ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991                   TAG: 9103220403
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Associated Press/ and The New York Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS                                LENGTH: Medium

U.N. PANEL TO LET IRAQ RECEIVE FOOD

A Security Council panel decided Thursday to lift the food embargo on Iraq, a diplomat said, after U.N. officials heard a report saying the allies had battered the country back Group details abuses by Kuwaiti soldiers. A14. into "a pre-industrial age."

A senior Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Security Council's sanctions committee was meeting today and would allow food and other essentials into Iraq.

The diplomat said the Red Cross and United Nations will supervise distribution of the food. Iraq must allow it to be sent into all areas of the country, including the Kurd-controlled north and provinces of the south where Muslim Shiites are rebelling, he said.

The decision to lift the food embargo was made the day the Security Council heard a report that Iraq had been "relegated to a pre-industrial age" by the "near-apocalyptic" allied military assault.

The report, prepared by a U.N. team that visited the country between March 10 and 17, warns Iraq could face "epidemic and famine if massive life-supporting needs are not rapidly met." It recommends an immediate end to the U.N. embargo on imports of food and other essential supplies to prevent "imminent catastrophe."

In particular, it says Iraq needs immediate substantial supplies of food, agricultural equipment, fuel, electrical generators, and machinery for water purification, garbage disposal, and sewage treatment.

The United States has said sanctions should be lifted only when Baghdad fulfills all the allied coalition's conditions for a permanent cease-fire.

The special U.N. committee on the restrictions can grant a waiver on food and shipments of other supplies characterized as humanitarian, but the entire embargo may be lifted only by a Security Council resolution.

An American draft of a proposed resolution on a permanent cease-fire that has been circulating here indicates the Bush administration wants the Security Council to lift only the ban on food shipments, after adopting the cease-fire resolution. 


 by CNB