World

U.S. Eases Stance On Iraq Sanctions

February 25, 2000 / 11:58 AM EST / AP

The Clinton administration is taking a less strict stand on exports to Iraq in an effort to provide more humanitarian help to the people in the hard-pressed Arab nation, a U.S. official said Friday.

"We want to go at it with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer," the official said, referring to the U.S. role in the United Nations committee that oversees sanctions against President Saddam Hussein's government.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, insisted that overall U.S. policy toward Iraq has not changed. The idea, the official said, is still to deny the Iraqi leader items that would assist him in a weapons program without stopping exports that might help extract oil that Iraq is permitted to sell for humanitarian purposes. Proceeds must go to food and medicine.

For example, the official said, chlorine, which could be used in water purification, would now be cleared for export to Iraq.

Other nations have urged the United States to ease up on Iraq in light of reports of the worsening plight of the Iraqi people. U.S. officials have accused Baghdad of denying available help to his own people and not exporting all the oil permitted under past easing of sanctions.

The Washington Post reported the easing of restrictions Friday, saying it would apply to machinery, oil industry spare parts, pesticides and other industrial products.

U.S. officials agreed this week to release an $80 million electrical repair contract on condition that U.N. workers verify that the parts are used as intended, the Post said.

The United States has frequently exercised its right as a member of the Security Council to block Iraq from acquiring "dual use" items such as pesticide sprayers, which can be used for biological warfare as well as for helping farmers to grow food. Britain, France and other U.S. allies are concerned restrictions on such technology have undermined efforts to ease suffering in Iraq.

Earlier this month several congressmen asked President Clinton to ease the sanctions on Iraq, insisting that children were suffering needlessly and that Iraq's government was benefiting from the measures.

Making a similar complaint, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Hans von Sponeck, quit this month.

Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors determine that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated.