, China and France - have been meeting every
day this week to try to end a nearly yearlong deadlock on a
new long-term policy that would restart U.N. weapons
inspections and offer Iraq the possibility of suspending U.N.
sanctions.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov called U.S.
demands that Iraq fully disarm before sanctions are suspended
- which were reiterated Tuesday at the State Department in
Washington - ``a non-starter.''

Lavrov and China's deputy U.N. ambassador, Shen Guofang,
said the council should not link the two-week extension to a
deadline for reaching agreement on an overall resolution.

``We are now working very hard on that comprehensive draft
resolution, but this is not linkage,'' Shen said.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock agreed that
there should be no link, but called for ``determination'' among
the permanent members to reach agreement ``within a very
short period.'' U.S. deputy ambassador Peter Burleigh echoed
this, calling on all council members to make a major effort ``to
reach closure on the Iraq issue.''

Even if the council resolves its differences, Iraq's Deputy Prime
Minister Tariq Aziz reiterated in Moscow on Thursday that
Baghdad will reject any resolution that doesn't totally lift
sanctions in exchange for restarting inspections, which were
halted last December just before U.S. and British airstrikes.

Britain and the United States had hoped to reach agreement on
a comprehensive resolution before Saturday's expiration of the
current six-month phase of the U.N. oil-for-food program -
because the proposed new Iraq package would incorporate
and expand the program.

Since intensive talks are still going on, the United States
proposed what it thought would be a non-controversial
six-month extension of the oil-for-food program, which lets
Iraq sell $5.2 billion worth of oil every six months to buy food
and medicine for ordinary Iraqis trying to cope with sanctions.

But Russia on Wednesday introduced major amendments that
would eliminate the $5.2 billion ceiling on Iraqi oil exports,
double the value of spare parts that Iraq could import for its oil
sector to $600 million, and make approval for certain food and
medical imports automatic.

The United States, Britain and most council members want the
issues raised in Russia's amendments to be addressed in the
comprehensive resolution - and Russia agreed to drop the
amendments for the moment, but not for six months.

Moscow is expected to raise the amendments again if the
council is deadlocked on a comprehensive resolution in two
weeks.

Lavrov said Russia wants the sanctions against Iraq ended
because in spite of efforts under the oil-for-food program, there
is ``an overall worsening'' of the humanitarian situation the
country.

U.S. Thinks Iraq Is Rebuilding Ruined Military Sites

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's senior intelligence officer said
Wednesday that Iraq had begun to rebuild military installations
the United States and Britain destroyed last December and that he could
not rule out the possibility that President Saddam Hussein had resumed
building chemical or biological weapons.

Vice Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, the director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, said that American intelligence officials continue to monitor
Iraq's program closely but that it was easy to hide weapons production
inside legitimate commercial factories.

"I can't say authoritatively there is no work going on on," he said in an
interview with reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday. "In fact, we assume
that there is."

Admiral Wilson's assessment underscored the Clinton administration's
quandary as the United Nations Security Council struggles to reach
agreement on resuming international weapons inspections in Iraq more
than 15 months after Hussein expelled inspectors, setting off a
confrontation that culminated in air strikes last December.

In a rare interview by the top officer in the Pentagon's intelligence wing,
Admiral Wilson also said China had embarked on a significant effort to
modernize its military, which is the world's largest with some three million
soldiers, though it is considered to be far behind the United States in
technology and firepower.

Having seen American military might prevail in the Persian Gulf war in
1991 and during NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, China has begun
actively seeking advanced aircraft, missiles and other weapons, he said.

"They have clearly made that an economic priority," he said.

What's wrong with this part of the report..:)..!..?
Last week, American officials disclosed that the administration and the
Pentagon had raised serious objections to Israel's decision to sell China a
sophisticated, $250 million radar jet similar to American Awacs, fearing
that the technology would increase China's ability to threaten Taiwan.

On Iraq, he said he knew of "no significant, precise evidence" proving
Iraq's resumption of its weapons programs, which would be a violation of
the cease-fire agreement that ended the gulf war.

Admiral Wilson, who visited the Persian Gulf last week, said the raids
last December had set Hussein back militarily, while regular strikes by
American and British jets patrolling the "no flight" zones over northern
and southern Iraq since then had significantly damaged Iraqi air defenses.

But he said Hussein remained firmly in powe

Annan Confronts U.S. on Iraq
Humanitarian Goods Are Being Blocked, U.N. Chief Charges

By Colum Lynch
Special to The Washington Post

UNITED NATIONS—The United States and the United Nations are
lashing out at each other for failing to do enough to relieve the suffering of
ordinary Iraqis.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan accused the United States of using its
muscle on a U.N. sanctions committee to put indefinite "holds" on more
than $500 million in humanitarian goods that Iraq would like to buy.

U.S. officials said the goods that Iraq asked to import range from the
frivolous--such as 100,000 musical doorbells--to the frightening, including
glass-lined stainless steel pipes that could be used in the production of
chemical weapons. "None of these holds are for food or medicines," one
official said.

The tensions reflect Annan's frustration with Washington's policy of seeking
to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and its refusal to ease economic
sanctions, imposed nine years ago in response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait. A recent survey by the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) found that Iraqi children are dying at twice the rate they did
before the sanctions.

Last month, Annan issued a plea to President Clinton to allow greater
humanitarian relief to Iraq and to be flexible in negotiations over the future
of U.N. policy in Iraq, which is deadlocked between countries that want to
ease sanctions--particularly Russia and France--and the United States and
Britain.

The United States "is disrupting the operation" of the U.N. oil-for-food
program, which allows Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil and spend the
proceeds on humanitarian needs, Annan said in an interview. "I think one
should be transparent and not withhold some of these items unreasonably
because it undermines our professed desire to help alleviate the suffering of
the Iraqi people."

The United States and Britain said they have shown flexibility in allowing
Baghdad to use about $900 million of oil revenue to rebuild its oil industry,
instead of spending it on food and medicine.

Today, however, U.S. and British delegates will open a campaign in the
Security Council to block a request by Annan to allow Iraq to spend an
additional $300 million to repair its petroleum industry infrastructure,
according to diplomats.

The dispute centers on the 1996 oil-for-food deal that permits Baghdad to
sell $5.2 billion of oil every six months to pay for food, medicine and other
items that improve the health of Iraqis. Until recently, low world oil prices
and Iraq's aging infrastructure have prevented it from exporting that much.

With higher prices, the United States and Britain have agreed to allow
Baghdad to sell $7 billion of oil during the current six-month period to
make up for past shortfalls. But they will demand that Iraq spend the
additional money on food and medicine, not on its commercial
infrastructure.

Baghdad's latest spending proposal, which includes the musical doorbells
for new housing, falls short of what the United Nations has said the country
should spend to meet its people's nutritional needs. Iraq has proposed to
buy $1.3 billion of food, about $234 million less than recommended by the
United Nations in February 1998. And Iraq has projected an expenditure
of $290 million on medicine, $480 million less than the United Nations
recommended.

At the proposed level, Iraq would aim to provide 2,200 calories per
person daily, 263 less than the U.N. suggestion. "We want to know what's
going on," said a diplomat who supports the U.S.-British position. "The
United Nations is conspiring with Iraq to make sanctions less effective,
while limiting the available relief."

The dispute comes less than two weeks after the United States announced
that Kuwait had seized three Iraqi cargo ships illegally exporting dates,
lentils and jute seed and cloves used in animal feed. The United Nations
has previously complained to Baghdad that it was not purchasing sufficient
amounts of high-protein items, including lentils.

