Secretary general reports to Security Council

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- The United Nations is ready to expand its role in Iraq when the security situation in the country improves, Secretary General Kofi Annan said December 10 in a new report to the Security Council.
 
"I would like to state my conviction that the future of a nation of more than 26 million people and of a volatile region is at stake. The process of restoring peace and stability to Iraq cannot be allowed to fail. The consequences for the Iraqis themselves, the region and the international community as a whole would be disastrous," the secretary general said in the report.
 
"Very real progress has been made in the past few months in advancing free speech and freedom of political assembly, providing basic services and reconstructing the local police," Annan said in his report. "This progress should not be underestimated, nor should the efforts of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and newly emerging Iraqi institutions be overlooked."
 
At the same time the deadly attacks by insurgents have "inflicted serious damage" on the United Nations, the diplomatic community, international non-governmental organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as on coalition forces and Iraqi civilians, the secretary general noted.
 
In the 26-page report, the secretary general presented a complex picture of the situation in the country and discussed key developments, U.N. relief and recovery activities, the deployment of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and humanitarian operations since his last report in July 2003.
 
In Geneva, the secretary general announced the appointment of Ross Mountain of New Zealand as the interim head of UNAMI to replace Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in the August 19 attack on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, until a special representative is named in early 2004.
 
Mountain is currently the assistant emergency relief coordinator and director of the U.N. emergency relief office in Geneva. He will head a staff of 40 international U.N. staff based in Nicosia with another office in Amman until it is safe for the U.N. to return to Iraq.
 
Annan presented four suggestions on how to stop the attacks. First, he said, "we need to act on the recognition that the mounting insecurity problem cannot be solved through military means alone. A political solution is required."
 
Evaluating the security situation, the U.N. expects that "the security environment is unlikely to improve in the short to medium term and could deteriorate further; the United Nations will remain a high-value, high-impact target for terrorist activity in Iraq for the foreseeable future," the secretary general said.
 
Other actions needed to end the terrorist activity are: a national agenda that is seen to be truly representative of all segments of Iraqi society; intensified efforts by coalition forces to demonstrate they are adhering strictly to international humanitarian law; and broader international and regional engagement in Iraq, he said.
 
Discussing the report at a press conference December 10, Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast said that to play an effective political role in Iraq the U.N. needs the support of the Iraqi Governing Council, key Iraqi figures outside the process, the CPA, the Security Council, countries in the region, and major donors.
 
"We stand ready in principle, if asked, and again, as circumstances permit, to provide assistance to the eventual provisional government in the electoral and constitutional processes because we think those are two areas where we have a clear comparative advantage," Prendergast said.
 
But the undersecretary general emphasized that the first requirement for the U.N. is that the Iraqis themselves want U.N. involvement in the political transition process.
 
"We are not thrusting ourselves forward. In all of this, the first requirement is to ask what do Iraqis want -- what is the Iraqi requirement -- then what can we do to help and what are the constraints on that," he said.
 
Prendergast repeatedly stressed that security is a major constraint for the United Nations and the secretary general made clear in the report that U.N. activities have been and will continue to be constrained by the security situation.
 
"The secretary general cannot compromise the security of our international and national staff and he indicates in the report that among the questions he will have to ask himself in taking the difficult decisions that lie ahead is whether the substance of the tasks allocated to the U.N. is proportionate to the risks," Prendergast said.
 
"In other words, for a cosmetic role, the risk threshold has to be much lower," he said. "For a substantive or vital role, I think the risk threshold would be a bit higher. But it still has to be an acceptable level of risk."
 
"There is a need to set out more clearly what exactly is expected of the United Nations and then we can decide how we might respond," Prendergast said.
 
"We do need to know what the re-emerging Iraqi political institutions and the CPA think so that the secretary general can take decisions as circumstances permit on the feasibility, scope, and timing of further U.N. assistance during the transition," Prendergast said.
 
"It is impossible to forecast right now if and when circumstances will permit the full deployment of UNAMI to Iraq and, therefore, for now the operation will be built up incrementally outside Iraq so we are ready when and if the time comes," the undersecretary general said.
 
The secretary general also reported on U.N. relief efforts since March, saying that $2 billion in aid had been delivered. The U.N. has had an important role to play in humanitarian relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts and has continued to play a critical role since U.N. international staff was withdrawn after the attack on its Baghdad headquarters on August 19. Many of the humanitarian activities have been carried out through national staff with the support of international staff deployed in neighboring countries.
 
Annan said in the report that though the needs will change, it is likely that Iraq will continue to require some form of substantial military presence for a number of years to come. "The Iraqi people need to be reassured that, if and when a new Iraqi Government requests such assistance on behalf of the Iraqi people, it will be forthcoming, not only from the current contributors to the United States-led coalition, but from a broad range of other countries as well," he said.
 
The council will discuss the report during a closed session on December 16.

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