most important result was the halt of oil exports, which had been Iraq’s main source
of revenue. In 1992 the Security Council indicated its willingness to consider a revi-
sion of the sanctions to allow Iraq to sell enough oil on world markets to subsidize its
purchase of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies. By this point, Iraq’s
economy was in a severe depression resulting from the sanctions as well as the effects
of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War and the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf crisis and war (Iran-
Iraq War and Diplomacy, p. 430; Persian Gulf War, p. 455).
Iraq rejected the Security Council offer, apparently hoping that its economic
troubles would generate enough international sympathy to force the council to scrap
the sanctions altogether. The council renewed its offer in April 1995, passing Resolu-
tion 986, allowing Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months, provided the
money went toward the purchase of food and medicine. Iraq again rejected the pro-
posal, leading to lengthy negotiations during which Iraq demanded increased flexibil-
ity in its oil sales and use of the proceeds. In May 1996, Iraq finally accepted the UN
offer, which required nearly half of the oil proceeds to be used to pay reparations to
Kuwait, to provide aid to Iraq’s Kurdish minority, and to fund UN operations in Iraq;
the remainder was to purchase food and medicine for the Iraqi people. The United
Nations, however, suspended this so-called oil-for-food program after a few months,
when the Iraqi army invaded Kurdish territory and sided with one party in an intra-
Kurdish political dispute. It revived the program early in 1997 and in February 1998
increased to $5.2 billion the amount of oil Iraq could sell every six months.
The oil-for-food program continued until shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003, but it created constant controversy, in part because Iraq sold some of
its oil on the black market (to evade UN restrictions) and because member nations
of the Security Council fought among themselves over whether and when to lift some
of the restrictions. France and Russia—both with extensive business interests in Iraq—
lobbied to ease the sanctions, while the United States insisted on upholding them.
The oil-for-food controversy developed into a full-scale scandal after the 2003
invasion. In 2004 U.S. investigators discovered that the Iraqi government had bribed
dozens of international companies and individuals—including several UN officials—
to help it evade the UN limitations on oil sales. This controversy besmirched the rep-
utation even of UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, whose son worked for a Swiss com-
pany hired by the United Nations to monitor Iraq’s use of the oil-for-food money. A
high-level investigation commissioned by the United Nations found extensive prob-
lems in the management of the oil-for-food program that appeared to reflect broader
systemic failures in management of the world body.
Following are excerpts from a letter dated July 11, 1994, from Rolf Ekeus, chair-
man of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), to the president of
the UN Security Council on the status of the commission’s inspection and destruc-
tion of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; the text of UN Security Council Resolu-
tion 986, adopted on April 14, 1995, outlining the oil-for-food program for Iraq;
the Iraq Liberation Act (HR 4655), passed by Congress and signed into law (PL
105-338) by President Bill Clinton on October 31, 1998, calling for the removal
of Saddam Hussein in Iraq; and a letter, dated January 25, 1999, to the UN
secretary-general from Richard Butler, UNSCOM executive chairman, discussing the
progress made by UN weapons inspectors withdrawn from Iraq in December 1998.476 IRAQ AND THE GULF WARS