"Despite their claim of scarce foodstuffs, they are earning hard currency
exporting foodstuffs," State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said
on Oct. 15. "Iraq refuses to use the funds available to it in order to buy
food under the oil-for-food program."

Iraq has been the greatest source of tension between the United States and
Annan. But Annan dismissed accounts, provided by one of his top aides,
that both Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and national security
adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger recently shouted at him for "going soft"
on Saddam Hussein, although he conceded there have been "some tense
discussions."

Annan said the differences aren't personal. "Anyone in this position could
run into difficulties in those cases where U.S. national policy diverges from
U.N. policy," he said. "And I think the U.S. national policy on Iraq goes
beyond what the [U.N. Security] Council has mandated."

Iraq says US, UK block oil spare parts contracts

BAGHDAD, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Iraq accused the United
States and Britain on Monday of blocking contracts signed
under its oil-for-food deal with the United Nations to
rehabilitate its dilapidated oil industry.

``Since the start of the fifth phase of the memorandum until
October 17, 1999, percentage of suspended contracts to the
registered ones of that phase are in the increase,'' the official Iraqi News Agency quoted a source
at the oil ministry as saying.

The unnamed source said 33 percent of contracts submitted for approval were suspended. This
ratio would rise to 44 percent if the contracts still under evaluation and study by a U.N. committee
were added, according to the source.

Iraq frequently complains that Britain and the U.S. are blocking contracts signed under the oil deal
with the U.N.

The deal currently allows Baghdad to sell $5.26 billion worth of oil every six months to buy food,
medicine and other humanitarian supplies.

Iraq complains the deal has done little to alleviate the suffering of its people under stringent U.N.
sanctions imposed to punish it for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Under the rules, all contracts for oil, food, and other purchases must be passed to a special U.N.
committee for approval before shipment can be made.

The source also accused the two representatives at the U.N. committee of blocking all contracts
for spare parts to rehabilitate the southern oil refineries.

``This is an evidence on the malicious intentions...to do harm to our people by practicing a mean
selective policy in dealing with their (Iraqis') resources,'' the source added.

Saddam said ready for peace with Israel
By DOUGLAS DAVIS

LONDON (October 8) - The Iraqi message that will be carried to
Washington by Jordan's King Abdullah II contains a commitment from
Saddam Hussein to enter peace negotiations with Israel, according to
yesterday's Asharq al-Awsat.

Quoting Iraqi sources in Amman, the Saudi-owned, London-based paper
said that the message to President Bill Clinton commits Iraq to adopt a
"more flexible" approach to the Arab-Israeli peace process.

It also contains assurances that Iraq will cease to pose any threat to Israel,
that it will engage in peace negotiations with Israel, and that it will play an
"effective role" in the peace process.

Another Saudi-owned daily, al-Hayat, reported that the Iraqi government
has agreed to pay compensation to Israel for firing missiles at it during the
Gulf War.

The message, which the king will deliver to Clinton next Tuesday, is
regarded as an Iraqi attempt to open a dialogue with Washington.

Abdullah confirmed to Jordanian reporters that he was carrying a message
from Saddam to Clinton. He refused to give details.

"I can't comment on that, but I have a message to pass on," Abdullah was
quoted as saying by Jordanian newspapers yesterday.

The newspapers quoted Abdullah as saying that the message was handed
over by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to Jordanian Prime Minister
Abdur Ra'uf Rawabdeh last week.

Abdullah said he intends only to deliver the message and not speak on behalf
of Iraq. Asked if he will defend Iraq before US officials, Abdullah said:
"Absolutely not."

Jordanian and Iraqi officials refused to elaborate on the contents of the
message. But one Jordanian official said doubts remain about Iraq's
sincerity.

"We have witnessed a change in Iraq's language," the official said. "But Iraq
has first to convince countries in its neighborhood of its intentions. So far, it
has not convinced anybody."

US officials said they doubted Iraq would make a serious overture through
Abdullah.

"The Iraqis regularly seek to have discussions with American officials, and
we're not interested in those discussions," State Department spokesman
James Rubin said.

In its report, Asharq al-Awsat also quotes the Iraqi sources as saying the
Baghdad message spells out "a new conception of the Iraqi and regional
situation," expressing readiness to introduce a new constitution that would
allow political pluralism and uphold human rights.

According to these sources, Iraq also offers to reach agreement with
Washington on giving Saddam's son, Kusai, greater powers.

In return, it is seeking "guarantees" from Washington that senior officials in
the Baghdad regime would not be prosecuted on war crimes charges, the
sources said, without explaining if the proposal indicates that Kusai will be
groomed to succeed his father

U.S. Using Concrete Bombs on Iraq

By SELCAN HACAOGLU Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - U.S. warplanes have been
dropping bombs filled with cement and not explosives in raids
on Iraqi installations in a move to minimize civilian casualties, a
military official said Thursday.

The 2,000- to 3,000-pound laser-guided bombs are still
capable of causing damage, especially when dropped from high
altitudes by a speeding jet, said Lt. Col. Michael Waters, a
spokesman for Operation Northern Watch, the allied effort to
patrol a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

``If you drop it on a radio, it could break the radio without
blowing up,'' Waters said.

The new bombs were introduced following Iraqi allegations that
the constant bombings by U.S. jets in response to Iraqi
anti-aircraft fire were causing civilian casualties.

``We are extremely careful about collateral damage,'' Waters
said. ``We have used those bombs.''

Operation Northern Watch warplanes are based at Incirlik air
base in southern Turkey.

U.S. and British planes have been patrolling no-fly zones over
northern and southern Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf War to
protect Kurdish and Shiite minorities from the forces of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein.

The cement-filled bombs would also cut the cost of the
operation. American and British pilots often drop bombs a few
times a week, responding to Iraqi challenge. They use anything
from $12,000 laser-guided bombs to $80,000 Maverick
missiles.

``The guidance equipment is still there but the cement is less
expensive than explosives,'' Waters said.

Since December, when Baghdad started challenging the allied
planes, warplanes have dropped more than 1,400 bombs and
missiles on targets in northern and southern Iraq.

U.S. officials say missiles have hit more than 375 military
targets, including radar sites and anti-aircraft weapons. Iraq
claims nonmilitary facilities are being hit and hundreds of
civilians have been killed.

U.S. authorities say civilian damage has been minimal and most
of what the Iraqis claimed as casualties were military casualties
or false reports.

Iraq 'proposes new constitution'

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is sending a message to President Bill Clinton, which reportedly offers proposals
to end sanctions against Baghdad.

He is promising major political reform based on a multi-party system and respect for human rights,
according to newspaper reports.


The Iraqi leader is also reported to have promised help in moving the Middle East peace process forward.

King Abdullah II of Jordan has arrived in Washington to pass on Baghdad's message.

The king confirmed he had a message from Iraq for Washington but refused to discuss the contents.

But he also said he would not be arguing Iraq's case in planned meetings with President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and othr senior US politicians.

BBC Middle East Correspondent Jim Muir said Iraq was signalling its desire to break the deadlock between Washington and Baghdad.

Iraq's proposals would be in return for an end to international sanctions, imposed after the Gulf War. It is not known what, if any, other conditions are attached.

But officials in Washington say they doubt whether Iraq is serious in its intentions.

State Department spokesman James Rubin said: "The Iraqis regularly seek to have discussions with American officials, and we're not interested in those discussions."

