Global Policy Forum

By Kirk Semple

When United Nations officials speak of Iraq these days, any impulse to gloat is overwhelmed by frustration with the harsh realities of the situation in Iraq and sadness over the loss of 22 colleagues and visitors in the Aug. 19 bombing of their Baghdad headquarters. "There may be a temptation to rub one's hands together and say, `Ha, ha! It's not working out the way Bush thought - we told you so!"' a senior United Nations administrator said this week. "But, frankly, it's not good for anyone if the U.S. is defeated in Iraq."

The Bush administration's decision this week to speed up the transfer of power to the Iraqis won evenhanded, public praise from Secretary General Kofi Annan, who had long championed a quicker restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. But officials and diplomats here, while welcoming the policy change, warned privately against a rapid reduction of American military forces and said they feared that the United States would dump Iraq into the hands of the United Nations.

Mr. Annan has never been a proponent of a United Nations administration for Iraq, like in East Timor or Kosovo. Instead, he has said that the United Nations should help shepherd the transition under the authority of a sovereign, broad-based interim government and alongside a multinational security force led by the United States and endorsed by the Security Council.

But as the violence in Iraq worsens under the American occupation, the future participation of the United Nations in Iraq will remain highly uncertain, even doubtful, officials say. Mr. Annan, citing security threats, has pulled the last of his non-Iraqi workers from Baghdad and left only about 40 others in the northern part of the country, most of whom are affiliated with the oil-for-food program, which was set up during the Saddam Hussein government and allowed it to sell oil for civilian needs despite sanctions imposed at the time of the first Persian Gulf war.

Most of the remaining expatriate staff members are due to leave the country when the program is transferred to the control of occupation forces on Nov. 21. "Everything is on hold at the moment," Edward Mortimer, the United Nations director of communications, said in an interview. "Now it's gotten to the point where it really requires a make-or-break mission for us to send people in."

A team from the United Nations headquarters in New York and staff members from Baghdad met this week in Nicosia, Cyprus, to discuss the future involvement of the world body in Iraq in a worsening security situation in which they and other aid workers have become targets. The group reviewed how the United Nations can continue to contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq and ensure the safety of its workers at the same time, officials said. The results of the talks, which will be conveyed to Mr. Annan in a list of recommendations, are expected to have implications for United Nations missions in other conflict zones like Afghanistan, where a car bomb was detonated outside the organization's offices in the southern city of Kandahar on Tuesday.

While the United Nations has insisted that the withdrawal from Baghdad is only temporary, officials say there is no clear timetable for a return. The review of future activities in Iraq is "literally on a day-to-day basis," Shashi Tharoor, the under secretary general for communications and public information, said in an interview.

Fred Eckhard, a United Nations spokesman, said late this week that the policy discussions in Baghdad and Washington would not have an immediate effect on Mr. Annan's decision to revive United Nations operations in Iraq. "Should there be an improvement in security as a result of a change of approach, I think he would be more willing to consider sending his people back in," Mr. Eckhard said.

What frames the analysis and perhaps even complicates it, officials said, is an Oct. 16 Security Council resolution that was intended to define the role of the United Nations in Iraq but left many here perplexed as to its full meaning. The resolution acknowledged that the United Nations had a "vital role" in Iraq, and endorsed a list, provided by Mr. Annan, of political and social services that the United Nations would provide. It also allowed Mr. Annan to provide those services as the security situation permitted.

But in the view of officials here, the document did not clarify the political relationship between the United Nations, the Iraqi people and the American-led occupation forces. Mr. Annan has said that given the risk of working in Iraq, he would prefer to have United Nations employees work under a sovereign transitional government and not in a subordinate role to the occupying power, which, he believes, increases the danger for his staff.

"The Security Council has spoken on several occasions about the U.N. playing a central role, but it has never been clear what is meant by that," said Danilo Turk, assistant secretary general for political affairs. United Nations officials hope that now, with the changes in the timetable for restoring Iraqi rule, their ambiguous mandate will become clearer.

Meanwhile, because the Oct. 16 resolution allows the United Nations to calibrate its involvement depending on the security threats, Mr. Annan has time to contemplate how much risk he is prepared to take under the mandate - but only as long as the security situation remains severe, Security Council and United Nations officials agree. "The Council is mindful that security is a problem," a State Department official said. "Which is not to say there won't be pressure put on the secretary general as the situation improves." "Everyone wants this enterprise to succeed," Kieran Prendergast , Mr. Annan's undersecretary general for political affairs, said. "The challenge is to find the most sustainable basis for it."

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.