14Jan04-Warren Hoge-U.N. Will Send Team to Iraq to Prepare for Possible Return
By WARREN HOGE
Published: January 14, 2004
NITED NATIONS, Jan. 13 — The United Nations said Tuesday that it had decided to send security advisers to Baghdad to study safety provisions in preparation for a possible early return of staff members to Iraq.
Kieran Prendergast, the under secretary general for political affairs, told the American ambassador, John D. Negroponte, in a letter that a team of four military and security experts would be sent to the Iraqi capital within two weeks.
The move could be a first step in the organization's reconsidering its determination to stay out of Iraq until the scheduled transfer of power to the Iraqis by June 30.
"The return to Iraq of United Nations international staff is contingent in part on acquiring and upgrading suitable working and living accommodations and enhancing security arrangements," Mr. Prendergast's letter read. "In that connection, there is an early requirement to strengthen our liaison with the coalition forces so that the United Nations is able, among other things, to supervise facilities upgradings and other security enhancements from a safe interim location in Baghdad."
Secretary General Kofi Annan withdrew all international staff from the country in October after attacks on relief workers and the Aug. 19 bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including the mission chief.
The United States and some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been pressing Mr. Annan to recommit the United Nations before the transfer date, but he has insisted on clearer details on what the organization's responsibilities would be and how its workers would be protected.
He is said by his closest aides to be deeply concerned that the United Nations not get caught between the emerging Iraqi leaders and the occupation, subject to manipulation by both. He is said to feel that the perception among some Iraqis that the United Nations was part of the occupation made it a target, and he is consequently wary of returning staff members to the country until authority passes to Iraq.
In Washington, J. Adam Ereli, a State Department deputy spokesman, welcomed the trip of United Nations officials to Iraq and said they might play a role in American plans to revise its process for selecting the interim legislature that is to take power after June 30.
"The U.N. has a lot of expertise in electoral processes, in setting up systems, election commissions, election bodies, monitoring elections, helping people set up regulations," Mr. Ereli said. "The whole infrastructure of democracy is something that the U.N. does very well."
Last month, Mr. Annan invited members of the Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority to a meeting in New York on Monday to discuss the United Nations' role in Iraq and the timing of its return. Four members of the Council have accepted, but there is no word on whether members of the occupation authority will participate.
After meeting with Mr. Annan on Friday, Mr. Negroponte would say only that the United States would be "appropriately represented."
Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile, the Security Council president this month, said the Iraqi minister of planning and development, Mahdi Hafedh, had written to request a meeting with the entire Security Council. The letter will be discussed at a closed-door consultation of the Council on Wednesday, Mr. Muñoz said.
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