Three decades of power The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper said the
message included an offer of unconditional talks with the US and assurances that Iraq would play an effective role in the Middle East peace process.

It said that President Saddam's message also included an offer to stop threatening, and to start talking to, Israel.

Al-Hayat reported that the Iraqi leadership was ready to begin political reforms, which would include adopting a new
constitution based on a democratic multi-party system.

Iraq has been ruled by the Ba'ath Party for more than 30 years, 20 of them under President Saddam.

Since the Gulf War sanctions have been in place against Iraq and two no-fly zones have been set up, one in the north and one in the south.

They are intended to protect Iraq's Kurdish and Shi'ite Muslim populations, both of whom attempted to rebel against the regime and then suffered greatly at the hands of Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein Offers U.S. Olive Branch

By JOHN HALABY Associated Press Writer

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has sent a message to President Clinton, promising major political
reforms in Iraq and offering to stop threatening Israel, a leading Arabic newspaper reported today.

Administration officials, however, doubted that Iraq would make a serious overture to the United States through Abdullah.

``The Iraqis regularly seek to have discussions with American officials, and we're not interested in those discussions,'' the
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Wednesday.

The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper said the message includes an offer for unconditional talks with the United States
and assurances that Iraq will play an effective role in the Middle East peace process.

The message is being carried by Jordan's King Abdullah II, who is scheduled to meet with Clinton on Tuesday in
Washington.

Before leaving for London on Wednesday en route to Washington, Abdullah confirmed to Jordanian reporters that he
was carrying a message from Saddam to Clinton. He refused to give details.

``I can't comment on that, but I have a message to pass on,'' Abdullah was quoted as saying by Jordanian newspapers
today.

If the Al-Hayat report is correct, it would mark a major turnaround in Iraq's hard-line policies and show a willingness to
mend fences with its main enemies, the United States and Israel.

In return, Iraq wants Washington to drop its threats to put Saddam and his senior aides on trial as war criminals, Al-Hayat
said.

Iraq's change of heart could also be linked to its demand that the United States drop its opposition to the lifting of U.N.
economic sanctions, imposed in 1990 after Saddam's forces invaded Kuwait.

Al-Hayat said the Iraqi leadership expressed readiness to start political reforms that would include a new constitution, adopting
a multiparty system and respect for human rights.

Iraq has been ruled by the Baath Party for the last 31 years, 20 of them under Saddam, whose tight control on power and
intolerance for dissent have driven most opponents out of the country.

In his message, Saddam also proposed providing guarantees that it will ``play an effective role in the (Middle East) peace
process and stop its threats against the Jewish state and neighboring countries.''

Jordanian newspapers quoted Abdullah as saying the message was handed over by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz to
Jordanian Prime Minister Abdur Ra'uf S. Rawabdeh last week.

Abdullah said he intends only to deliver the message and not speak on behalf of Iraq. Asked if he will defend Iraq before
U.S. officials, he said: ``Absolutely not.''

Jordanian and Iraqi officials refused to elaborate on the contents of the message

Turkish Troops Enter Iraq To Chase Kurds

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Thousands of Turkish troops, backed by air power, have crossed into northern Iraq to hunt down Turkish Kurd rebels hiding out in the mountains there, a senior military official told Reuters Wednesday.

He said some 5,000 troops crossed the rugged border at three separate points Monday to reinforce soldiers already there and
attacked positions held by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) forces loyal to condemned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan.

The rebels have bases in a remote northern Iraqi enclave, outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, and are thought to be gathering there following an order from Ocalan to abandon their armed struggle and pull out of Turkey.

The source gave no details of any casualties, though the German-based Kurdish DEM news agency said 15 Turkish soldiers and six PKK guerrillas had been killed in fighting in the northern Iraqi Haftanin region. The respected Cumhuriyet newspaper said Turkish jets had bombed rebel bases there.

The clashes came a day after Ocalan, on death row in a Turkish jail, warned that the 15-year conflict that has killed more than
30,000 could spin out of control if Turkey did not take his overtures for peace seriously.

Turkey's army has flatly refused to let up on its military assault against the PKK, saying operations will continue until ''every
terrorist has been neutralized.'' Ocalan's PKK set out to fight for Kurdish self-rule, but now only wants cultural rights.

UNESCO cancels its overdue Iraqi debts Iraq, Politics, 9/27/99

UNESCO said yesterday that it is canceling its overdue debts
from Iraq in order to provide the necessary funding to establish
400 schools in Iraq.

Colin Power, the deputy general manger of UNESCO, who is
currently visiting Baghdad stated that his organization objects to
anything that may increase the Iraqi children's suffering, adding
that UNESCO seeks to lift up the sanctions from the Iraqi
people.

He also blamed the US and UK for the sanctions and criticized
the sanctions committee's decision to prevent Iraq from
importing pencils on the pretext that they can be used in the
weapons industry.

Iraq to continue oil sales beyond U.N. ceiling

BAGHDAD, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Iraq will continue to export
crude oil after reaching its ceiling under the U.N.-supervised
oil-for-food deal, Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rasheed said on
Tuesday.

``We will continue to produce and export as much as we can
within our capabilities independent of any other measure,'' he told reporters when asked whether Iraq
would seek agreement with the United Nations to continue oil exports once it achieved its ceiling of
$5.26 billion under the present six-month deal.

US Wants Iraq To Export More Oil

By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States has begun drafting a plan to let
Iraq export oil beyond its U.N.-mandated limit without suspending the oil embargo, U.N. and U.S.
officials said Tuesday.

The move came as Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid vowed Baghdad would continue to
export oil regardless of whether the Security Council approved it.

``We'll continue to produce and export as much as we can within our capabilities, independent of any
other measure,'' the minister said at a news conference in Baghdad upon the arrival of his Russian
counterpart, Viktor Kaluzhny.

The U.S. plan would let Iraq keep exporting oil even after it reaches the $5.26 billion ceiling
authorized under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which allows Baghdad to sell limited amounts of oil
over six months to buy food and medicine.

Iraq is expected to reach that limit by the second week in October, nearly a month before the current
six-month phase ends Nov. 20.

Without Security Council authorization to exceed the ceiling, Baghdad wouldn't have the legal right to
continue exports.

The U.S. plan, which would require a council resolution, would allow Iraq to keep exporting oil
beyond the $5.26 billion limit to make up for export shortfalls from previous six-month periods.

Because of low oil prices and production limits, Iraq fell $3.5 billion short of the ceiling over the
course of two six-month periods last year.

At current prices and production levels, Iraq can be expected to generate about $7 billion in oil by
Nov. 20, still short of the $8.76 billion that would be allowed if the U.S. plan is approved.

A second proposal under consideration would have the Security Council estimate how much Iraq
could earn through exports by the Nov. 20 expiration of the current phase and adjust the revenue
ceiling up to that number, diplomats said.

The United States and Britain - Iraq's toughest critics on the council - were reluctant to lift the export
cap altogether before the council reaches agreement on an overall resolution on returning U.N.
weapons inspectors to Iraq while improving the humanitarian situation for Iraqis.

Iraq's 22 million people have lived under sanctions imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until Iraq is declared to be free of its biological,
chemical and nuclear weapons. Iraq says it has fully complied and deserves to have sanctions lifted
immediately.
UNITED NATIONS -- Hopes faded on Tuesday

By BARBARA CROSSETTE
The SecurityCouncil could agree this week on a new approach to Iraq, with the
United States and Russia still far apart on how to monitor Iraqi weapons
programs and on when -- or if -- to begin lifting sanctions.

