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Mr. Dalyell: My reflection is that the sanctions imposed against both Serbia and Iraq are totally different from those in relation to South Africa. The conditions in South Africa were entirely different, for the sanctions were asked for by a substantial majority of the population. I have met no one in Iraq or Serbia who thinks that sanctions are in any way helpful. Indeed, they bolster rather than weaken regimes.
It is late at night. This is a time for reflection. It is also a time of happiness for children in this country. We ought to think about the consequences of our actions for the children of Serbia and Iraq.
2.8 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Peter Hain): May I first apologise for arriving a little late and for missing the opening sentences of the address of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)?
Mr. Dalyell: My hon. Friend was not late.
Mr. Hain: I thank my hon. Friend for that. I am grateful to him for allowing us another opportunity to discuss Iraq. Along with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews), I respect my hon. Friend's long-standing interest in Iraq, and his genuine concern for the suffering of the Iraqi people. We both want to see more done to help them.
My hon. Friend raised a number of thoughtful and interesting points, some of which I will reply to this evening. Those which I do not have the opportunity to address directly I will reply to in detail in correspondence, and will place a copy in the Library.
When we last debated the situation in Iraq on 24 March, I commended to the House the provisions of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284. After months of intensive effort, Britain secured adoption of that ground-breaking new resolution in December last year. It establishes a new platform for the UN's dealings with Iraq. It deals comprehensively with a range of issues,
notably the humanitarian situation, disarmament, and Kuwaiti issues, including stolen property and missing civilians. It represents the collective will of the Security Council and has the force of international law.Since I last debated this matter with my hon. Friend, excellent progress has been made on implementing the provisions of resolution 1284. I can update the House with the progress on humanitarian provisions, every one of which is unconditional. The resolution removed the ceiling on the amount of oil that Iraq is allowed to export to fund the purchase of a wide range of humanitarian goods under the oil for food programme.
Iraq's oil reserves are second only to those of Saudi Arabia. Those factors, together with the recent recovery in world oil prices, have boosted Iraq's oil exports back to, if not above, the peak historic level of around $15 billion a year. Iraq's oil Ministers recently announced that the country plans to increase exports further by about 700,000 barrels a day. That would put Iraq among the world's top five oil exporters. Furthermore, the Security Council has doubled the allocation from oil for food for the purchase of oil spare parts, to $600 million.
All that means that an estimated $10 billion will be available for the humanitarian programme in Iraq this year. The funding is available now, and it is unconditional. Food, medical supplies and other equipment can be delivered straight to the Iraqi people. With that huge amount of revenue available, one cannot help but ask why we still see pictures--my hon. Friend has experienced the reality--of malnourished and sick Iraqi children. Those pictures rightly provoke our anger, sympathy and compassion.
There is no need for those children to want or to suffer. Why do they? It is an outrage that the Iraqi Government wilfully deny food and medicine to children and play politics with their suffering. The Government hope that by doing so, they will play on our sympathies and emotions so that we shall abandon Security Council resolutions and lift sanctions, leaving Iraq free to develop its weapons of mass destruction and reconstitute the threat to the region that it has posed time and again.
We see no pictures of starving children from northern Iraq. My hon. Friend must address that point. The same sanctions apply there, but Saddam's writ does not run. In northern Iraq, the United Nations, not the Iraqi authorities, is implementing the oil for food programme. It is doing so in a manner designed to bring maximum benefit to the Iraqi people. As a result, the programme is making vast improvements to people's lives. New homes and hospitals are being built, minefields cleared and food and medicine delivered. All that could happen in the centre and south of Iraq if only the Government in Baghdad would allow it.
The truth is that Saddam Hussein has no interest in putting his people's needs first. He chooses to reject offers of humanitarian assistance from other countries, additional to the oil for food programme, including assistance specifically targeted to meet children's needs. Yet he is encouraging journalists and campaigners to come to Baghdad and to tour the children's wards in its hospitals. It is a scandal that the doctors cannot get the drugs that they need, but the fault lies with the Iraqi Government. They failed to order enough medicines under the UN programme, then they failed to deliver them, despite the huge resources available.
