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Iraq Intensifies Anti-Embargo Efforts in Millennium End
While the lifting of the crippling UN embargo still nowhere near in sight, Iraq has nevertheless made big gains in 2000 in breaking the political and diplomatic isolation wreathing it in the past decade.
In a nationally-televised speech at the beginning of this year, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, his grip on power not a bit slackened by the pungent sanctions, told his whacked people to "continue on the path" of defiance as "the embargo has already started to crumble."
Strengthens Trade Ties With OutsideThe Saddam regime has all but relinquished the hope of obtaining the lifting of the sanctions as the United States and Britain, both condemned by Baghdad as "forces of evil and vice who only betray and aggress," never show signs of softening their stance on the sanctions.
In a bid to shrug off the embargo and break out of economic and political isolation, Iraq has launched an offensive to strengthen relations, especially trade ties, with foreign countries to rally support for its defiance.
World trade officials and businessmen have begun flocking to the oil-rich but sanction-torn country to try to grab a slice of its lucrative reconstruction market, which totals some US$200 billion.
Thirteen ministers from Arab and other countries, as well as a record number of 1,554 companies from 45 countries, participated in the November 1-10 Baghdad International Fair, the largest ever since 1990.
It is noteworthy that for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War, Saudi Arabia and Britain, both staunch allies of the US, were present at the fair.
Iraq has greatly improved its trade relations with other Arab countries through frequent exchanges of visits and signing of contracts.
Egypt, for example, has heaped a lot through expanding trade with Iraq. Nearly 100 Egyptian companies attended an exhibition held in Baghdad in April and sealed contracts worth US$100 million. Egypt has so far won contracts worth over 1 billion dollars since the UN oil-for-food program took effect about four years ago.
The program, launched in late 1996, allows Iraq to sell crude in return for UN-supervised imports of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to alleviate the impacts of the embargo.
Iraq has also strengthened ties with other European, Asian and African trade partners.
Russia, a key ally and the most important trade partner of Iraq,has frequently sent governmental, parliamentary and business delegations to Iraq to guarantee its biggest share in the Iraqi market.
Scores Diplomatic Breakthrough With the promotion of trade relations with Arab and other countries, Iraq has also improved political ties with other countries and is gradually walking out of political isolation.
Baghdad scored a big diplomatic gain in August when Venezuelan President Hugo Chaves, brushing aside pressures and criticism from Washington, became the first elected head of state to visit Iraq since 1991.
Following his lead, Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb flew to Baghdad on November 1 for a three-day state visit, the first by a head of government from the Arab world in nearly 10 years.
After being ostracized by the Arab world for its invasion and occupation of tiny Arab Gulf neighbor Kuwait 10 years ago, Iraq has also mended fences with a majority of Arab countries.
Representing President Saddam Hussein, Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Iraqi ruling Revolutionary Command Council, attended the Arab summit held in Cairo, Egypt on October 21-22 at the invitation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
On April 20, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reopened its embassy in Baghdad, marking a full recovery of their bilateral relations.
So far, four of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states -- the UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar -- have resumed diplomatic ties with Iraq after a 10-year break. The GCC also groups Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
There was also rapprochement between Iraq and its historical foes like Syria and Iran.
In the wake of the visit to Syria by Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammad Said Al-Sahaf in June, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammad Mehdi Salah arrived in Damascus in August to attend the meetings of the Syrian-Iraqi Joint Ministerial Committee, the first over the past 20 years.
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi arrived in Baghdad by air on October 13, becoming the first Iranian foreign minister to visit Iraq since November 1990.
Iraq's efforts to broaden the circle of countries sympathetic to its bid to break the embargo have paid off. More diplomats have returned to Baghdad, more countries, including Russia, China and France, three permanent members of the UN Security Council, have raised voice to call for lifting the embargo on Iraq.
Challenges Air Embargo As a fresh move to challenge the embargo, Iraq on August 17 reopened the Saddam International Airport after 10 years of closure.
Baghdad maintains that there was no UN resolution banning civil flights to and from Iraq, and the decade-old air embargo was a unilateral imposition by the US and Britain.
In an even bolder move of defiance, Iraq on November 5 reopened domestic flights connecting Baghdad with Mosul in the north and Basra in the south, both located in the northern and southern no-fly zones imposed on Iraq by the US-led Western allies after the Gulf War.
Abdul Karim Hamam, director-general of the Iraqi Airways, has announced that the next step is to resume international flights. Meanwhile, in response to Iraq's repeated calls, Russia took the lead in sending a plane to Iraq just two days after the reopening of the Baghdad international airport, to underscore its backing of Iraq's battling against the embargo. France flew a plane from Paris to Baghdad one month later.
So far, more than 40 planes, most of them from Arab countries, have landed at the international airport since its reopening, and the number of countries sending planes to Iraq keeps growing.
Under pressure from the rising international demand for canceling the air embargo, the US and its allies could do little to stop planes flying to Iraq as well as Russia's resumption of regular civil flights from Moscow to Baghdad on October 27.
Confronts UN on Arms InspectionsIraq has rejected the UN Resolution 1284 ever since it was passed in December last year, claiming it was "not practical, not realistic and cannot be implemented."
The resolution, destined for the return of arms inspectors who have been out of the country since December 1998, established the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) to replace the defunct UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
It offers to suspend the embargo for renewable 120-day periods if Iraq complies fully with the new UN arms inspection body.
Iraq, however, has demanded the total lifting of the embargo as the precondition for any cooperation with the UN, and senior Iraqi officials, including Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, Vice Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Foreign Minister Mohammad Said Al-Sahaf, have repeatedly voiced Iraq's rejection of the resolution.
Consequently, the arms inspectors were barred from entering Iraq and the UNMOVIC has largely been nominal since it was founded.
Uphill Struggle Still Ahead Though there have been cracks in the embargo regime, few believe the embargo will end soon. Due to the vehement opposition and powerful pressure from the US and its Western allies, Iraq still faces a lengthy and uphill struggle in breaking the sweeping embargo.
Analysts believe that whatever the outcome of the US presidential election is, little change is likely in Washington's tough policy toward Iraq, a combination of economic embargo and military containment.
Republican George W. Bush, who has been elected the 43rd president of the US, had, like his less-fortunate Democratic competitor Al Gore, beaten anti-Saddam drums during the election campaign.
Bush, whose father was the US president during the Gulf War, has promised stronger support for the Iraqi National Council (INC), a grouping of anti-Saddam cliques.
Moreover, for all the political and diplomatic gains, Baghdad still needs UN approval before it can use its oil revenues, which have been deposited in a UN-supervised account, to buy its required goods.
Iraq is taking the risk of coming under fresh US military attacks, straining or even worsening its relations with the UN, if it persists in challenging the world's leading body while taking a more uncompromising stand.
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