American and British officials said Tuesday that meetings would continue
this week to explore compromises on outstanding issues like how to
measure Iraqi cooperation and how much control the United Nations
would have over money Iraq would earn if sanctions were suspended.

But a high-level meeting tentatively planned for Friday is not likely to be
held, diplomats said. The Foreign Ministers of the permanent Council
members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are
all in New York this week for the General Assembly's annual debate.

Iraq has repeatedly said it would not consider any plan that did not lift
sanctions. And the only surveillance the Iraqis are likely to accept would
be nonintrusive monitoring without the short-notice or challenge-type
inspections that characterized the work of the weapons-monitoring
program by a United Nations Special Commission that was set up after
the Persian Gulf war.

The inspections were to have been the key to lifting sanctions imposed on
Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

There have been no United Nations inspections in Iraq since last
December, when inspectors were withdrawn in advance of punitive air
strikes by Britain and the United States, and President Saddam Hussein
barred them from returning. But even before that, months of Iraqi
interference had made the work of the Special Commission, which had
been disarming Iraq since 1991, largely ineffective.

Without inspectors in Iraq, it is difficult if not impossible to know whether
Hussein has renewed prohibited weapons programs.

The French say that this is reason enough to end the stalling over a new
inspection system. Diplomats said today that France had suggested the
early adoption of a "statement of principles" on Iraq, as an interim
measure.

An American official said today that the stalemate on Iraq had been
discussed by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Foreign
Minister Igor S. Ivanov of Russia over dinner on Monday. The official
said Ms. Albright had emphasized that the United States opposes any
changes in sanctions rules until the Iraqis demonstrate compliance with
arms inspections.

In his speech to the General Assembly, Ivanov mentioned the Iraqi
impasse as one of the causes of a more general decline in the authority of
the Council.

Russia is prepared to ease sanctions without waiting for progress in
inspections and indeed would use a suspension of the embargo as an
incentive to the Iraqis to comply with inspectors. The Russians contend
that there may be nothing left to find in Iraq and that to make successful
inspections the trigger for sanctions is unrealistic.

Key UN Powers To Meet On Iraq Wednesday In London
By Bernie Woodall

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council agreed Friday to hold a meeting on Iraq in London next week, including China which had refused to attend a similar gathering in Washington, diplomats said.

Both British and U.S. officials said the goal of the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, was to conclude a new Security Council policy on Iraq by the end of September when foreign ministers of the five veto-wielding countries meet on the edges of the U.N. General Assembly.

A Chinese spokesman, Chen Ranfeng, said Beijing had accepted the invitation by Britain for a meeting in London of political directors concerned with Iraqi policy.

He said the reason was that the London meeting would be a continuation of U.N. talks on Iraq among the five -- the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China -- rather than a ``new mechanism.'' ``And that's an important point,'' he added without elaborating.

The United States wanted to hold a meeting among political directors in Washington last week but China declined to attend. U.S. officials said they backed a British-Dutch draft resolution but there is little chance China, Russia and France would agree without major changes.

Britain will be represented by a political director, Emyr Jones-Parry, while Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering will attend for the United States.

The 15-nation Security Council has made no headway in restoring arms control functions in Iraq since mid-December U.S.-British bombing raids. No weapons inspector has been allowed back in Baghdad since then.

The British-Dutch draft resolution would suspend Iraqi sanctions on exports, such as oil, if Baghdad complied with key disarmament demands.

The sanctions, imposed in August 1990 after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait, are linked to weapons demands.

Britain quickly gathered co-sponsors for its draft among the 10 nonpermanent council members. They include the Netherlands, which helped draw up the resolution, Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Gambia, Namibia and Slovenia.

France, in a rival draft, would suspend sanctions on Iraqi imports as well as exports immediately after a new arms commission is set up and functioning. In contrast the British-Dutch draft calls for several steps over eight months to make sure Iraq has complied with key arms demands.

Nevertheless Britain has indicated it might consider easing sanctions on imports providing arms inspections resumed and financial controls were in place.

Iraq: Ready for Dialogue with Arab States

BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Iraq is ready for a dialogue with all Arab states to
settle all unresolved problems, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday,
quoted by the official INA news agency.

"Iraq is ready for a dialogue with all Arab states and to attend any
meeting at whatever level," to study "unresolved probelms," said an
undersecretary at the ministry, Nabil Najm.

Iraq accuses Kuwait and Saudi Arabia of "betraying the Arab nation" by
allowing US and British planes to use bases on their territory from which
to patrol the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq, which Baghdad
refuses to recognise.

Kuwait has asked Baghdad for information on more than 600 people it
says went missing during Iraq's occupation if the emirate in 1990-1991.
Baghdad has denied holding any prisoners seized from Kuwait.

Barzan abroad but not defecting'   ..!

Blood feuds have beset Saddam Hussein's immediate family  Saddam Hussein's brother, former Iraqi ambassador
Barzan al-Tikriti, has denied he has defected from Iraq, accusing the media of spreading lies.

The statement has been corroborated by an official of Iraq's Sciri opposition group in an Arabic newspaper on
Friday.

The Iraqi News Agency reported on Thursday Mr al-Tikriti contacted its correspondent in Jordan and "denounced
the falsehoods news agencies disseminate from time to time to serve known objectives."

The Amman-based Accord opposition group (INA) reported on Wednesday that Mr al-Tikriti had been
granted political asylum in a Gulf state.

But Bayan Jabr, the official from Sciri (the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), said Mr
al-Tikriti is indeed in the United Arab Emirates, not for the purpose of living there, but to attended to his
personal investments.

Government sources in the Emirates denied that Mr. al-Tikriti was in the country or that he had applied for
asylum there.

Baghdad said he was on holiday in Switzerland, where he had been ambassador for many years and where six of
his eight children are still living.

The INA said the Emirates granted Mr al-Tikriti permission to stay "on the condition he not pursue any
political activities".

Uday al-Taie, the head of the official Iraqi News Agency in Baghdad, told journalists that Mr Tikriti was on holiday with his children in Geneva.

He even invited journalists to call him in Switzerland, although he did not furnish a phone number.

Recalled last year Mr Tikriti - who shares the same father as the Iraqi president, but is not his full brother - served as Iraq's
representative at the United Nations in Geneva for more than 10 years.

He was recalled in 1998 and returned home in November, denying reports of differences with the Iraqi leadership and with Saddam Hussein's powerful son, Uday.

Mr Tikriti's wife, Ahlam Khairallah Toulfah, sister of Saddam's wife, died in November of cancer and was buried in Iraq.

US congress staff examine Iraq sanctions war

BAGHDAD (South News) Aug 30 :- The first US congressional delegation to visit Iraq since the
1991 Gulf War started assessing the humanitarian catastrophe after nine years of crippling UN
sanctions on Monday.

Staff members of five US House of Representatives visited the Al-Mansur hospital, one of Baghdad's largest childrens
hospitals were also keen to observe the impact of the Pentagon's war on Iraq.

The group was taken on a tour of the hospital, including a unit for children suffering from leukemia, believed to be caused by the use of depleted uranium used by the US in weaponry in the 1991 Gulf War. They took notes and questioned patients on which areas of Iraq they were from.

They also listened to a presentation by the hospital's director, Mahmud Makki Mahmud, who highlighted the chronic lack of medicine and other medical equipment because of the embargo.

``I hope that things can change in a way that will make possible to cure the children who are facing the results of the war,'' the spokeswoman for the group, Phyllis Bennis, told reporters after touring the al-Mansur hospital. Bennis said that the trip was the first of its kind since the 1990-91 Gulf War.
She described it as ``the beginning of a process for Congress to have an independent look of what is happening in the country.'

