DATE=02/26/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-273055

TITLE=US/IRAQ SANCTIONS (L)

BYLINE=NICK SIMEONE

DATELINE=BRUSSELS

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Bush administration is discussing with key Arab allies ways to modify sanctions against Iraq to allow more consumer goods to enter the country, while maintaining a ban on military equipment. Correspondent Nick Simeone reports from Brussels, the latest stop on a trip by Secretary of State Colin Powell to Europe and the Middle East, largely to discuss policy toward Iraq.

TEXT: Secretary Powell says all the Arab leaders he met on this trip believe sanctions should be maintained against President Saddam Hussein, but that the Iraqi people should not have to pay the price by being denied a range of civilian goods. Washington is consulting with its allies on a way to arrange for that, aiming for some sort of consensus ahead of an Arab summit next month in Jordan.

In unusually frank comments, Secretary Powell told reporters enroute to Brussels that the unity that once existed among nations wanting to keep Iraq firmly under sanctions has eroded into a situation where each country now decides its own approach to enforcing them.

/// POWELL ACT ///

Things are in a state of - I must say - disarray. I think you all would agree with that. I've been reading editorial after editorial. I arrived (in office) on the 21st of January to discover cables coming at me from our ambassadors saying: 'We have to do something.'

/// END ACT ///

The future of Iraqi sanctions has been the central theme of Secretary Powell's first trip to the Middle East, and will be on the agenda during a meeting with his NATO counterparts here in Brussels Tuesday. At every stop - in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Saudi Arabia - the United States was encouraged by Arab leaders to present options for modifying the U-N embargo in ways that would keep Baghdad from again acquiring weapons of mass destruction, while relaxing the flow of consumer goods to ordinary Iraqis.

/// SECOND POWELL ACT ///

I did not visit a single place, and I did not talk to a single leader in the region who said 'you're going down the wrong track.' In fact, everyone, I spoke to said 'you've got to go down this track, it is the right track,' without specifying exactly what the destination is going to look like yet.

/// END ACT ///

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is among Arab leaders telling the United States the on-going Palestinian uprising and a perceived U-S tilt toward Israel in the Arab world make it difficult for them to support sanctions against an Iraqi leader who has long defended the Palestinian cause. In a possible sign of how much erosion there has been in the once strong Arab opinion against Iraq, only low level regional leaders attended ceremonies in Kuwait Tuesday marking the 10th anniversary of the end of the war that drove out Iraqi troops. (SIGNED)

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