Iraq

I am pleased to begin my statement by extending to you sincere congratulations on your election to the presidency of the present session of the General Assembly. I am confident that your high competence and profound experience will contribute effectively to the success of the work of the present historic session. This session coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of our Organization. There is no doubt that such an important occasion calls for examining the course the Organization has taken in order to draw the best object-lessons that would enable the international community to proceed to the building of a better future in which peace and stability would prevail on the basis of justice, the balance of interests of all peoples and genuine international cooperation that would be free from selfishness and hegemony; a future which would open the doors towards the solution of economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems that continue to cause suffering to the overwhelming majority of States, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Members of the international community welcomed the end of the cold war. They view it as the harbinger of a new age. However, many representatives of many Member States did point out the dangers of imbalance in international relations. They warned that the supremacy of one super-Power would make international life hostage to that Power and, thereby, lead to the imposition of its views, interests and policies on the rest of the world. The correcting of this imbalance in the international situation requires a great deal of care in upholding equality between States, restructuring the United Nations in line with well- balanced formulas, revitalizing the work of its institutions in a manner that would ensure balance and genuine participation in responsibility, prevent hegemony by one or certain parties over the international community and over the United Nations with its institutions. Although these objectives have not been achieved so far, to work towards their achievement and to develop an understanding of what they involved continue to be urgent needs of the highest priority. We believe that the imposition of a unipolar standpoint on the work of the United Nations totally contradicts the purposes and principles of the Charter. The persistence of such attempts would lead only to more anxiety and deterioration in international relations. This conviction stems from Iraq’s actual experience over the past five years. It is an experience that relates to the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council on the so-called Gulf Crisis, and especially the implementation of resolution 687 (1991). That resolution imposed upon Iraq a number of obligations, as a basis for a comprehensive settlement of the situation. A few days after the adoption of the resolution, Iraq informed the Security Council of its readiness to comply with the provisions of the resolution despite the harsh nature of the obligations imposed thereby. Since that date, Iraq has seriously taken upon itself the implementation of the resolution in order to normalize the situation at the regional and international levels. In fact, a great many steps have taken place in implementing the resolution. Our people hope that what has been achieved will be the subject of an objective and fair evaluation by the Security Council that would lead to the lifting of the embargo imposed upon Iraq for more than five years now. Allow me to review very briefly the steps taken by Iraq in the context of implementing the obligations imposed by the Security Council in resolution 687 (1991). On 10 November 1994, Iraq officially recognized the sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the political independence of the State of Kuwait, and the international boundary demarcated by the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Boundary Demarcation Commission. This was done in implementation of resolutions 687 (1991) and 833 (1993). Iraq has cooperated also with the representatives of the United Nations in returning Kuwaiti property on the basis of the lists presented through the United Nations coordinator. In this connection, Iraq affirmed that it will return any item of property that would be found when it is established that it belongs to Kuwait. As regards the prisoners of war and the missing persons, Iraq, in implementation of Security Council 8 General Assembly 21st plenary meeting resolutions 686 (1991) and 687(1991), released all prisoners of war and detainees who were in Iraq and repatriated them in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As for investigating the fate of missing persons, we are cooperating fully within the framework of the joint work carried out under the auspices of the ICRC by the Tripartite Commission and its Technical Subcommittee on Military and Civilian Missing Prisoners of War and Mortal Remains. Since the middle of 1994, when we found the appropriate modality for effective technical work in dealing with this humanitarian problem, we have sought within the said framework to provide answers to the questions raised in the individual inquiry files presented to us on the basis of the available information. Moreover, Iraq has been receptive to all the initiatives of States and personalities to find a quick solution to this humanitarian problem in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. With regard to the subject of compensation, Iraq accepted the principle of responsibility in accordance with international law to compensate direct damage resulting from the events in Kuwait as stated in resolution 687 (1991). Iraq has cooperated also with the United Nations Iraq- Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM) in carrying out its tasks and has extended every possible