May 9, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1424

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UNITED NATIONS, May 8: The United States has drafted a UN Security Council resolution to immediately lift sanctions against Iraq and put control of its economy under the US-led occupying forces for up to 12 months.

Oil revenues would go into an Assistance Fund, to be spent at the direction of the occupying power in consultation with an Iraqi interim administration, the draft says.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, told reporters he would present the draft to the council on Friday and said he wanted it adopted within two weeks, and by June 3 at the latest.

The draft would immediately lift all UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 except an arms embargo.

The draft “notes the establishment of an Iraqi Assistance Fund” to be used:

“To meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, for the economic reconstruction and repair of Iraq’s infrastructure, for the continued disarmament of Iraq, and for the costs of indigenous civilian administration, and for other other purposes benefitting the people of Iraq.”

The Fund would have an international advisory board with representatives of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the IMF and the World Bank.

The board would appoint independent public accountants as auditors, part of whose job it would be to ensure that Iraq’s crude oil and petroleum products are sold at fair world prices.

“All proceeds from such sales shall be deposited into the Iraqi Assistance Fund, until such time as a new Iraqi government is properly constituted and capable of discharging its responsibilities,” the draft says.

In the nine months before the US-led invasion on March 20, Iraq exported an average of nearly 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, and total sales in that period were close to 10 billion dollars.

The draft says money deposited in the Fund “shall be disbursed at the direction of the Authority” — its word for the US and British forces and the administration which has followed them into Iraq.—AFP