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* Bombing on Sunday: "The mission is continuing" (Associated Press) * Bombing on Saturday, 23 injured (Associated Press) * Question over Iraqi govt cooperation with the UN disarmament panel (Associated Press) * Iraq, oil quotas and other Gulf States: articles from Agence France-Presse and AP (extract) * UN approves donations for Iraqi pilgrimages of $2000 each (Arabic News) * Iraq refutes report it failed to distribute medicine (Reuters) F.Y.I. There is an article in today's [printed] Sunday Telegraph about the recent riots following the assassination of the Shi'ite leader Mohammed Sadiq al-Sader. On one hand the article underscores the futility of current policy by talking about the regime growing fat from the smuggling of oil. On the other hand, one gets the impression that if sanctions have been maintained with the express (albeit covert) purpose of driving people to the edge, the riots may be used (by the cynical) as an argument that sanctions are starting to bear fruit... ******************** Iraqi Sites Attacked by US Fighters Sunday, February 28, 1999; 8:46 a.m. EST WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters attacked Iraqi military installations Sunday with bombs and missiles after planes patrolling the northern no-fly zone came under anti-aircraft fire, a U.S. military official said. The planes fired three air-to-ground missiles and dropped eight bombs -- three laser-guided bombs, two GBU-12 precision-guided bombs and three GBU-24 precision-guided bombs -- on targets mostly around the city of Mosul, about 250 miles north of Baghdad, said Air Force Capt. Mike Blass, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command, which oversees the northern zone. The attacks occurred from about 1:55 p.m. to 2:20 p.m. local time (5:55 a.m. to 6:20 a.m. EST), said Blass, based in Stuttgart, Germany. Targets fired upon included an Iraqi air defense headquarters, a radio relay site and a surface-to-air missile site, he said. The mission was continuing, Blass said. ******************** Iraq Reports Airstrikes Injure 23 Saturday, February 27, 1999; 6:31 a.m. EST BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Warplanes attacked southern Iraq early today, injuring 23 people, the Iraqi armed forces said. The statement did not identify the nationality of aircraft, but used a phrase that the Iraqi military frequently uses to refer to U.S. and British planes patrolling the southern ``no-fly'' zone over Iraq. The statement said ``black ravens'' bombed military and civil installations in Maisan province, around 200 miles south of Baghdad, causing the injury of 23 people. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. or British military. The Iraqi military, which frequently refers to U.S. and British planes as ``black ravens,'' did not say if the injured were civilians or military personnel. The statement said eleven formations of F-14, F-15 and F-18 aircraft ``carried out 28 sorties targeting civil and military targets in Basra, Dhiqar, Maisan, Najaf and Muthana provinces.''All the provinces are in southern Iraq. ******************** Iraqis Dismiss UN Disarmament Panel By Waiel Faleh, Associated Press Writer, Sunday, February 28, 1999; 4:38 a.m. EST BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq will not cooperate with three panels set up by the United Nations to assess the country's progress on disarmament, its humanitarian needs and the fate of missing Kuwaitis, Iraq's oil minister said Sunday. The Security Council agreed to form the study panels in January in a modest first step to break the diplomatic logjam over Iraq. The head of the disarmament panel, Brazilian U.N. Ambassador Celso Amorim, said Friday that Iraq seemed ready to cooperate with his panel after Baghdad provided it with a thick file of information and invited Amorim to visit. But Iraqi Oil Minister Mohammed Rashid, a senior Iraqi negotiator on disarmament, insisted Iraq would not work with the panels. ``Our position is very clear,'' he told a news conference. ``We will not deal with any decision where Iraq was not consulted and did not take part in the consultation leading to that decision.'' ``These panels, we will not deal with. They do not concern us,'' he said. Rashid again complained that a U.N. committee was holding up the import of spare parts needed to revamp Iraq's dilapidated oil industry. Under a U.N. exemption, Iraq can export $5.2 billion in oil every six months to buy humanitarian goods -- a target that currently exceeds Iraq's production capacity. ******************** Iraq wants its pre-1990 OPEC quota at expense of Saudi Arabia 15:27 GMT, 27 February 1999 BAGHDAD, Feb 27 (AFP) -Iraq said on Saturday that it will ask OPEC next month to restore its pre-sanctions oil production quota at the expense of Saudi Arabia. Oil ministry undersecretary Sami Sharif told the newspaper Al-Iraq that the request would be lodged at the OPEC ministerial meeting in Vienna on March 23. "Iraq has the right to claim back its quota" of 3.14 million barrels a day (b/d), as it stood before UN sanctions were imposed on Iraq for its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he said. To make up for the loss of Iraqi oil, Saudi Arabia raised its output from 5.4 