assistance to the Mission with the aim of enabling it to perform its duties. Iraq has affirmed its adherence to the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases and Bacteriological Methods of warfare, and deposited the instruments of ratification of the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, in implementation of paragraph 7 of resolution 687 (1991). As for the implementation by Iraq of section (C) of resolution 687 (1991), that is the provisions relating to proscribed weapons, our relationship with the Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) witnessed, in the middle of 1993, a turning point in the field of positive and constructive cooperation in order to finalize the implementation of the said section. On 26 November 1993, we presented the official response in regard to compliance with resolution 715 (1991) relating to monitoring in the field of weapons. In the process of work with the Special Commission and the IAEA, we have not hesitated to offer all possible assistance to facilitate the work, whether by presenting information, available documents, details relating to past programmes, the destruction of prohibited weapons, and the setting up of an effective monitoring system. We have been able to achieve substantive progress in this area, as acknowledged by the Special Commission in its report to the Security Council on 19 June 1995, and have taken the final steps to complete the desired work. These facts are well established in the relationship between Iraq and the Special Commission and the IAEA. The substantive nature of these facts cannot be distorted by the campaign waged against Iraq by well-known quarters because of special objectives of their own which are totally alien to the objectives of resolution 687 (1991). Despite all the propaganda, Iraq no longer has any proscribed weapons, equipment, devices or materials, and this is the essence of resolution 687 (1991). We affirm our determination to continue our cooperation with the Special Commission and the IAEA to close the weapons file in accordance with the relevant resolutions and have the embargo against Iraq lifted. I should like to express here our deep regret regarding the a priori ill-intentioned exaggerations which cast a terrifying image of past Iraqi weapons programmes, and the deliberate distortion of the fact that these programmes were something of the past and that they no longer exist. Raising fears in such a contrived fashion is not an objective position at all. It is an attitude prompted by political objectives which are far removed from the concern over security and stability in the region and the provisions of resolution 687 (1991). Iraq has taken all these steps even while it has continued to suffer the hardship caused by a total embargo, the most extended ever imposed by the Security Council in all its history. It is an embargo that embraces everything and every aspect of life with the exception of food and medicine. However, the freezing of Iraq’s assets with foreign banks has prevented Iraq from using any of those assets to purchase its needs of medicines and foodstuffs and, thereby, has made the exception relating to food and medicine devoid of any practical content. The situation in Iraq has been aggravated by the actual practice obtaining in the work of the Security Council Committee established by resolution 661 (1990), which is in charge of the application of sanctions against Iraq. Work in the Committee proceeds along highly 9 General Assembly 21st plenary meeting bureaucratic lines and follows the rule of unanimity. This has provided certain States with an easy way to object and thereby to reject a large number of export requests to Iraq to meet civilian humanitarian needs, from pencils and educational materials to automobile tyres and other simple civilian provisions. All these matters are documented in the records of the 661 Committee. The deliberate insistence on prolonging the embargo against Iraq is not linked to Iraq’s implementation of its obligations. It is a systematic plan to inflict severe damage upon Iraq and to deliberately destroy its infrastructure and put paid to its developmental capabilities. This is a fact that is known to all. The reports of the competent United Nations Agencies operating in Iraq and of non-governmental organizations concerned with relief warned against the deterioration of the situation as a result of the shortage of food and medicine, which threatens the lives of millions of Iraqis, including thousands of children, women and old people. In this connection, I should like to refer to the last alert of the World Food Programme, issued on 26 September 1995. The report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization, and his “Supplement to An Agenda for Peace”, refer clearly to the problem of sanctions. We should like in turn to draw the attention of Member States to the fact that the application of sanctions against Iraq, with such cruelty and bureaucratic complexity, calls for questioning and scrutiny, in the interests of objectivity. We are not sure that all the representatives in the General Assembly know that the Security Council reviews the sanctions regime against Iraq every 60 days, and that 27 reviews have been conducted to date without any easing of the sanctions. The situation remains the same as it has been since 3 April 1991, as if nothing had been achieved. Is this a healthy situation? The tragic consequences of the embargo have not been limited to the food and health sectors in Iraq. The sections of agriculture, education and environment also have sustained grave damage, due to the shortages of materials and the basic requirements needed for work in such sectors, even at the minimum level required to satisfy the basic needs of the civilian population. The aggravation of this