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By John Mintz and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
washingtonpost.com
Thursday, May 8, 2003; Page A01

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The Bush administration announced yesterday it is easing certain provisions of a 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush that imposed U.S. sanctions against Iraq, even as U.S. officials stepped up efforts to urge the United Nations to lift its own much broader economic and trade embargo against Baghdad.

The United States, with Britain and Spain, will introduce a U.N. Security Council resolution as early as tomorrow that would halt nearly 13 years of worldwide prohibitions on trade with Iraq and end the United Nations' control over the country's oil exports and revenue, according to senior U.S. and U.N. officials.

Russia and France have expressed skepticism about the U.S. plan, saying international sanctions should not be lifted until U.N. weapons inspectors certify that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. But President Bush, in urging the Security Council to end its economic sanctions now that the government of Saddam Hussein is out of power, said yesterday the acrimony that characterized the U.N. debate leading up to the war has passed.

"We believe there is a mood to work together to achieve a resolution that will expedite the reconstruction of Iraq," Bush said at a news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, one of his closest allies on Iraq. "The atmosphere that existed prior to the war has changed, and . . . people now want to work together for the good of the Iraqi people."

The administration has dispatched a senior State Department diplomat to Russia and Germany to press the issue, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is preparing to visit both countries in separate trips next week.

On a day in which a new audiotape surfaced purportedly carrying the voice of Hussein, the deposed Iraqi president, the administration moved ahead with efforts to assemble an international peacekeeping force to take over some law enforcement and reconstruction jobs in Iraq. Aznar pledged in an interview that Spain will send as many as 1,500 troops for a stabilization force in Iraq, but said they will be forbidden from engaging in combat.

U.S. intelligence officials, meanwhile, were studying the audiotape, which was apparently recorded in the past week to 10 days, to determine whether the voice is that of Hussein. It would be the first tape from Hussein since U.S. forces toppled his government.

Although U.N. sanctions against Iraq remain in force, the Treasury Department said it will allow a number of once-banned activities with Iraq to be resumed. For example, the U.S. government will permit people in the United States to send remittances of as much as $500 per month to any person in Iraq, let U.S. contractors working on reconstruction projects import necessary items and ease restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Commercial trade and weapons sales to Iraq remain prohibited under U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Asked yesterday how the U.S. actions fit in with U.N. rules, David Aufhauser, the Treasury Department's general counsel, said, "Every action taken today is wholly consistent with extant international law."

In any case, he said, the administration "has a high degree of confidence" that the Security Council will soon suspend its sanctions against Iraq.

"There's no requirement" to wait for the United Nations to act on the international sanctions for the measures announced yesterday to take effect, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said. "We want to get on" with the rebuilding effort.

Some diplomatic observers at the United Nations said they fear the administration's decision to ease U.S. sanctions is a signal to the Security Council that, if it blocks the U.S. resolution, Washington would be prepared to conduct business with Iraq in violation of the U.N. embargo.

"We are all bound by international law," said one senior representative of a council member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I cannot believe that the U.S. government would wish to put itself in a position where it would be from a purely legal point of view in violation of language that it has proposed and pushed through the Security Council."

A State Department official said the easing of U.S. sanctions is unrelated to the campaign to remove the U.N. sanctions. "These are two distinct circles of sanctions," he said. "These are things that are necessary to be done under U.S. law."

The State Department, when it released its annual report on terrorism last week, recommended to the White House that U.S. sanctions on Iraq be lifted because Hussein's government is no longer in control of Iraq.

In one of the actions in question, Bush, using powers granted him in a recent congressional budget measure, suspended that part of the 1990 Iraq Sanctions Act that banned the export of certain high-tech equipment to Iraq. The change is aimed at allowing gear such as computers to be sent to Iraq because they are needed for tasks including organizing charitable activities and overseeing the dredging of a harbor in southern Iraq, officials said.

Senior administration officials yesterday began outlining the details of the new U.N. resolution in meetings with key Security Council members. Powell, after a meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan at the United Nations, said he expects the resolution would be presented to all 15 members of the council this week.

"It is a resolution that does not fight the battles of the past," Powell said. "It is a forward-looking resolution that will unite the international community to help the people of Iraq to a better life and to build a new government. It will lift the sanctions to that end."

Powell said the administration is eager to avoid another divisive battle in the council and to ensure that the United Nations would continue to play a "vital role" in the rebuilding of Iraq. He said he is looking forward to "working with all our friends" -- including Germany, Russia, France and China -- that opposed the war. "Whatever happened in the past was in the past," he said.

It is uncertain what impact the U.S. decision to lift the sanctions would have on the debate in the Security Council. U.S. officials indicated that the prospects for passage of the U.N. resolution are improving.

One administration official noted that Germany, a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, assured the administration this week that it would be prepared to support the lifting of the sanctions even if the United Nations has not certified that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed.

Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writers Karen DeYoung and Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.

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