Global Policy Forum

Resolution Will Seek More Aid

By Robin Wright and Colum Lynch*

The United States is preparing to seek another U.N. resolution to back its new plan for Iraq and ensure that the first postwar Iraqi government does not fail for lack of international recognition, according to U.S. officials and European and U.N. diplomats.

A new resolution could also help win commitments for additional troops and reconstruction aid from other countries, which Washington has been unable to secure with three previous resolutions, U.S. officials said. In addition, it might lead to a renewed U.N. role in Iraq in helping oversee the selection of a new provisional government. "We want to pave the way for international acceptance for a new government and get a blessing for its legitimacy. We can't afford to set up a government for failure and let the international community later say it doesn't recognize it," a senior U.S. official said yesterday.

An administration official added: "In the end, we will need a new resolution to bless our exit strategy. We could go into Iraq without the United Nations, but it'll be much harder to get out and leave behind a viable government if it doesn't have some form of U.N. approval." In a choreographed sequence, the United States will wait until after the Iraqi Governing Council has presented its timetable for the transition to a provisional government. Under the most recent U.N. resolution, passed in October, the council must present its plan by Dec. 15, although the Iraqis may do it sooner because of the momentum behind a transfer of power, diplomats at the United Nations said yesterday.

In Europe, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters that any resolution now would be "premature." And a senior administration official traveling with President Bush in Britain said that the U.S.-led occupation does not need an additional U.N. resolution. But Powell discussed the need for a new U.N. resolution yesterday with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. governor of Iraq, U.S. officials said. And the language from U.S. officials and key U.N. members strongly signaled a return to the world body. "I think we will want to discuss what more is needed, in terms of the United Nations, in terms of its functions, in terms of its ability to support the political transition that will now be underway, and then you can work back from that to say, is a Security Council resolution a good thing," the senior administration official traveling with Bush told reporters. "I believe if there's something welcoming this political transition, that that would always be useful."

Even though U.S. officials have not decided exactly what a new resolution would stipulate, the United States and Britain have already begun putting out feelers. Deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley traveled Monday to New York to brief U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Security Council members on U.S. plans. U.N. envoys said that they were receptive to a resolution endorsing the new U.S. strategy, although countries were cautious about the prospect of committing troops or resources.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said Hadley conveyed Washington's desire to enlist U.N. support during the transition to a provisional Iraqi government next summer. Council members responded positively, he added. "We asked what sort of assistance or help they might need during this period," Wang said. "The Americans have a change of their approaches to the Iraq issue. Certainly for China and for many others we welcome it. Because now you have the intention of giving back sovereignty to the Iraqi people earlier."

Germany and France, which opposed the U.S. war on Iraq, are also willing to consider a new resolution, which the administration is seeking to expedite an exit from Iraq, partly to diminish the occupation as an issue in the 2004 elections. "Losing the peace is not an option," German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told reporters in Washington yesterday. "We don't exclude another U.N. resolution."

Some countries opposed to U.S. policy in Iraq noted that the new plan to transfer authority by June mirrors earlier proposals from Germany, France, Russia and the U.N. secretary general. The United Nations also appears to be receptive to renewing its role in Iraq, cut short by two bomb attacks that led to the withdrawal of its staff. In New York, Annan told reporters this week that he is close to appointing a new special representative to oversee the U.N. activities there, after appeals from Powell to reengage in Iraq. But Gunter Pleuger, Germany's ambassador to the United Nations, Annan and other envoys warned that any agreement on a political handover may not be enough to get the United Nations to return or to prompt governments to commit troops if the violence does not diminish.

In turn, Washington and London have also made clear that they are not prepared to engage in a prolonged rehash of earlier Security Council clashes over Iraq policy in exchange for a new resolution.

*Staff writer Peter Slevin contributed to this report from London.

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