Sanctions against Iraq

The sanctions against Iraq were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the Iraqi Republic. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 (after Saddam Hussein's being forced from power), and persisted in part, including reparations to Kuwait, through the present.

The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction.

Initially the UN Security Council imposed stringent economic sanctions on Iraq by adopting and enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 661. After the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, those sanctions were extended and elaborated on, including linkage to removal of weapons of mass destruction, by Resolution 687. The sanctions banned all trade and financial resources except for medicine and "in humanitarian circumstances" foodstuffs, the import of which into Iraq was tightly regulated.

Resolutions 661 and 687 expressed the goals of eliminating weapons of mass destruction and extended-range ballistic missiles, prohibiting any support for terrorism, and forcing Iraq to pay war reparations and all foreign debt.

As described by the United Nations Office of the Iraq Programme, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 661 imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq following that country’s invasion of Kuwait. These sanctions included strict limits both on the items that could be imported into Iraq and on those that could be exported.

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