million b/d to more than eight million b/d, while the output of the United Arab Emirates was increased to two million b/d, from 1.5 million b/d. ******************** Iraq Seeks Oil Compensation By Waiel Faleh, Associated Press Writer, Saturday, February 27, 1999; 1:58 p.m. EST (extract) BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq wants compensation from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for profits they have reaped from increased oil sales while Iraq was under U.N. trade sanctions, a senior Iraqi official was quoted as saying Saturday. Deputy Oil Minister Sami Sharif told the state-run Al-Iraq daily that: ``Iraq has the right to demand compensation from the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments for its share, which the two countries benefited from in the last period.'' According to a recent U.N. report, Iraq is producing close to 2.5 million barrels and exporting about 2.07 million barrels a day. Before the invasion of Kuwait, which sparked the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq produced 3.5 million barrels a day. In January, the government-run Al-Jumhuriya newspaper published a commentary from President Saddam Hussein accusing Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of flooding the oil market, leading to low world prices. Last Wednesday, Iraq's Parliament demanded that Saudi Arabia reduce its crude oil production to bolster prices. Iraq has said it will demand at the March meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that Saudi Arabia reduce its output by 2 million barrels a day. Low prices have made it difficult for Iraq to benefit fully from the U.N.-approved oil-for-food program, which is an exception from the sanctions. The program allows Iraq to sell up to $5.2 billion worth of oil every six months to buy needed food and medicine. At current prices, Iraq is barely able to sell $3 billion worth of oil every six months. ******************** UN approves donations for Iraqi pilgrimages of $2000 each Arabic News, Iraq, Religion, 2/26/99 Members of the UN Security Council have approved a proposal permitting Iraqi pilgrims to receive sums via a neutral international organization in order to be able to perform al-Haj (pilgrimage) rituals for this year. The Dutch ambassador at the UN, Peter van Walsum, who also presides over the UN Sanctions Committee on Iraq told journalists following a meeting of the committee that he will convey the UN Security Council proposal to the Iraqi ambassador to the UN, Saeed Hassan. Van Walsum added the sums which will be distributed among 22,000 Iraqi pilgrims are estimated at US $44 million, on the grounds that each pilgrim will receive US $2,000. The Dutch ambassador said the UN authorities believe that transferring this sum directly to Iraqi banks is illegal and that these sums will be, instead, paid to a third party, which will arrange to distribute the sums among the Iraqi pilgrims before they leave Iraq. Van Walsum did not identify the third party, but it is expected that this third party will cover groups like the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. ******************** Iraq refutes report it failed to distribute medicine February 25, 1999 BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq on Thursday refuted a United Nations report that it had failed to distribute large quantities of medical supplies bought under the U.N. "oil-for-food" programme. "The claim that Iraq is distributing only 50 percent of the medicine bought under the memorandum of understanding is an attempt to paralyze the human conscience," the Iraqi News Agency quoted a source at the Health Ministry as saying. "Supply of the materials that have arrived in Iraq takes place after quality control tests, with the keeping of a reserve of the materials for an emergency." The keeping of reserves was prudent given delays in the arrival of materials for the next stages of the oil-for-food deal, the source said. Iraq often complains of delays, accusing the United States and Britain of impeding endorsement of deals to bring the humanitarian supplies into the country. The United Nations complained on Tuesday that Iraq had failed to distribute large quantities of medical supplies bought under the oil-for-food programme and that $275 million worth was in warehouses at the end of January. Under the latest phase of the deal approved by the Security Council on November 26, Iraq was permitted to sell $5.256 billion worth of oil over 180 days to buy food, medicine and other goods to help offset the effects of sanctions in effect since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. But because of the fall in oil prices, estimates put the total projected revenue for that period at $2.9 billion. After deductions including more than 30 percent of the total to cover reparations and other costs stemming from the Gulf War, about $1.8 billion would be available to finance humanitarian supplies and $300 million worth of spare parts authorized by the United Nations for Iraq's dilapidated oil industry. This would means a shortfall of some $950 million in relation to a distribution plan for food, medicine and other goods approved in December. ******************** -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html