West split on Iraq

A decade of sanctions has not toppled Saddam Hussein

Western opinion is deeply divided over the sanctions imposed against Iraq, 10 years after the country's invasion of Kuwait which sparked the Gulf War.

A strict United Nations trade ban has been in place since Baghdad's surrender in 1991, which critics say has damaged the lives of Iraq's ordinary people.

They [sanctions] are cruel because they punish exclusively the Iraqi people and the weakest among them

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine

The UN has refused to lift the embargo until arms inspectors are satisfied that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have all been destroyed.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine has marked the anniversary by making one of his country's strongest calls yet for an end to the trade sanctions, saying they are "cruel, ineffective and dangerous".

Mr Vedrine wants to relax sanctions

Mr Vedrine said the sanctions threatened the social cohesion of Iraq and regional stability.

"They are cruel because they punish exclusively the Iraqi people and the weakest among them," Mr Vedrine told the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.

"They are ineffective because they don't touch the regime, which is not encouraged to co-operate, and they are dangerous because they... accentuate the disintegration of Iraqi society."

France, Russia and China all support an early end to the embargo.

But the United States says Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is solely to blame for his country's problems.

'Ruthless ambition'

Its Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, argued on Wednesday that the Iraqi president had intentionally made the plight of his people worse in order to get international sympathy.

"He has relentlessly sought to portray his regime as a victim instead of admitting that Iraq's suffering is the result of his own aggression, lies and ruthless ambition," Ms Albright wrote in the Financial Times.

Madeline Albright: Sticking to US policy

"He hopes his people's suffering will worsen so that the pressure for lifting sanctions will heighten and the revenues he needs to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction will once again begin to flow."

She said the Iraqi leader had spent money from oil sales permitted under the UN oil-for-food programme set up three years ago on himself and his political allies.

"He chose to squander Iraq's limited resources on building more than 70 new palaces for himself and his cronies, rather than on the health and education of Iraqi children," she said.

Humanitarian visit

Meanwhile, the senior United Nations official in charge of Iraqi affairs has arrived in Baghdad for what is being described as a routine inspection of UN operations.

Benon Sevan is spending 17 days in the country. He has so far refused to speak to reporters.

A BBC correspondent there says there is speculation that he has brought a new plan to end the sanctions.

Baghdad has rejected a UN Security Council resolution adopted last December, which offered to suspend civilian sanctions on Iraq if Baghdad allowed new arms inspections.

Iraq said it would reject any resolution that did not call for the lifting of all sanctions.

Kuwait has, meanwhile, marked the anniversary by again calling on Iraq to return more than six-hundred prisoners it says Baghdad is still holding.