Iraq Slams U.N. Oil-For-Food ProgramIraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Salah on Wednesday slammed the United Nations oil-for-food program for failing to meet the objective of easing the living conditions of the Iraqi people.Iraq's crude exports since 1996 under the oil-for-food program have generated 29 billion U.S. dollars, while the value of goods delivered to Iraq was only 7.5 billion dollars, Salah said. Salah made the remarks when meeting the visiting Romanian delegation which came to the Iraqi capital to attend the 32nd anniversary of the Iraq's July revolution in 1968. Salah said that since the oil-for-food was implemented in late 1996, the U.N. has granted 9 billion dollars of compensation to the victims of the 1991 Gulf War, while Iraq only received 2 billion dollars a year for its 22 million people. This is in sharp comparison with the situation before the U.N. sanctions were imposed on Iraq, when Iraq spent about 20 billion dollars yearly to ensure the needs of the Iraqi people, Salah said. The trade minister condemned the United States and British delegates at the U.N. Sanctions Committee for blocking the contracts Iraq signed with foreign countries to import food, medicine and other humanitarian goods within the framework of the oil-for-food deal. Iraq has repeatedly slammed the U.N. humanitarian deal for not being able to meet Iraq's needs. The deal allows Iraq to export crude every six months to finance imports of humanitarian goods to help offset the crippling impacts of the U.N. sanctions. The U.N. imposed wide-ranging economic and trade sanctions on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which triggered the 1991 Gulf War. |
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