Iraq hits out at UN resolution on imports

Iraq severely criticised the UN Security Council today for adopting a US-backed resolution that tightens controls on imports to the country.

Iraqi officials quoted in the state-run press said the measure would inflict “deliberate damage and harm to our people”.

The resolution, passed on Monday by a 13-0 vote with Russia and Syria abstaining, puts new limits on purchases of certain communications equipment and antibiotics which the US and Britain say could be used by the Iraqi military in a war.

Washington and London have threatened to use force against Iraq unless the regime of President Saddam Hussein provides evidence it has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction.

UN arms experts have been in the country for more than a month inspecting sites to determine whether Iraq still has chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Inspection officials have said Iraq’s report on its weapons programmes was not yet complete, and the United States has accused Saddam’s regime of continuing to hide banned weapons.

Iraq’s criticism of the Security Council resolution came in editorials in the state-run press which is regularly used to express the government’s views.

The daily Al-Jumhuriya newspaper said the resolution, which deals with goods Iraq can import under the UN oil for food programme, is new evidence of Washington’s “hegemony” over the Security Council.

“This is a bad resolution which would lead to inflicting a deliberate damage and harm to our people,” the paper said.

It said the members of the Security Council should “fulfil their responsibility, stand against the obvious US domination of the council and ... foil the mad US attempts to wage aggression on Iraq under the cover of the Security Council.”

The daily Babil, which is owned by President Saddam Hussein’s son Odai, said the resolution is particularly disappointing because it came “when the Security Council is supposed to prepare the appropriate circumstances to lift the sanctions on Iraq and as the (UN) inspection teams are preparing to declare that Iraq is clear of weapons of mass destruction.”

While the inspectors on the ground have offered no conclusions about their daily searches of military and commercial sites, Iraqi officials have said after virtually every inspection that the UN arms experts had found nothing illegal.

The inspectors today visited the Al Fat’h military industry site 18 miles west of Baghdad. The facility, which conducts research and development on missiles and rockets, has been visited before by the inspectors and it was not known why they returned.

* US and British war planes attacked an Iraqi mobile radar system in the southern no-fly zone yesterday, the US military said.

The radar near al-Qurnah, 240 miles southeast of Baghdad, was a threat to coalition aircraft, the US Central Command said in a statement.

The official Iraqi News Agency said the planes attacked civilian installations, killing one person and wounding two others. The US statement did not mention casualties.