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United Nations Office of the Iraq Programme oil for food 19 June 2001 Weekly update (9 - 15 June 2001) Full text available at http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/latest/wu19June01.html Excerpt from weekly update (reproduced below) shows: 1) Sanctions Committee approves vaccines and other items on 1051 list, on condition of monitoring. All part of the maneuvering on the resolution, no doubt. 2) New holds still being placed, however. 3) New total value of holds $3.17 billion. As pointed out before, even if all holds were released, this would not solve the humanitarian crisis, and Voices is concentrating on the revival of the Iraqi economy as the key issue at the moment. Nevertheless, this is significant information about how the US and UK are trying to move the debate, and it undermines a lot of US/UK propaganda regarding holds/sanctions in the past. Mil [Excerpt begins] There was a further welcome development with regard to “holds” last week. The Security Council’s 661 sanctions committee approved four contracts worth $10.48 million for several types of human vaccines on the condition that the United Nations observers in Iraq closely monitor the end-use of those supplies. Some of the approved vaccines are on the “1051 list” and had been put on hold by the Committee. Once delivered to Iraq, the supplies are expected to meet the reported shortages of human vaccines in the country. Similarly, contracts for steel, generator sets and pesticides, some containing “1051” items, were approved by the Committee on condition of close end-use monitoring by the United Nations observers in Iraq. This welcome development is also indicative of an increasing confidence by the 661Committee in the ability of the United Nations observation mechanism to verify that supplies and materials delivered to Iraq under the programme are indeed being utilized for approved purposes. The United Nations Secretary-General and the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme have repeatedly appealed to both the Security Council and its 661 Committee to place greater confidence in the work of the United Nations observation mechanism in Iraq to release contracts from hold and expedite the approval and delivery of needed humanitarian supplies to Iraq. During the week, 69 contracts worth $58.7 million were released from hold by the Committee and 30 new contracts valued at $74.9 million were placed on hold. The “releases” included two telecommunications contracts for a microwave monitoring system and a microwave station equipment, eight contracts in the health sector for various medical equipments and laboratory reagents, five contracts in the education sector, 22 for oil industry spare parts and equipment, as well as a number of contracts for cranes, trucks and irrigation systems. The new “holds” covered tipper trucks, water treatment equipment, tractors, water pumps and medical equipment. The Committee members requested additional technical information or cited the presence of “1051” or “dual-use” items for placing these contracts on hold. The total value of contracts on “hold” stood at $3.17 billion, representing 14.7 per cent of the value of all contracts circulated to the Committee. Of the total 1,294 contracts “on hold”, 858 worth $2.74 billion were for humanitarian supplies and 433 worth $426 million for oil industry spare parts and equipment. [Excerpt ends] Milan Rai Joint Coordinator, Voices in the Wilderness UK milanrai@btinternet.com 29 Gensing Road, St Leonards on Sea East Sussex UK TN38 0HE Phone/fax 0845 458 9571 local rate within UK Phone/fax 44 1424 428 792 from outside UK Pager 07623 746 462 Voices website http://viwuk.freeserve.co.uk -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk