Saddam Chairs Meeting of Senior Officials

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, May 16, 2002

Saddam Chairs Meeting of Senior Officials

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Wednesday chaired a meeting attended by senior officials, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

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Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Wednesday chaired a meeting attended by senior officials, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The meeting was attended by Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, senior member of the decision- making Revolutionary Command Council Ali Hassan Majid, National Assembly (parliament) Speaker Saadoun Hamadi, Information Minister Mohammad Said al-Sahaf and Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, INA said.

"The meeting discussed a set of political issues," INA said, without elaborating.

However, the meeting is expected to focus on the goods review list (GRL) passed by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday in the biggest overhaul of the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq since 1990.

As an exception to the sanctions imposed for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the U.N.-monitored oil-for-food program allows Iraq to sell oil and in return use part of the revenues to buy food, medicine and other basic necessities to its 22 million people.

Iraq has often blasted the inefficiency of the humanitarian deal and blamed the sanctions for the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqis, mostly children and the elderly.

To ease international criticism over the sanctions, the United States and Britain drafted the 300-page GRL to allow Iraq freely import civilian goods, but tighten the inflow of military or potential military materials to Iraq.

The U.N. Security Council also renewed the oil-for-food deal for another six months till November 25.

Iraq has so far made no official reaction toward the adoption of the GRL, which was seen as a victory for the United States and Britain.

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