The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) also said the group met Iraq's Deputy Health Minister Shawqi Murqus. INA said Murqus briefed the delegation on the ``health situation and shortages of medicine and medical needs the health institutions suffer from due to continuation of the unjust sanctions.''The delegates' talks with Murqus covered "the sanitation situation in Iraq and the lack of medicine and medical equipment that Iraqi medical establishments suffer from," the agency said.

A recent survey conducted by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) found that child mortality rates have more than doubled in south and central Iraq since the sanctions began in August 1990.

The delegation, which also includes a representative from a Washington think-tank and a member of non-government organisation, arrived in Baghdad on Sunday after travelling by road from Amman, Jordan.

Late on Sunday, the delegation met the coordinator of the UN humanitarian programme in Iraq, Hans von Sponeck. The office oversees the UN oil-for-food programme, which allows Baghdad to sell limited quantities of crude oil for food and medicine, albeit with procedures so complicated that they have made it impossible to address the humanitarian situation fully. But Iraq also blames the US and British representatives on a UN sanctions committee for blocking contracts and delaying supply relief
to the Iraqi people.

The congressional delegation also plans to travel to Basra in southern Iraq where US and British warplanes bomb targets almost daily.They are expected to meet United Nations officials and members of non-government organisations in Iraq, including the Australian group CARE and the Middle East Council of Churches, as part of their trip, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies told journalists.

The group cancelled the trip last week after the State Department refused to validate their passports for Iraq, but group members got around the ban by not technically using their American passports. They carried special papers with their passports for recording their entry and departure.

Still, it was clear the US administration was not pleased about the visit. No US Embassy staff received the group on its arrival Saturday in Amman, Jordan, as is customary, and embassy officials there disavowed anything to do with the five-day mission.

An official Iraqi newspaper on Monday said a visit to the sanctions-struck state by a US congressional delegation showed how isolated the Washington administration was in supporting the UN embargo. 

"The American administration is very isolated and is in an embarrasing position even if it says there is
a unified position on Iraq," the Al-Thawra said. "The truth is that the American administration no
longer has any justification to oppose Iraq's right to a lifting of the embargo, and its lies can no longer
convince anyone," Al-Thawra said.

UNITED NATIONS (AP)

A United Nations committee is trying to determine whether Iraq is violating U.N. sanctions by donating $10 million worth of oil to Turkish earthquake victims, officials said Monday..!

The U.N. Security Council committee that monitors sanctions against Iraq scheduled an informal meeting of experts Tuesday to consider the donation, said Peter Mollema, spokesman for the Netherlands U.N. Mission that chairs the committee.

In the meantime, the United Nations will count the donation toward Iraq's U.N. export quota, Mollema said Monday.

Please Read the line above one more time, are these people for real?

Under the 3-year-old U.N. oil-for-food program, Iraq is allowed to sell up to $5.26 billion of oil every six months to purchase food and medicine for civilians suffering from sanctions imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraq said Monday that it had begun the day before delivering the $10 million in free oil by pipeline to Turkey as a donation to quake victims.

The country will pump an extra 100,000 barrels a day to Turkey until Thursday, the official Iraqi News Agency said. Usually, about a million barrels of oil a day is pumped through the pipeline to Turkey's port of Ceyhan.

``Iraq is offering oil to Turkey because it does not have foreign cash and relief commodities as a result of the unfair embargo imposed on it,'' INA said.

In a letter, Baghdad notified the U.N.-contracted company that monitors its exports about its planned
donation, said U.N. deputy spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva. The company, Dutch oil firm
Saybolt Netherlands BV, then notified the United Nations.

In the letter, Iraq said that since the 500,000 barrels of oil are a donation, they should not be counted
against the $5.26 billion ceiling on exports, Almeida e Silva said.

But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.N. sanctions affect all exports of Iraqi
oil, not just sales, so the donation to Turkey will have to go through the sanctions committee.

Iraq also said in the letter that the 500,000 barrels of oil should be refined into gasoline and heating oil
and distributed by the Turkish Red Crescent Society to quake victims.

Iraq announces oil aid to Turkey

Iraq says it will begin supplying Turkey with ten million dollars worth of oil as aid in the wake of the devastating
earthquake there.   In a statement issued after a cabinet meeting, Baghdad did not say whether the move had been approved by the United Nations.

Nor did it mention when it would start pumping the oil.  Iraq is currently under strict oil export restrictions as part
of sanctions imposed on Baghdad after the Gulf War in 1991.

US, Iraq spar over UN resolution

By Joe Lauria, Globe Correspondent, 08/27/99

UNITED NATIONS - A war of words between Iraq and the United
States erupted at the United Nations late Wednesday after a late-night
Security Council meeting, with Iraq's envoy calling the United States ''a liar,
an arms trafficker, and a bloodsucker of the people.''

The sharp verbal exchange, which diplomats called the worst between the
two countries since the Gulf War, erupted after the Security Council
unanimously passed a resolution condemning the targeting of children in
war and the prevalent use of children as soldiers.

Iraq's ambassador, Saeed Hasan, said in an interview yesterday that the
exchange could lead only to ''more confrontation, more aggression, even
military confrontation.''

Hasan, in his speech before the vote, lit the fuse for the fireworks when he
accused the United States of blocking a move in the Security Council by
Russia and France to lift economic sanctions against Iraq, which have been
in force for nine years, and which Baghdad officials have said are
responsible for a dramatic rise in infant mortality in the country.

After the vote, the United States requested the right to reply, and blasted
the Iraqi government, saying it alone - and not the sanctions - was
responsible for what was happening to Iraqi children. ''The Iraqi leadership
has shown through its actions that it has the utmost contempt for its
people,'' said US diplomat Mark Minton.

According to the United States, Baghdad has $241 million worth of
medical supplies ''gathering dust'' in warehouses in Iraq. The supplies have
been purchased through the UN's food-for-oil program, which permits Iraq
to sell a limited amount of oil in order to buy humanitarian goods.

Iraq also ''under-orders key food products,'' Minton charged. While the
infant mortality rate in southern Iraq was soaring, in the north of the country
- where the humanitarian program is run by the UN and not the government
- mortality rates have decreased to levels not seen since the 1991 Gulf
War, he said.

Minton said Iraq was determined to hide these facts and withhold
humanitarian aid from its people to promote the view that the sanctions are
to blame, Minton said.

Hasan was then given the floor. He said the American statement ''was
trivial and undeserving of a reply.'' Hasan then proceeded to reply: ''The
superpower in the world need not lie. Perhaps it is to hide its unlimited
intellectual weakness.''

About a half-million Iraqi children under the age of 5 have died since the
sanctions began, Hasan said, quoting a recent UNICEF report.

He then asked: ''Why does the US insist that the emperor is wearing fancy
clothes? The emperor is naked, he is a liar, an arms trafficker and a
bloodsucker of the people. Despite the hunger, hunger will not make great
peoples kneel.''

Iraq Wants Bombing Stopped for Pope

ROME (AP) - The United States and Britain should stop ``acts of aggression''
against Iraq, at least during a possible visit by Pope John Paul II, Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Friday.

John Paul hopes to make a pilgrimage to holy sites in the Middle East, including the Biblical city of
Ur in what is now Iraq. The Vatican said Thursday the trip had yet to be worked out.