extremely difficult situation has not prevented us from continuing to implement our obligations under the relevant resolutions of the Security Council. It is worth noting that, as is known to all, while we were being called upon to implement our obligations, and while we were deploying persistent efforts to do just that, we have not received in return any objective and equitable position that would have reduced sanctions commensurately with the progress achieved by Iraq in implementing the resolutions, or that would have given encouragement and hope and given confidence that the situation would be normalized eventually, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. The reality has been the very opposite. From the very beginning and to date, we have been the target of many threats; doubts have been raised about our intentions; and we have been, twice, the target of armed aggression. There has been considerable deceit with regard to objectives. Pressure has been brought to bear on any party that even thought of treating us fairly, even if such fairness was not intended as a gesture towards Iraq but as a means of safeguarding the credibility of the Charter system and of the resolutions of the Security Council. We have been accused of intermittent and selective cooperation and of a lack of peaceful intentions and lack of credibility, to such an extent that the levelling of accusations by certain parties has come to resemble a chronic pathological alignment. Such accusations have been accompanied by the continued pursuance on the practical level of policies aimed at interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq in order to destabilize it; to undermine its security, stability, the freedom of its people and its sovereignty; and to try and change its political system. A super-Power has imposed upon my country two no-fly zones, in the north and the south, without any legal justification or authorization from the Security Council. It has also exercised every means of pressure and deception to perpetuate the harsh conditions caused by the embargo against Iraq, while, at the same time, it conspires, quite openly, to change the regime. Without any hesitation, its officials declare that such is its intention. While all this takes place, it is we who are asked to prove our peaceful intentions and credibility. It is no secret that the Power that leads the onslaught I have spoken of against Iraq is the United States of America. All the facts on the ground make it clear that it is the United States of America and no one else that should be asked to demonstrate its credibility, to prove that its intentions are peaceful, and to desist from its continuing acts of provocation, aggression and interference in the internal affairs of Iraq and from fomenting tension in the Gulf region under the pretext of an illusory threat. 10 General Assembly 21st plenary meeting President Saddam Hussein noted that the American administration’s accusation that Iraq lacks credibility in its relationship with the Special Commission is a false one, and that it is the United States that does not have credibility in dealing with States and international organizations. Where is the credibility in the position of the United States when it declares its determination not to lift the sanctions against Iraq even if Iraq implements Security Council resolution 687 (1991), of which the United States was the chief author? Again, where is the credibility in the position of the United States when the American administration masses its naval and military forces in the Gulf and in the Mediterranean under the false pretext that Iraq is planning to attack Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? I do not wish to enter into polemics with the representatives of the United States in the General Assembly. But I find it necessary, with regard to the American allegations about credibility, to raise certain points of principle which call for serious thought and contemplation. Before I do that, I should like to ask this question: if it is important that the implementation of the resolutions of the Security Council should be founded on credibility, then how can allegations about the credibility of Iraq be accepted at a time when the State which repeats those allegations puts itself above the Security Council and above the Charter and gives itself the right to interpret United Nations resolutions and to arbitrarily draw conclusions from such interpretations that agree with its own selfish interests which are far removed from any basis to be found in the provisions of the resolutions themselves? While on the subject of credibility, where are the efforts of the Security Council, and the United States in particular, with regard to the implementation of paragraph 14 of Security Council resolution 687 (1991), which aims at declaring the Middle East as a zone free from weapons of mass destruction? This is an objective that has to be a fundamental cornerstone of the edifice of peace, security and stability in the region if such an edifice is to be built on sturdy, well-balanced and equitable foundations. It is an objective that acquires great importance from the standpoint of the oft-mentioned credibility, since it is a known fact that Israel possesses those weapons. Why does the United States keep completely silent about paragraph 14, and why has the Security Council not taken any action towards the implementation of that part of its resolution? Does such a blatant double standard have anything to do with credibility? Is it objective or even fair to imagine that the obligations stipulated in Security Council resolutions could be implemented in a natural fashion in the context of such circumstances, atmospherics, and hostile policies directed against Iraq? Iraq is well aware of the fact that it is not in its