BAGHDAD, May 15 (News Agencies) - Baghdad mulled Wednesday, May 15, its official verdict on the Security Council's move to free up delivery of humanitarian supplies to Iraq, but in an initial reaction, its U.N. envoy blasted the revamping of the sanctions regime as detrimental to the Iraqi economy and people.

Government officials and state-controlled media in Baghdad had no early response to the unanimous vote by the 15 council members late Tuesday, May 14, to reform the sanctions in force since Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Baghdad's U.N. ambassador Mohammad al-Duri charged, however, that Resolution 1409 would complicate, rather than ease, the delivery of goods to Iraq under its "oil-for-food" deal with the United Nations.

Speaking to Qatari -based Al-Jazeera satellite channel, al-Duri said: "The way in which the plan has been presented is a U.S. way.”

"What they call a goods review list is a long list prejudicial to the Iraqi economy and directly to the Iraqi people," he said.

"The procedures are numerous and complicated. They aim only at blocking the entry of humanitarian products in particular and other goods in general," he added.

The Security Council adopted a goods review list (GRL) to replace the cumbersome vetting procedures of the U.N.'s oil-for-food lifeline, which has for five and a half years enabled Iraq to import basic necessities despite the trade embargo.

The arrival of goods under the GRL will be "more delayed than in the past and will be costly for the Iraqi people," Duri said, adding that "the Iraqi government will study [the resolution] closely before taking a decision" on it.

But he said: "We consider all Security Council resolutions that do not lead to a lifting of the embargo imposed on Iraq open to question. The Iraqi people demand the lifting of 12 years of suffering."

"The United Nations has not fulfilled its commitments toward Iraq, which has applied all resolutions," Duri added.

Until now, all import contracts have been vetted by the Security Council's sanctions committee to ensure that Iraq does not get round the arms embargo clamped on it with other sanctions when it invaded Kuwait.

After May 30, when the revamped system comes into force with the new phase of oil-for-food, the committee will examine only contracts that contain items on the GRL, a 300-page list of goods including computers, vehicles, chemical compounds and telecommunications equipment.

These also may be imported, provided that the U.N. arms inspectorate and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are satisfied that they will not be diverted to military purposes.

The GRL would make it harder for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to blame sanctions for the collapse in his people's living standards, according to diplomats in New York.

Iraqi officials have repeatedly accused the U.S. administration, which is openly threatening yet another attack on Iraq, of twisting arms at the Security Council to ensure that it perpetuates the sanctions on Iraq.

On Monday, May 13, the Iraqi newspaper Babel warned against "a U.S. trap and a fresh crime against the Iraqi people through expansion of the embargo."

Washington could block the delivery of any item to Iraq under the pretext that it is of "dual [military and civilian] use," the paper wrote.

The Iraqis are in dire need of all kinds of goods and equipment to remedy the damage done by 12 years of sanctions coming on top of the devastation caused by the 1991 Gulf War on Iarq.

Baghdad is, meanwhile, pressing ahead with crude exports from its Mina al-Bakr terminal on the Gulf and the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the two designated outlets under the oil-for-food arrangement, according to sources close to the U.N. office in the Iraqi capital.

Shipments of Iraqi oil had resumed following Baghdad's decision to stop them on April 8 in retaliation for Israel's onslaught in the West Bank and US support for the Jewish state.

Iraq exports around two million barrels of oil a day under the oil-for-food program.