By the mid - 1990s Iraq was suffering an economic crisis. Prices were high , food and medicine shortages were rampant, and the free market (unofficial ) exchange rate for the dinar was in serve decline. Although the sanctions continued , in April 1995 the UN security.
Council voted unanimously to allow Iraq to sell limited amounts of oil to meet its urgent humanitarian needs. Iraq initially rejected the plan but
then accepted it in 1996; it began to export oil at the end of that year. In 1998 the UN increased the amount of oil Iraq was allowed to sell, but Iraq was unable to take full advantage of this increase because its production capabilities had deteriorated under the sanctions.
Weapons Inspections
Beginning in the late 1990s Iraq
increasingly faced the possibility of another military crisis. Iraq’s interference with UN weapons inspectors almost led to punitive U.S. air strikes against Iraq in early 1998, a step that was averted by a last minute compromise brokered by UN secretary general Kofi Annan. In December of that year, in response to allegations that Iraq was continuing to block inspections, the United States and Britain launched a four day series of air strikes on Iraqi
military and industrial targets. In response, Iraq declared that it would no longer comply with JN inspection teams. In the following years, British and U.S. planes periodically struck Iraqi missile launch sites and other targets.
Despite interference by Iraqi authorities, UN weapons inspectors succeeded in destroying thousands of chemical weapons, hundreds of missiles, and numerous weapon production facilities before leaving Iraq in late 1998. But inspectors alleged that Hussein still possessed many more chemical weapons, and expressed concerns that Iraq had inadequately reported the scale of its biological weapons program and stockpile.