interest to conceal any information relating to past weapons programmes, and that its interest lies in working to lift as soon as possible the sanctions that are imposed on it. Indeed, Iraq is acting in full conformity with this objective. In this connection, we call upon member States of the Security Council not to jump to any conclusions on the basis of any unjust accusations levelled at Iraq, because the right thing to do would be to wait for the outcome of the work of the Special Commission, which is responsible for evaluating the implementation by Iraq of the Council’s resolutions concerning the proscribed weapons. We do not call for anything more than the legally sound application of Security Council resolutions in consonance with the purposes and principles of the Charter, and not in line with the whims and aims of unilateral policies of a certain State, which are founded on the logic of naked power, opportunism, double standards and the imposition of hegemony. We believe that there is a collective duty to work jointly with firmness in order to put things in the right perspective in order to ensure the sound application of the provisions of the Charter. The first step in this direction requires us to ponder the philosophy of the sanctions as created by the Charter. Is the sanctions regime a means towards an end, or is it an end in itself? What is the nature of the said regime? Is it punitive, or is it a means whereby the purposes of the Charter should be achieved without reference to the individual policies of individual Member States? It is well known to all that the sanctions regime created by the Charter is nothing more than a means aimed at achieving certain results which would ultimately lead to the realization of the purposes and principles of the United Nations as elaborated in Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter, and that the means should cease to be applied once the end has been achieved. The competence of the Security Council to impose sanctions is an exceptional means that is used when it is established, objectively, that all other means of peaceful settlement of disputes have failed. Such a means should not be, however, a tool in the hands of a super-Power or of a group of major Powers to achieve foreign policy 11 General Assembly 21st plenary meeting goals at the expense of the common interest of Member States. It is now patently clear that the imposition of sanctions on Iraq and the maintenance of the embargo against it, in the well-known fashion, cannot be justified on the substantive basis of the provisions of the Charter, because it has become, in actual fact, an extension of the unilateral policy of a super-Power that has made sanctions an end in themselves and a vindictive means that serves its own interests in the region. In essence, the grounds for the imposition of sanctions on Iraq no longer exist and, thus, the sanctions should be lifted. But a well-known State obstructs the process. We should like to say to the United States that the solution lies in dialogue, which provides a mechanism for the achievement of interests on a balanced and equitable basis. This is what Iraq has called for and continues to call for. The policy of hegemony and of creating crises cannot but fail, because it is illegitimate and because the international community rejects it. While this continues to be our position of principle, we unfortunately find that the United States statesmen ignore the realities of the region and the needs and aspirations of its peoples, who yearn to live in stability, peace and fruitful cooperation amongst themselves and with the world as a whole. At a time when we witness the tensions and internal conflicts that prevail in the states of the region, and the feelings of bitterness amongst their peoples as a result of the current short-sighted policies, which recall to mind the policies of the old imperialist Powers, we in Iraq should like, from this rostrum, to call for the promotion of relations of dialogue, understanding and good neighbourliness amongst the States of the region, on the basis of mutual respect, in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. Iraq is an ancient country with a very long history that goes back 7,000 years. The Iraqi people, who have contributed greatly to human civilization, will remain in control of their affairs, independent in their choices and capable of overcoming crises. We hope that Member States, especially the permanent members of the Security Council, will make every effort to interpret and apply the provisions of the resolutions of the Security Council in accordance with their normal legal meaning and not on the basis of whims and the political interests of this or that State. Any course of action that deviates from this principled rule would lead only to loss of credibility and utterly undermine the principle of good faith in the determination of international obligations. The United Nations was established in order to achieve the common goals of preserving peace, security and stability in the world. The provisions of the Organization’s Charter, in letter and in spirit, are founded on the balancing of rights and duties and aim at protecting the common interests of the international community. Therefore policies that are based on the logic of naked power and unilateral action outside the concepts of the Charter, and that aim at achieving individual objectives, are bound to contradict the very raison d’être of the Organization and to contravene the letter and spirit of its Charter. Such policies would only lead to the marginalization of the Organization’s role in international affairs. It behoves us as we are about to celebrate half a century of the existence of the Organization to rededicate ourselves to honouring our undertakings as enshrined in the Charter.