WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States is abandoning an unpopular 11-year campaign to deny Iraq consumer goods in the hope that the plight of the Iraqi people would cause them to turn against President Saddam Hussein.
Lining up with Britain, which stood virtually alone with the United States on maintaining harsher sanctions, the Bush administration also is urging tighter controls on export to Iraq of arms and weapons-related items.
The policy shift took four months to crystallize as Secretary of State Colin Powell vied with the Pentagon and other sectors of the administration over imported items with potential application to Iraq's military.
Even now, as American diplomats consult with other governments on a prospective U.N. resolution to be introduced next week to lift the economic sanctions, administration officials are debating privately which so-called dual-use items to ban and which to approve for export to Iraq, a senior U.S. official told The Associated Press.
``We're working toward what will be a significant change in our approach to Iraq in the United Nations,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday. ``The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq.''
Powell is inclined to take a lenient view of such items as water pumps and refrigerated trucks, which theoretically could be used for military purposes but are much more likely to lessen the pain of the Iraqi people.
A list is being compiled of items that would remain off-limits to Iraq, their value and their use. At the same time, American diplomats are resisting efforts by other governments to go further in the direction of leniency.
The U.N. sanctions on weapons and consumer goods were imposed as part of a U.S.-led drive to reverse Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in 1990. Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War, which liberated Kuwait but left Saddam in power.
Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, who is in charge of international organizations and oversees U.S. diplomacy at the United Nations, is ending a trip to Europe, where he consulted with French, Belgian and other officials on the resolution to lift sanctions due to be introduced next week.
British officials have said they received positive responses to the proposal from, among others, France, China and Russia, besides the United States and Britain the only members of the U.N. Security Council with veto power. To varying degrees, all three have opposed the current sanctions.
In Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister said too little is known about the new proposal to determine his country's position now. ``It is clearly premature,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze told the Interfax news agency and said it does not resolve political problems Russia insists be settled.
Boucher said the proposal ``obviously will be a subject'' of discussion between Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Powell when the Russian visits Friday, seeing both the secretary of state and President Bush.
For Powell, who is inclined to take a more moderate course in foreign policy and security than Bush's harder-line advisers, the policy shift reflects both his own instincts and advice offered by Arab and other governments.
``The point is to work together to help the Iraqi people at the same time as we control the ability of the regime in Baghdad to develop weapons of mass destruction,'' the State Department's Boucher said.
The plan would not require Iraq to let international arms inspections to resume before consumer sanctions could be lifted, Boucher said. ``That was never part of the picture,'' he said.
On the other hand, Boucher said, to get all sanctions removed Iraq must let the inspectors return. They have been excluded for 2 1/2 years.
©The Associated Press May 17 2001 6:37PM