[R-G] U.N., Pressed by U.S., Plans Larger Iraq Role

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 The Washington Post
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http://www.washingtonpost.com
The Washington Post

August 8, 2007 Wednesday
Suburban Edition

SECTION: FOREIGN; Pg. A09

DISTRIBUTION: Maryland

LENGTH: 1176 words

HEADLINE: U.N., Pressed by U.S., Plans Larger Iraq Role

BYLINE: Colum Lynch; Washington Post Staff Writer

DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 7

BODY:


The United Nations has offered to increase its presence in Baghdad  
for the first time in more than three years, after repeated appeals  
from the Bush administration for the world body to play a more active  
role in mediating Iraq's sectarian disputes.

B. Lynn Pascoe, the top political adviser to Secretary General Ban Ki  
Moon, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the United  
Nations is prepared to boost its personnel in Iraq over the coming  
months. The organization is also seeking $130 million to build a  
heavily reinforced compound in Baghdad to house the growing U.N.  
mission.

The U.S. push for a broader U.N. role in Iraq underscores  
Washington's reliance on the United Nations to strengthen  
international support for the war. The move also reflects a  
commitment by Ban, who took over as U.N. chief in January, to  
overcome the institution's deep aversion to aiding the U.S.-led  
coalition in Iraq. Ban has vowed to do more than his predecessor,  
Kofi Annan, who opposed the U.S. invasion, but he faces a backlash  
from U.N. officials who fear inheriting the Iraqi mess and from Iraqi  
leaders who worry that U.N. peacekeeping efforts could diminish their  
power.

"There is an effort by the United States to try to re- 
internationalize the Iraq venture," said Qubad Talabani, a Kurdish  
representative in Washington and the son of President Jalal Talabani  
of Iraq. "I think there would be widespread opposition to the U.N.  
freelancing in Iraq. Any involvement by the United Nations has to be  
in very close coordination with the Iraqi government."

The United States and Britain are pressing for a vote Thursday on a  
Security Council resolution calling on the United Nations to promote  
talks on national reconciliation and to marshal regional and  
international support for Iraq. The resolution also instructs the  
United Nations to help resolve territorial disputes, particularly in  
the northern Kurdish territory, where Iraqis are preparing for a  
referendum on the future of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

"What is driving the conflict now is largely disagreement among the  
different Iraqi groups on political, economic distribution of power  
and to prevent unhelpful regional interference," said Zalmay  
Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"The U.N. needs to play a bigger role that can help the Iraqis  
overcome these difficulties. . . . One of the advantages of the U.N.  
is that it can reach out to many groups and some groups that do not  
want to talk to other external players," he said, referring to the  
United States and Britain.

Pascoe told the Security Council on Tuesday that the U.N. staff in  
Baghdad could grow by nearly 50 percent, with the ceiling on workers  
in the capital rising from 65 to 95 by October.

Khalilzad has also pressed the United Nations to name a dynamic new  
special envoy to head its mission in Baghdad, replacing Ashraf  
Jehangir Qazi of Pakistan, who will step down in the coming months.  
Front-runners include Staffan de Mistura of Sweden, a former deputy  
U.N. envoy in Iraq, and Jean Arnault, a Frenchman who ran U.N.  
operations in Afghanistan, Guatemala and Georgia.

The Bush administration's overtures to the United Nations --  
including two visits by Ban to the White House since January --  
contrast with the disdain it held for the organization in past years.  
On the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush predicted  
that the United Nations would meet the fate of the defunct League of  
Nations if it did not confront Saddam Hussein. And the Pentagon  
sought to exclude the United Nations from any involvement in Iraq's  
reconstruction.

In the months after Hussein's fall, however, the Bush administration  
turned to the Security Council for endorsement of the U.S.  
occupation. U.N. officials in Iraq eventually helped stand up a  
transitional government, organize elections and negotiate a  
constitution.

But the institution has become a spectator as Iraq has slid deeper  
into chaos. The drawdown of British troops in the south has forced  
the United Nations to withdraw its staff from Basra, one of three  
U.N. headquarters in the country. Pascoe said that a spike in suicide  
bombings in Irbil -- where the United Nations has a small mission --  
has made it difficult to expand operations there. The U.N. mission in  
Baghdad has been largely restricted to the coalition-controlled Green  
Zone, limiting the United Nations' ability to reach out to Iraq's  
disparate political players.

U.N. officials have grown increasingly concerned about shielding its  
quarters from mortar and rocket attacks even in the protected area.  
In a reminder of the risks, a mortar shell exploded outside a room  
where Ban and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq addressed  
reporters in March.

Many U.N. staff members still harbor resentment against the United  
States over the 2003 suicide bombing that killed envoy Sergio Vieira  
de Mello and 21 other U.N. workers who were serving in Iraq,  
supporting a U.S. military mission the organization had opposed.

Some senior U.N. officials, including peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie  
Gu?henno of France and the human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour  
of Canada, have privately voiced concern about the United Nations  
being left with responsibility for Iraq, according to other U.N.  
officials. But even some officials who previously opposed a return to  
Iraq now argue that a U.N. mediation role could prove vital in  
breaking the political deadlock among the Iraqi factions.

"I think the worst thing of all would be for Washington to come to  
the U.N., ask the U.N. to do it, and the U.N. either to refuse to do  
it or to be unable to do it," said Kieran Prendergast, a former  
British diplomat who served as Annan's top political adviser. "I felt  
in my old job that the U.N. could have helped prevent some of the  
more egregious mistakes that were made, but you remember no one was  
listening to us."

Ban and Pascoe, a former U.S. diplomat, have been keen on carving out  
a more active role for the institution in Iraq. Pascoe has been  
seeking to head off a bureaucratic insurrection after the publication  
of an op-ed article by Khalilzad in the New York Times late last  
month outlining an expansive new role for the United Nations in Iraq.

At a recent meeting, Pascoe urged his top advisers to tell their  
staff members that the United Nations has no intention of inheriting  
the mission in Iraq and that the United Nations would simply expand  
the role it is already playing there. "The subject of cut-and-run,  
dump, all that stuff, it's not even out there," Pascoe said in an  
interview describing Ban's meetings with Bush and other  
administration officials.

"We were talking about areas where we might be able to be of some  
help. Clearly, the Americans were saying they'd like to have the  
help," Pascoe added. "We are, I think, seen as more neutral, maybe,  
in this process than others. We not only have the contacts, but we  
could talk to everybody." A meaningful role for the United Nations,  
however, will depend on "what the Iraqis writ large want to do -- not  
only the government, but the other groups."

GRAPHIC: IMAGE; Pool Photo By Mahmoud Al-badri Via Associated Press;  
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sees U.N. advantages in Iraq conciliation.

LOAD-DATE: August 8, 2007