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UN ready to hand over Iraqi oil for food program
United Nations, Nov 20: UN officials told the Security Council that all was in place for the oil for food program for Iraq to be turned over to the US-led administration in Baghdad at midnight on Friday, as Washington insisted six months ago.
United Nations, Nov 20: UN officials told the Security Council that all was in place for the oil for food program for Iraq to be turned over to the US-led administration in Baghdad at
midnight on Friday, as Washington insisted six months ago.
The program, the world body's largest humanitarian program, was launched in 1996 to sell Iraqi oil and use the proceeds to buy food, medicine and other civilian goods, in order to blunt the impact on ordinary Iraqis of UN sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990
invasion of neighboring Kuwait.
Between December 1996 and the mid-March US-led invasion of Iraq, the program exported 65 billion dollars of Iraqi oil and purchased 48 billion of commercial goods for the civilian population, said Benon Sevan, head of the UN Iraq program. The rest of the money went to pay for UN weapons inspections, reparations dating from the first Gulf War and administrative costs.
Earlier this week, US Ambassador Steven Mann said the coalition provisional authority now running Iraq was ready to take over distributing food to millions of needy Iraqis when the UN program expired, using the systems already in place.
But the CPA's longer-term goal was to turn responsibility for food distribution over to an Iraqi provisional government when one takes power in June 2004, Mann said. Despite the program's shortcoming and the rigor of the sanctions regime, ''we did manage to make a big impact in the daily lives of the Iraqi people,'' Sevan said. ''nobody has been able to point a finger about any corruption, with all that money involved. I am really truly proud of that.''
All funds left in the UN account after the program is shut down are eventually to be transferred to the CPA-managed development fund for Iraq.
While 3 billion dollars had already been shifted to the CPA fund as of Tuesday, some 1.6 billion dollars more in uncommitted funds remained in the UN account, Sevan said.
Bureau Report
Between December 1996 and the mid-March US-led invasion of Iraq, the program exported 65 billion dollars of Iraqi oil and purchased 48 billion of commercial goods for the civilian population, said Benon Sevan, head of the UN Iraq program. The rest of the money went to pay for UN weapons inspections, reparations dating from the first Gulf War and administrative costs.
Earlier this week, US Ambassador Steven Mann said the coalition provisional authority now running Iraq was ready to take over distributing food to millions of needy Iraqis when the UN program expired, using the systems already in place.
But the CPA's longer-term goal was to turn responsibility for food distribution over to an Iraqi provisional government when one takes power in June 2004, Mann said. Despite the program's shortcoming and the rigor of the sanctions regime, ''we did manage to make a big impact in the daily lives of the Iraqi people,'' Sevan said. ''nobody has been able to point a finger about any corruption, with all that money involved. I am really truly proud of that.''
All funds left in the UN account after the program is shut down are eventually to be transferred to the CPA-managed development fund for Iraq.
While 3 billion dollars had already been shifted to the CPA fund as of Tuesday, some 1.6 billion dollars more in uncommitted funds remained in the UN account, Sevan said.
Bureau Report