Aziz, a Christian, discussed the proposed trip in an interview given in Baghdad and distributed
Friday at an international political conference in the Italian coastal resort of Rimini.

Calling Iraq a safe country, Aziz suggested bombs by planes patrolling internationally designated
no-fly zones were the only threat to John Paul's safety during any Iraqi visit.

``If the Americans and the English are truly Christians, as they say they are, they shouldn't carry
out any act of aggression against Iraq. They should never do it, but above all they shouldn't do it
when a religious figure like the pope is visiting Iraq,'' Italy's ANSA news service quoted Aziz as
saying.

``If, however, they aren't good Christians, what can I do?'' he was quoted as saying.

U.S. and British jets are enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq that were set up after
the 1991 Persian Gulf War to protect Kurdish and Muslim Shiite minorities from the forces of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad has challenged the planes regularly since Dec. 28, saying the zones violate its sovereignty
and international law. The allied planes have regularly responded with attacks on alleged military
sites.

John Paul has repeatedly urged the West to end sanctions against Iraq, saying they hurt the poor of
the country.

In making clear his desire to go there, John Paul has said the visit would be a religious one, rather
than political.

In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman James B. Foley said U.S. officials
sympathized with the pope's desire to visit the biblical sites, but worried Iraq would use the trip for
propaganda purposes.

US team probes Iraq sanctions

The delegation defied the US State Department

A delegation of six American congressional officials have arrived in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad on what they say is
a humanitarian mission.

The five-day trip is focused on examining the impact of nine years of UN sanctions on Iraq's civilian population.

The US State Department has opposed the visit on the grounds that it was "unsafe" for American citizens to go
to Iraq.


The group Voices in the Wilderness - which campaigns to end economic sanctions - said it had been
"appalled and deeply disturbed" at the Clinton administration's policy.

"What is the State Department afraid of ?"
asked Kathy Kelly, who met the delegation on arrival at Baghdad's Palestine hotel.

"Those of us who have travelled to Iraq already know with passion that US warplanes that bomb Iraqi civilians are
fearsome and economic sanctions that slaughter innocents are fearsome."

The group was later told that it could enter Iraq as long as members didn't use their American passports.

The delegation's spokeswoman, Phyllis Bennis, said no meeting was planned with President Saddam Hussein -
but the group was planning to meet officials from relief agencies and the UN.

Iraq Denies Assassination Claim

By BASSEM MROUE Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - An Iraqi opposition group reported Wednesday that it had shot and wounded
an Iraqi deputy prime minister - a claim the Iraqi government immediately denied.

Iraq insisted that Mohammed Hamza al-Zubeidi had not been shot in a failed assassination attempt
and would appear later Wednesday in a live television broadcast.

Al-Zubeidi, 58, is a trusted aide of President Saddam Hussein and a former Iraqi prime minister. He
serves on the Revolutionary Command Council - Iraq's top decision-making body - and is the military
governor of a region covering the holy cities of Babylon, Karbala, Najaf, Qadissiya and Methane.

The opposition group - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - shot al-Zubeidi in his
car Tuesday on a highway outside Baghdad, spokesman Hamed al-Bayati told The Associated
Press.

``The regime's apparatus rushed him to hospital. His fate is still unknown,'' the group said.

But the director-general of the official Iraqi News Agency, Odai al-Ta'i, claimed the reported
assassination was ``nothing but propaganda against Iraq.''

Al-Zubeidi ``will appear live on an Arab television channel,'' al-Ta'i told reporters. He did not name
the channel.

On Wednesday night, the Baghdad reporter for a popular Qatari satellite channel told viewers he had
called al-Zubeidi in his office in Najaf in southern Iraq and spoken to him. Al-Zubeidi dismissed the
assassination report and said he was in good health, the reporter said.

Saddam chose al-Zubeidi, a Shiite Muslim, as his prime minister after the Iraqi army crushed an
uprising by Shiites and Kurds following the 1991 Gulf War.

The appointment was seen as an attempt to please the Shiites, who form the majority of Iraq's 22
million people. Al-Zubeidi served as prime minister until 1993.

Al-Bayati said the shooting was the work of the Islamic Resistance, the opposition group's military
wing. Islamic Resistance, based in Iran, has claimed responsibility for several attacks inside Iraq.

The opposition group also said its forces killed a major in the elite Republican Guards in Baghdad on
Monday, spraying his car with bullets.

``This officer had a criminal role in oppressing, liquidating and harming the sons of the (Shiite) holy
cities of Karbala and Najaf'' in 1991, the group said.

Iraqi children 'dying because of sanctions'

New York: The first survey of child deaths in Iraq since shortly after the 1991 Gulf War shows a sharp increase in
child mortality in government-controlled areas and a significant decrease in the autonomous north, Unicef, the
UN Children's Fund said yesterday.

Carol Bellamy, Unicef Executive Director, said that the findings revealed an humanitarian emergency in Iraq, which
Unicef officials said was caused by a host of factors, including sanctions, two wars, a collapsed economy and the
response of the Baghdad Government. 
The survey is likely to inflame the debate in the United Nations Security Council over whether to ease sanctions
imposed after Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, regardless of whether Iraq has fully complied with UN
demands to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction.  Ms Bellamy said Unicef recognised that sanctions were
used by the international community to promote peace and security, "but our concern is that . . . they should be
designed and implemented in such a way as to avoid a negative impact on children".

The Unicef findings back the findings of another recent UN report: that humanitarian relief operations were more
effective in areas outside the control of President Saddam Hussein.  The survey found that in government-controlled central and
southern Iraq - home to 85 per cent of the country's population - children under the age of five were dying at
more than twice the rate they were ten years ago.

By contrast, in the autonomous northern region, the mortality rate of children under five declined by over 20 per
cent - from 90 deaths per 1,000 live births during the years 1989-94 to 72 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1994
and 1999.

Ms Bellamy noted that Iraq's child mortality rate was on the decline in the 1980s. If that decline had continued in the
1990s, she said, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under five from 1991 to 1998. Ms
Bellamy said that the findings could not easily be dismissed as an effort by Iraq to mobilise opposition to UN sanctions.

She called on the UN committee overseeing sanctions and the Iraqi Government to give priority to "food-for-oil"
contracts that will have a direct impact on the wellbeing of children. (AP)

Britons defy ban

Two Britons have challenged police to arrest them when
they return to Heathrow today after defying UN sanctions
against Iraq. Joanne Baker, from Bristol, and Dave
Rolstone, from Narberth, Pembrokeshire, from the Voices
in the Wilderness group, delivered medical supplies and
textbooks without export licenses. Mr Rolstone, 52, a boat
builder, said the sanctions amounted to a "policy of mass
murder targeting Iraq's children".

What if They Gave a War and Nobody Covered It?
The U.S. has been bombing Iraq
throughout 1999. Now legislators are
demanding tougher action against
Saddam Hussein

It's the war that has faded from the front pages to the news briefs -- and the White House is
suddenly under pressure over it. The New York Times reports Friday that a bipartisan group of
senior senators and congressmen has written to President Clinton warning of the "drift" in U.S.
policy on Iraq, and urging that Saddam Hussein be given a new deadline for compliance with
arms-control requirements or face a new round of intense bombing. Although air strikes on Iraq
hardly make the paper any longer, let alone the front page, the U.S. and Britain have fired 1,100
missiles at 359 targets this year alone (and flown about 65 percent of the missions carried out
during the Kosovo conflict). The low-key air war, which followed four days of intense bombing in
response to a showdown on arms control last December, has failed to alter the strategic
equation in Iraq. With Iraq’s leaders and its anti-aircraft gunners as defiant as ever, the
administration is now debating whether to up the ante.

