UNITED NATIONS, 15 September 2003 — The terrorist bomb that destroyed UN headquarters in Baghdad last month sparked a period of soul-searching that has convinced anguished UN leaders and influential diplomats that the organization endured too much risk in Iraq for too little influence over events.
If the UN staff is to return to Iraq in large numbers, according to this view, the world body must be given more carefully defined responsibilities and greater independence than provided by the Bush administration and the divided Security Council.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, who this week in Geneva convened the foreign ministers of the world body’s five most powerful member states to discuss Iraq, is urging them to move beyond months of bickering to develop a workable consensus.
It remains entirely unclear how far the Bush administration, which retains military and political control in Iraq, will go to win support for a Security Council resolution it hopes will attract greater contributions of troops and money to the difficult postwar mission.
UN officials examining their role after the Aug. 19 terrorist attack that killed chief UN representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others are trying to deduce what would work. They say they are not seeking control, but a measured and legitimate role that helps move Iraq beyond the US-led occupation.
“For us, what happened in Baghdad on the 19th was the 9/11 of the UN. People haven’t fully absorbed it,’’ a senior UN official said. “There is the feeling, ‘Where does this leave us as an institution?’ At one level, you have to carry on. At another, you’re not absolutely sure that what you’re doing makes sense.’’
The latest draft resolution submitted this month by the Bush administration does not define a precise political or economic role for the United Nations, which is viewed skeptically by key US policymakers. One of Annan’s fears, officials say, is that the council will devise a largely cosmetic compromise that leaves the United Nations on soggy — and dangerous — ground.
“The staff is saying ambiguity is not enough,’’ one UN ambassador said.
Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, sketched the United Nations’ worries in a closed meeting of the 15 Security Council ambassadors on Sept. 5. According to several people present, he described the competing senses of risk and responsibility and said the United Nations is facing a defining moment.
French politicians have called for the United Nations to take the job of running the country from the US-led coalition headed by L. Paul Bremer, a move the UN leadership considers neither desirable nor likely. UN officials foresee a more modest job that could include shepherding the establishment of a constitutional government and helping with diplomacy and the resumption of Iraqi sovereignty.
Annan’s conundrum flows from competing pressures. One side includes the conviction that the troubled postwar reconstruction project needs help and that the United Nations can become a credible force for change. The other side includes security fears and the opinion sometimes heard among UN rank and file that Annan allowed the world body to be linked too closely to the US-led occupation.
“The travesty is that with our presence, we are legitimizing the occupation of a country,’’ one official said.
Annan felt bruised by the bitter Security Council fight over the war and its aftermath. He felt marginalized as the Bush administration ignored UN objections and invaded Iraq without the council’s authorization. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others publicly promised the United Nations a “vital role,’’ but the phrase did not mask the lack of influence granted to Annan’s office.
The United Nations had no clear mandate beyond the duties of agencies such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Food Program when Vieira de Mello was dispatched to Iraq as the UN special representative shortly after the war. Experienced in post-conflict situations, Vieira de Mello relied on his diplomatic skills and dynamism to confront the ambiguities and carve a role.
“We felt there was a real obligation to show the UN could be useful because there was all this stuff about how we had failed, because of the Security Council,’’ said one Annan aide, who described a sense of frustration. “The role was not satisfactorily defined. Sergio was sent out there as a kind of gadfly.’’
Vieira de Mello worked well with Bremer in establishing Iraq’s Governing Council, whose 25 members owe their jobs to the American coordinator. He reached out to Iraqis who would not talk with the Americans and met with officials in neighboring countries in ways that would have been more difficult for a US official.
Yet once the Governing Council had been established, its members showed little interest in the technical advice the United Nations was offering, said a UN staff member familiar with the situation. The United Nations’ political mission had reached a plateau, and Vieira de Mello’s staff was starting to rethink its purpose.
When a truck bomb detonated near Vieira de Mello’s office windows on Aug. 19, killing him and several of his closest advisers, the explosion rocked UN headquarters thousands of miles away. The death toll was higher than that of any single incident in UN history. Distraught staff members quickly asked why the organization had been targeted.
“This was the UN’s ‘A Team.’ A lot of them had been in key assignments, and a lot of them were friends of people here,’’ said a European diplomat in New York.
The motivation behind the bombing remains unclear. UN officials have suggested three main possibilities. One is that the bombers targeted Vieira de Mello because only a few days earlier he had endorsed the Governing Council, considered illegitimate by occupation foes. Another is that the United Nations was targeted in a campaign to make Iraq ungovernable.
A third theory is that the United Nations failed to develop an identity independent of the United States. A statement from a group that took responsibility for the bombing called for further attacks on the United Nations. In response to the bombing, the United Nations dramatically reduced its personnel in Iraq. There are now fewer than 100 international staff members in Baghdad, down from more than 300. A similar reduction is occurring in Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq.
As the United Nations searches for a way forward in committee discussions and more personal conversations in the corridors, many UN officials and diplomats believe the organization should be given a more important political and economic role in Iraq’s rebuilding.
“It’s not just improving the adjectives. You have to give it real muscle,’’ said a UN ambassador, discussing the debate over a new Security Council resolution that would also authorize a multinational force under US command. The diplomat said Bush should be more flexible and creative after refusing for months to share significant political authority.
“The United States is like a kid with a lot of marbles,’’ the ambassador said. “If you want to play with the UN, you have to give up some marbles or there’s no game.’’
He added, ``We’re not asking for all the marbles.’’
Indeed, the United Nations is wary of being given a role it cannot handle. As one official put it, “We have been decapitated. Sergio is dead. His very small team has been scattered to the four winds.’’
The Aug. 19 deaths and injuries are a lasting reminder of security worries.
“The people I know in the building have no desire to go back. There’s a sense that even if France and Germany kicked in, it’s not going to make a difference in safety,’’ said one UN official, who further questioned the U.S. reluctance to share power. “If the UN has no real role, why put people in harm’s way?’’
What the United Nations needs, according to several senior officials, is a Security Council resolution — similar to proposals made last week by France, Germany and Russia — that defines a role independent of Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority and empowers the world body to play a concrete role.
Such a solution could mobilize the UN staff to return to Iraq in larger numbers and, at the same time, make it a less likely target for political violence. But it would also require a dramatic convergence of Security Council nations that have very different ideas of the best way forward.
“Clarity is important to the UN. We’re nervous about a fudge,’’ a senior UN official said. “But we’re reconciled to a fudge as the most likely outcome, because that’s how the Security Council most often reconciles a difficult question.’’
