Iraq: Far From Compliance With UN

WASHINGTON -- Iraq avoided another military battering by the United States when it pulled its Republican Guard troops back from the Kuwaiti border last weekend, but the Baghdad government is still a long way from satisfying Washington or the United Nations that it is prepared to do everything the UN Security Council has ordered.


According to UN officials, congressional researchers and diplomats, the Clinton Administration is correct in asserting that Iraq is nowhere near full compliance with all Security Council resolutions adopted since the 1991 Persian Gulf war that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.


Baghdad's recalcitrance gives Washington a strong hand to play as it argues, against Russian calls for a relaxation, for continuing the crippling economic sanctions on President Saddam Hussein's struggling country. The non-compliance also provides the United States with diplomatic cover to back its tough line against Iraq, illustrated Thursday when Washington gave Baghdad a unilateral warning that U.S. forces will strike heavy armor units that enter southern Iraq.


UN Ambassador Madeline Albright may have been exaggerating for effect when she told the General Assembly on Oct. 7 that "Iraq is in simultaneous violation of more Security Council resolutions than any member state in the history of the United Nations." But a scorecard compiled from sources outside the Clinton administration shows that in order to achieve full compliance Iraq would have to make political and institutional changes that would amount to transforming Saddam's dictatorial regime.


Iraq has abided by several UN dictates, mostly in dismantling its nuclear weapons development facilities and submitting its weapons sites to international inspection. On other points the degree of compliance is open to interpretation, but on several key issues Iraq has simply defied the United Nations.


One resolution requires Iraq to accept the Iraq-Kuwait border as demarcated by a United Nations technical team, and to recognize Kuwait's independence and sovereignty. Despite a joint statement by Iraq and Russia on Oct. 13 in which Iraq offered to recognize Kuwait's sovereignty in exchange for Russia's promise to seek a partial lifting of sanctions, Iraq still has not complied.


Iraq also has rejected two key resolutions authorizing the sale of up to $1.6 billion in Iraqi oil to pay for food and medicine. The resolutions call for putting the funds in a UN-controlled escrow account, and require Iraq to allow humanitarian workers to go wherever they want, to give "full freedom of movement and all necessary facilities" to UN technicians, and to report gold and foreign currency holdings to the United Nations each month.


Iraq turned down those conditions as "violating the sovereignty of Iraq, interfering in its internal affairs and dividing its people along ethnic lines," Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz told the UN General Assembly on Oct. 7.


The Security Council ordered Iraq to end repression of the Kurdish population in the northern part of the country, and of Shiite Muslims in the south. No one outside Saddam's government argues that Iraq has met this requirement.


The Baghdad government has blocked basic supplies from getting to the Kurds. Some UN relief convoys have been bombed and some workers killed by suspected Iraqi agents, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.


In the south, Iraqi military units have carried out what many witnesses have described as an extermination campaign against the Shiite residents of the marshes near Basra.


A Security Council resolution adopted shortly after the war in 1991 ordered Iraq to accept fiscal responsibility for all losses or injury suffered by Kuwait or other countries, to release all Kuwaitis and citizens of third countries detained during the occupation, and to return all stolen property.


Iraq has partially complied, according to UN officials and a new report by Congressional Research Service analyst Kenneth Katzman. Iraq returned $700 million in gold bars looted from Kuwait, as well as other booty, but has not returned some military and oil equipment and cultural artifacts, according to Katzman.


In addition, while Iraq has returned nearly 6,000 Kuwaitis seized during its 1990 occupation of Kuwait, it has refused to account for about 600 who are still missing and are known to have been in Iraqi custody. In the joint Iraqi-Russian statement, Iraq pledged to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross in trying to resolve the issue.


The Security Council commanded Iraq to forswear terrorism, but the extent to which Iraq has complied is debatable. Iraq made the required declaration to the United Nations. But the State Department says Iraq supports the anti-Turkish Kurdish separatist organization known as PKK, which has a long history of terrorist acts, and harbors elements of the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal organization. The United States held Iraq responsible for an attempt to assassinate former President George Bush during a 1993 visit to Kuwait. The farthest-reaching United Nations resolutions required Iraq to dismantle its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. President Clinton has told Congress that the International Atomic Energy Agency "has effectively disbanded the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, at least for the near term."


A UN team reported in May that all of Iraq's huge declared chemical weapons stockpile had been destroyed. However UN teams have been unable to find any trace of a biological weapons production capability, despite widespread reports that Iraq possesses such weapons.