Escalating the conflict, however, raises the political risk. Intensified bombing would inevitably bring
greater civilian casualties, and with a United Nations report released Thursday showing that the death rate among Iraqi children
under age 5 has doubled in the era of U.N. sanctions, will only add to the disquiet of Washington’s Arab and European allies over U.S. Iraq policy (even if, as Washington insists, much of that suffering is caused by Saddam’s failure to
distribute humanitarian supplies allowed through under the embargo). In addition, as a senior
administration official told the Times, unless the U.S. and its allies are prepared to send in ground
troops, the best Washington can hope for is to contain -- rather than overthrow -- Saddam’s
regime. And containment is a strategy pursued inthe news briefs rather than the headlines.

UN sanctions through an Arab lens

Scott Peterson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

AMMAN, JORDAN

Bracing for an emotional experience, some of the Arab filmgoers went to the theater prepared:
They carried tissues. And the screening of a new documentary about the impact of nine years of United Nations sanctions on Iraq did not disappoint them.

The film, "Ta-ka-sim From Baghdad," or "Solos From Baghdad," describes how a nation that sits atop the second-richest oil reserves in the world is wallowing in poverty. Under the grip of sanctions, most of Iraq's 23 million people are reduced to unwilling participants in the unraveling of this once-wealthy society.

As the film by Lebanese filmmaker Sayed Kaado makes its way across the Middle East, it has
brought into focus, and forced filmgoers to confront, difficult issues involving fellow Arabs.

"People become angry, they feel humiliated, they say it is our own [Arab] fault when faced with the
truth in such a clear way," says Ida Dabbas, a Jordanian who helped bring the film to Amman.

"This film brings out what was already in their minds," she continues. "There is also a lot of anger
toward the US and Britain. Their continued aggression is seen as going beyond the leadership, as a
conspiracy to break the Iraqi people, to make the nation kneel."

The UN Security Council first imposed sanctions against Iraq in August 1990, to punish President Saddam Hussein for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. They were tightened after the Gulf War to prevent Iraq from rebuilding its weapons of mass-destruction programs, which - to the West's surprise - proved to be the most sophisticated in the Middle East except for Israel.

US officials had hoped that the regime would shortly be toppled. But instead, Saddam clung to power, and Western observers say that, far from weakening the regime, sanctions have in fact strengthened it. The ruling elite in Baghdad has not suffered, while the majority of poor Iraqis have experienced extreme deprivation.

Though most Arabs are not apologists for Saddam's authoritarian rule, they take a different view when it comes to what they see as a targeting of Iraqi people and its leader as part of the Arab family.

In February 1998, Arabs across the Mideast took to the streets in protest as Washington threatened to bomb Iraq to force compliance with UN weapons inspectors. "Iraqis have suffered enough," was the common refrain.

When bombing did occur last December, the buildup was deliberately short to avoid a repeat public protest. The United States, furthermore, emphasized that their actions in Iraq were directed at Saddam - not the people.

But "Ta-ka-sim From Baghdad" refocuses Arabs on the hardships of Iraqis. The film played first in Lebanon and Iraq, and in Jordan the audience grew each night until the third and final showing played to a packed house of 400.
Free showings at a local university also brought heavy interest.

Mr. Kaado, the producer, says he has sent copies of the film to UN chief Kofi Annan, European TV stations, and some American universities. But a wide television audience will likely remain elusive - even in the Arab world - because most people "don't want to know about it."

On the first night the film was screened in Amman, an Iraqi woman in the audience drew applause with her comment: "America is our enemy, and it hurts. But the fact that the Arab nation and Arab leaders ignore this hurts more."

Notably, the film does not once mention Saddam. Americans are also hardly mentioned and not directly accused.

Sanctions are portrayed in the film as the sole cause of Iraqi hardship, and the viewer is left to ponder the images of poverty. An author, Abdel Khalek el-Roukabi, has had to sell parts of his library. The works of an Arab poet paid for a daughter's dress, he says, while volumes of Shakespeare, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy bought other items for the family. The story
moved one filmgoer to leave the auditorium in tears.

Several more tearful watchers left when an actress explained why she delayed marriage: "I fear that I'm committing a crime against the child that I bear," she says. "Can we provide him the kind of dignified life we used to live?" Official Iraqi figures show that 420,000 children under the age of 5 have died since the Gulf War. The UN Children's Fund confirms that child mortality rates tripled in this decade.

To try to alleviate food and medicine shortages, the UN Security Council and Iraq accepted an "oil-for-food" deal in late 1996. Iraq today is selling its oil for food and humanitarian supplies, and malnutrition rates have eased, though mortality rates are still rising.

UN Doubts New Findings Iraq Lab Was Dangerous

By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia has contended U.N. inspectors left unlabeled substances behind in their Baghdad laboratory that could be dangerous but a senior U.N. official said Wednesday he doubted that was the case.

A team recruited by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and a German biologist this week began to dismantle a laboratory from the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), whose inspectors left Iraq in December.

``I would like to know what has happened because there is much more than Butler told us,'' Russia's ambassador Sergei Lavrov said as the Security Council was being briefed on the issue, which has developed into a political football.

Lavrov was referring to Richard Butler, who until July was executive chairman of UNSCOM, in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Jayantha Dhanapala, the U.N. undersecretary-general for disarmament, said there were unlabeled substances in the laboratory but he believed they did not ``pose a hazard'' and would be left behind when the current team departed.

``We cannot prove they are not toxic but I believe they are not,'' he told reporters in answer to queries.

At issue are testing samples in the laboratory that were left behind when UNSCOM inspectors departed from Baghdad on the eve of mid-December U.S.-British bombing raids. Iraq says the samples are dangerous and UNSCOM says they are not.

Inspectors, who had expected to return within weeks but have not been allowed into Iraq since December, asked in May if they could return and shut down the laboratory. But Iraq refused and the United Nations organized a new team of experts.

Dhanapala noted that the inspectors left Iraq quickly so one could not expect the laboratory ``to be neat and orderly.''

Butler in June told the Security Council that the laboratory contained tiny quantities of chemical agents used to calibrate equipment, which it said ``do not represent a threat, even in case of an accident,'' as well as some 2.2 pounds (1 kg) of mustard gas recovered from Iraqi shells.
Since then two UNSCOM chemical weapons experts from New York flew to Bahrain earlier this month to brief the new team in detail before it left for Baghdad.

Attending Wednesday's council briefing was UNSCOM's chemical arms expert and American Charles Duelfer, UNSCOM's acting chairman, at the insistence of the United States and Britain after Russia wanted them barred.

Watching the team work in Baghdad are diplomats from Russia, France and China, all sympathetic to Iraq and critical of UNSCOM. The United States and Britain have questioned why this group was chosen.

U.N. Team To Pack Iraq Materials In Concrete, Sand

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - A United Nations disarmament team will destroy samples of toxic materials left in a U.N. arms laboratory in Baghdad and pack the remains in concrete and sand, a senior U.N. official said Thursday.

Prakash Shah, the U.N. Secretary-General's representative in Iraq, said the team, now in the third day of its mission, had detected no contamination in the laboratory, formerly used by U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) arms inspectors.

The international team of scientists, recruited for the U.N. by the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), came to Iraq to destroy materials left behind when UNSCOM staff were evacuated before U.S. and British air strikes on Iraq last December.

