By Rob Watson BBC Washington correspondent

Six years ago the UN Security Council passed what quickly become known as the 'oil for food' resolution.

The new scheme follows over a year of haggling and represents something of a victory for the US and Britain

It works like this - Iraq is allowed to sell oil with the money from the sales held by the UN in New York.

Whatever Iraq wants to buy with that money first has to be approved by a committee of the UN Security Council.

Over the years the scheme has seen billions of dollars worth of imports held up, mainly because of reservations by one committee member - the United States.

Under the new scheme the oil money will still be controlled by the UN, but only those items with potential military uses will face much UN scrutiny before being sent to Iraq.

Conditions remain

The idea is to streamline the flow of goods into Iraq to make life easier for ordinary Iraqis. But the list describing those potential dual use items isn't exactly short.

The US says the new sanctions will prevent Iraq obtaining weapons

It runs to more than 300 pages and covers such items as sophisticated engineering materials and powerful software.

The new scheme follows more than a year of haggling at the UN, and represents something of a victory for the US and Britain.

It is a victory because Iraq and its supporters at in the Security Council, notably Russia, wanted the sanctions lifted completely.

It is also a victory in the propaganda war - the new arrangement allowing the US and Britain to argue sanctions are not directed at the Iraqi people only their government and its alleged efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Drawbacks

But it is not all good news for Washington and London - the architects of the new scheme.

When the Bush administration came into office it described the sanctions against Iraq as being as full of holes as a Swiss cheese - with oil being smuggled out illegally and goods being smuggled in.

Ordinary Iraqis have been hit hard by sanctions

The original plan was to make life easier for ordinary Iraqis in return for more monitoring of Iraq's borders with Turkey, Jordan and Syria where most of the smuggling takes place.

But that is not part of this new arrangement, making White House claims to have tightened as well as streamlined the sanctions sound decidedly hollow.

Iraq has not said yet whether or not it will work with the new scheme. But, not surprisingly, it has said it does not consider it an improvement, insisting the US and Britain will still be able hold up any contracts they want to.

On the face of it, the new scheme should improve life for millions of Iraqis, as arguably the original oil for food programme has, though less perhaps than was originally hoped for.