Iraq’s oil industry will continue to deteriorate, jeopardizing UN relief operations, unless more spare parts are allowed into the country immediately, this according to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He called for the Security Council Sanctions Committee to double the amount of spare parts Iraq can buy and to streamline its review of contracts for the equipment to “offset permanent damage to oil-bearing structures in Iraq.” The sixty-three-page report details how low oil prices, bureaucratic delays and blocked contracts have undermined efforts to improve life for 22 million Iraqis living under UN trade sanctions. Three leading UN officials have already quit over the continued sanctions against Iraq, and today a congressional aid delegation, the first to visit Iraq, will release a report in Washington, DC.