Saddam Hussein makes much more money by selling oil illegally. None of it is spent on food or medicine. It is spent instead on luxury items for those closest to Saddam whose loyalty he wishes to retain. It is spent on building new palaces and theme parks, and on holding spectacular celebrations for Saddam Hussein's birthday. By our estimate--my hon. Friend referred to this--illegal exports of Iraqi oil outside the UN programme reached $250 million last year, and $170 million so far this year. We and other members of the Security Council are making serious and successful efforts to limit that trade. It deprives the United Nations humanitarian programme of revenue and it lines the pockets of Saddam Hussein's regime at the expense of the Iraqi people. We thus remain committed to the multinational interdiction force in the Gulf and continue to discuss with regional states how best to crack down on the illegal trade.
We welcome Iran's recent action against several vessels containing smuggled Iraqi oil. We are also pressing Turkey for action--an issue that my hon. Friend rightly raised.
I discussed the disarmament provisions of Security Council resolution 1284 with Hans Blix, the executive chairman of the new arms inspection body--UNMOVIC--when I was in New York in April. I was extremely impressed by his ability and by his highly professional approach to the challenging job before him. In accordance with the resolution, he has drawn up an organisational plan for UNMOVIC. I am pleased to report that, on 13 April, the Security Council unanimously approved that plan. Dr. Blix is now concentrating on recruiting and training his staff. When that is complete, I trust that those--like my hon. Friend--who have contacts with Baghdad will urge Iraq to take the genuine opportunity that is on offer for a fresh start with a wholly new disarmament body, and for co-operation with Dr. Blix and his staff.
Recently, I met Yuli Vorontsov--appointed by the Secretary-General to be his co-ordinator on Kuwaiti issues. Like us, Vorontsov remains extremely concerned that Iraq is not co-operating with the tripartite commission process--the process chaired by the International Committee of the Red Cross, designed to account for the whereabouts of the 605 Kuwaitis and others missing since the end of the Gulf war. I urge Iraq to put an end to the suffering of the families of those who have been missing for so many years. They deserve to know what has happened to their relatives.
My hon. Friend urges us to lift sanctions immediately and unconditionally, because of the serious humanitarian situation in Iraq. Under Security Council resolutions, sanctions can be lifted only when Iraq has complied with its disarmament obligations and following a review by the Security Council of Iraq's policies and practices--including its implementation of all relevant resolutions.
In March last year, a UN panel of disarmament experts confirmed the analysis of UNSCOM--the United Nations Special Commission--that serious questions remain unanswered. My hon. Friend would surely not suggest that Britain--a permanent member of the Security Council--should decide to abandon the council's resolutions, which have the force of international law. Does he really believe that, if sanctions were lifted now, Saddam Hussein would suddenly change the habit of a lifetime and start putting his people's needs first?
The answer lies with resolution 1284, which clearly maps out the way to the lifting of sanctions and, for the first time, provides for the suspension of sanctions, if Iraq complies with a standard well short of that required for sanctions lift. The Iraqi Government are fond of claiming that they have given up their weapons of mass destruction and that they have nothing to hide. If that is so, then they have everything to gain by resuming full co-operation with the UN.
On Serbia, my hon. Friend raised several issues to do with depleted uranium. There are genuine matters for concern that we have addressed. I shall look afresh at the points he made, if he wants me to do so, to consider whether we can investigate and respond to them. Again, I shall place a copy of my letter in the Library.
The European Union and its international partners are working on the basis of a dual strategy: one that combines the deliberate political isolation of the Milosevic regime with a determined effort to engage with Serbian civil society in all its forms. With increased activity recently by Commissioner Chris Patten and by High Representative Javier Solana, the EU is placing even greater emphasis on its relations with the Serbian democratic opposition and the Montenegrin Government, and on support for independent media, non-governmental organisations and civil society in general.
The Serbian Government's actions last week--including the mass arrests of student activists, the takeover of the only independent television station in Belgrade, further repression of other independent media and police violence against the citizens of Belgrade--show why Milosevic must remain an international pariah. We shall continue and strengthen our efforts to support the embattled independent media and the journalists who are risking so much to preserve a basic human right--that of freedom of expression.
My hon. Friend will know of the EU's energy for democracy programme. That was designed to help a certain number of local authorities in Serbia which, because they are controlled by democratic political forces opposed to Milosevic, were suffering particular discrimination in the provision by central Government of fuel for heating. Despite Milosevic's initial attempts to block the free imports of heating oil, the European Union has prevailed. The pilot programme has now been extended to other Serbian towns.
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