Ending Iraq Sanctions No Panacea : Mideast: Citizens blame embargo for woes. But observers say lifting ban would not mean speedy improvement in most people’s lives.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — For four years now, President Saddam Hussein has so successfully fanned the flames of hatred against America that Iraqis instinctively blame the U.S.-led embargo for virtually everything that goes wrong in their lives--from a bad clutch to the quality of public education to an inability to put enough food on the table.

But even a lifting of sanctions will not improve life appreciably for most Iraqis--at least not for months and perhaps even years, analysts here say. After the inevitable euphoria accompanying an eventual end of the embargo fades, how will the Iraqis express their frustrations?

Will their anger rivet on some new, more convenient scapegoat, perhaps closer to home? Might that target be Hussein himself?

Some diplomats have been pondering these questions since the issue of sanctions against Iraq was thrust onto center stage by Hussein’s recent, ominous deployment of his army near the Kuwaiti border, followed by a withdrawal.

Certainly no one expects an immediate popular uprising when and if the embargo ends. But such questions underscore a growing recognition that it will be a long haul before most Iraqis can reclaim a lifestyle to which they had once grown accustomed, now only a distant memory.

And Hussein’s promotion of a lifting of sanctions as a panacea for Iraq’s worries could come back to haunt him, diplomats said.

“It will not be a very fast recovery,” a top Turkish official said here Wednesday. “Things will get better only gradually--perhaps months, maybe a year or more.”

For one thing, Iraq has about $100 billion in debts and far more to pay in war reparations. “What will be left (after the debts are paid) will not be very much,” noted the official.

Iraq intends to pay its debts with proceeds from renewed oil sales, but its daily production is down to about 650,000 barrels. Given the deterioration in Iraq’s oil-industry infrastructure, it is questionable that production levels can quickly regain the pre-Gulf War level of 3 million to 8 million barrels a day.

It may take months to begin producing even 1 million barrels a day, one analyst said.

Moreover, with new oil entering the market, prices could drop, thus cutting into Iraq’s oil revenues.

“There’s no way they can quickly fulfill those promises (of debt payment),” the analyst noted.

Some observers fear things could deteriorate further before they get better--even with an end to sanctions.

“Everything here--the telephone system, electricity, sewage--has been rebuilt, but it’s all temporary, mostly done with old and faulty spare parts that could collapse any day,” said a European diplomat, a Baghdad veteran.

“The spare parts--there’s very little in any sector now,” added a Russian official.

And there have been scattered reports of looting of government food storage centers in several parts of Iraq, according to diplomats.

“The situation is not explosive, but (such incidents) are small signs of how awful conditions are,” one Western official said. And there are now reports that the recent harvests are far less bountiful than official government reports say, according to Iraq watchers.

Indeed, as if preparing Iraq’s 18 million citizens for even harsher days ahead, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Saleh conceded recently that the next six months “definitely will be more difficult for the people. . . . They will sell more of their belongings.”

One Arab businessman confided: “Many Iraqi women I know already have sold all their jewelry, and I know of families that have even sold their homes.”

There could be a quick post-embargo improvement in supplies of food and medicine if Iraqi officials assign both a high priority, observers say. “But not if they allocate the funds for other purposes,” said a senior diplomat from a neighboring country, referring to the current boom in government construction of mosques as well as a suspected rearming of the Iraqi military.

Saleh vehemently denied that Iraq is rearming, but Iraqi officials do not dispute the urgent need to improve such basic amenities as water quality and sewage treatment. For instance, Baghdad Mayor Qaid Hussein Awadi announced Wednesday that Hussein has allocated money to upgrade water purification in this teeming metropolis of 7 million.

“Everything will depend on the priorities of the government . . . ,” one analyst concluded Wednesday. “For perhaps another year, there’s no danger of mass starvation. The Iraqis are surviving.”