UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously approved a doubling of the amount of money Iraq may spend on equipment and spare parts for its dilapidated oil industry, to $1.2 billion from $600 million over a 12-month period ending in June.
The council also expressed its intention "to consider favorably" a future renewal of that increase.
The council voted, without any speeches, on a resolution that was drafted by the United States and agreed by all 15 council members after minor amendments.
Under a council resolution adopted last December, Iraq is allowed to sell as much oil as it wishes under a U.N. "oil-for-food" program that began in December 1996. The program permits Iraq to sell crude to buy food and other necessities to ease the effects of punishing sanctions in force since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended this month doubling the $600 million Iraq was allowed to spend on oil industry spare parts over a 12-month period ending in June.
Otherwise, the dire condition of the industry could deny ordinary Iraqis the full benefits of the "oil-for-food" program.
The parts are paid for with some of the proceeds of the program, under which about two-thirds of the money raised through Iraqi oil sales goes for the U.N.-monitored purchase of civilian necessities.
The remainder of the money is siphoned into U.N. accounts to pay reparations and meet other costs stemming from the 1991 Gulf War, when a United States-led coalition expelled invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
Annan said in his report he was "very much concerned with the deteriorating condition of the oil industry of Iraq," as reconfirmed by a recent survey conducted by a group of experts that he established.
"It is apparent that the decline in the condition of all sectors of the industry continues, and is accelerating in some case," he wrote.
"This trend will continue, and the ability of the Iraqi oil industry to sustain the current reduced production levels will be seriously compromised, unless effective action is taken immediately to reverse the situation," Annan said.
The latest Security Council resolution also expresses willingness to consider expeditiously other recommendations in Annan's report for improving the "oil-for-food" program.
From the start of the program more than three years ago until last December, Iraqi oil exports totaled more than $20 billion.
This provided more than $13 billion for the purchase of supplies, though not all had yet been delivered because some were still in the pipeline while contracts worth about $1.5 billion were placed on hold by the U.N. sanctions committee, mostly because of U.S. queries.
Iraq regards the program as a poor substitute for the lifting of sanctions. That can be done only when the Security Council is satisfied that Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction have been scrapped and cannot be rebuilt.
U.N. arms inspectors have not been allowed back into the country since withdrawing in mid-December 1998, shortly before the United States and Britain launched an air campaign in response to Iraq's failure to cooperate with U.N. weapons teams.