``The process is continuing and the OPCW team is going along with its program of destruction of mustard gas as well as the chemical standards,'' Shah told reporters. He did not say when the scientists would end their work.

``The contamination was checked before the team went in and there was no contamination,'' he said.

At issue are chemical and biological samples left in the laboratory by departing UNSCOM staff. Iraq refused to let UNSCOM experts return, but agreed that scientists from non-hostile countries destroy the samples and close down the laboratory.

``The waste will be put into concrete and sand and we will leave that in UNSCOM (premises) because after the waste is treated in concrete and sand, it will be completely harmless and totally non-toxic,'' Shah said.

The materials in the laboratory, among them chemical agent testing samples called ``standards,'' have been the subject of considerable controversy in the U.N. Security Council.

Russia told the Security Council Wednesday that UNSCOM had concealed the fact that one vial was filled with the deadly nerve gas VX and said the new team should analyze it because of controversy over traces of VX found on Iraqi warhead fragments.

Russia's ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, supported by France and China, brought the issue to the council shortly after then-UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler asked U.N. officials in May for permission to send experts to Baghdad to shut down the laboratory.

Iraq refused and the United Nations agreed to form a new team that includes three chemists and a biologist.

Wednesday, Lavrov told reporters that council members agreed to ``ask the team in Baghdad to verify exactly the amount of this VX standard.'' But U.N. officials said it was not part of the team's mandate to analyze the VX sample.

China also wanted the substances analyzed, saying that the council could ``not trust'' UNSCOM, whose future is uncertain.

Watching the team work in Baghdad are diplomats from Russia, France and China, all critical of UNSCOM.

France and Russia criticise Iraq attacks

Both France and Russia have criticised the United States and Britain for launching repeated airstrikes on
Iraq.

In the most recent raid on Sunday, the Iraqis said 17 civilians were killed, most of them women, children and
elderly people, and another 17 injured.

A French Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Anne Gazeau-Secret, said on Tuesday: "One cannot but feel
somewhat uneasy about the continuation of these raids for months whose aim we do not fully understand."

In Moscow, the criticism was harsher. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vladimir Rakhmanin said the
strikes were a "crude violation of the fundamental norms of international law."

The US and UK began an air campaign against Iraq last December after Iraq challenged their patrols over the
northern and southern air exclusion zones set up after the 1991 Gulf war.

Heavy strikes

The latest strikes took place on Sunday in the region of  Najaf in the southern air-exclusion zone.


The Americans said their planes were attacking missile and other military
sites and were acting in self-defence.

A US military spokesman said the aircraft had come under fire from Iraqi surface-to-air missile bases
and had "acted appropriately".

However an Iraqi statement said the US planes had targeted "civilian installations."

On Monday, UK Defence Secretary George Robertson accused the the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, of
offering a bounty for shooting down allied aircraft and had a "relentless intention" to kill British and American
aircrews.

Ongoing operations  Baghdad has never recognised the legitimacy of either of
the air exclusion zones set up in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War.  French planes used to take part in the air patrols but
stopped when the US and UK launched a series of heavy attacks, codenamed Operation Desert Fox, last
December.

Since the end of Operation Desert Fox there have been at least 60 days of airstrikes with more than 300 allied
sorties flown over Iraq

Iraq is accused of violating the zones more than 200 times and US and UK forces say they have been shot at
on more than 260 occasions.

Cohen Says No Evidence Iraqi Civilians Were Killed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary William Cohen said Tuesday
there was no evidence that civilians were killed in the U.S. bombing of
southern Iraq Sunday, an attack the Iraqis said left 17 people dead.

The Iraqi News Agency said 17 people died and 18 others were injured in the bombing. The U.S.
military said American aircraft were helping enforce the southern no-fly zone and struck an Iraqi
surface-to-air missile site in response to Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery fire.

``We have no evidence that any civilians were killed by this particular operation,'' Cohen said at a
Pentagon news conference.

``Once again Saddam continues to pose a threat to our pilots, who will respond accordingly. We
have received no information that civilians were hit,'' added Cohen, referring to Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.

Western air strikes on Iraq have become a regular occurrence since Baghdad decided last year to
challenge U.S. and British jets patrolling northern and southern no-fly zones set up by Western
powers after the 1991 Gulf War.

The zones, which Baghdad does not recognize, were imposed to protect minority groups from
attack by Iraqi forces.

U.S. Hopes for Oil Deals in Iraq
By LEON BARKHO Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - American and British oil giants are among many
Western companies looking into oil development deals in Iraq now that the U.N. Security Council
is indicating a willingness to suspend its oil embargo, Oil Ministry officials said Monday.

But these companies haven't a chance at the best deals, Iraqi officials say, refusing to identify them.
Agreements to explore the most abundant fields are in the works or completed with companies
from France, Russia and China - key Security Council nations Iraq considers friendly.

The Security Council has three rival proposals on the table that attempt to resume U.N. monitoring
of Iraqi weapons programs. All involve suspending the 9-year-old oil embargo on Iraq as an
incentive to secure Baghdad's cooperation.

There has been no arms monitoring for more than six months. The U.N. inspectors left Iraq ahead
of December U.S.-British airstrikes, which were meant to punish Baghdad for an alleged lack of
cooperation. Iraq has refused to let the inspectors return until sanctions are lifted.

The ``crown jewels'' of Iraq's untapped fields either are in the hands of ``our friends or are about
to be given to them,'' said Abdulillah al-Tikriti, head of the ministry's economics department.

Al-Tikriti was referring to Al-Majnoon, Nahr Umar, West Qurna and Halfaya fields in southern
Iraq, which have reserves estimated at 50 billion barrels and a projected production capacity of
more than 2.1 million barrels a day.

Shamkhi Huwait, a consultant at the ministry, said deals on all four have been struck - or are near
completion - with companies from Russia, France and China as a reward for the three nations'
efforts to get U.N. trade sanctions on Iraq lifted.

Russia, France and China are three of the council's permanent, veto-wielding members. They
generally have held closer positions to Iraq than the other two permanent members: Britain and the
United States.

The deals, known in the industry as Development and Production Sharing Agreements or DPSAs,
reportedly are extremely lucrative. The Iraqis have not made the details public yet.

Russia's Lukoil is tied to West Qurna, and France's Elf Aquitaine (NYSE:ELF - news) and Total
are ``just waiting for the right moment'' to sign their deals for Al-Majnoon and Nahr Umar,
Al-Tikriti said.

The Chinese National Petroleum Company has struck a deal to develop al-Ahdab, where reserves
are estimated at a billion barrels, and is in talks on Halfaya, according to Huwait.

Iraq is not willing to grant DPSAs to companies from countries other than France, Russia and
China. Those visiting Baghdad lately - including U.S., British, Italian, Dutch, Australian, Canadian
and Brazilian companies - have been told to present offers for buy-back deals or other contracts
believed to be much less profitable than DPSAs.

Baghdad diplomats, however, said Italy's Agip was in talks on the nearly three-billion-barrel
Nasiriya oil field. Australia's Broken Hill Proprietary was competing with CNPC on Halfaya and
Brazil's Petrobras, which discovered Iraq's largest oil field of Al-Majnoon in 1975, was testing the
waters.

Canada's Ranger, they said, was interested to obtain an exploration block in Iraq's Western
Desert.

But these Western firms do not fall within Iraq's category of ``friendly countries.'' Therefore,
Huwait said, they stand little chance against companies from India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Algeria,
Jordan and Indonesia - nations Baghdad has pledged to grant preferential treatment for political
support during the years of sanctions.