Last Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to expand its mission in Iraq, despite the deteriorating security conditions in the war-ravaged country.
Resolution 1770, presented by the U.S. and UK and approved by all of the council’s 15 members, extends the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) by one year. It allows the expansion of the UN staff in Iraq and paves the way for a UN special envoy "as circumstances permit" to "advise, support and assist" the Iraqi government in a wide range of matters -- political, economic, legal, and human rights among them.
Currently there are only 55 UN staffers in the country, 50 in Baghdad and five in Basra. Some 235 UNAMI-affiliated staffers work out of Jordan and Kuwait, according to AFP. Under the new resolution, the number of UN staff will increase from 65 to 95, a small but largely symbolic step for the Security Council, which ordered most of its 600 staff to leave Iraq after their office in Baghdad was hit on August 19, 2003 by a truck bombing that killed 22 people, including special UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The new resolution will allow the UN to help the Iraqi government to promote national reconciliation, humanitarian assistance, human rights and regional dialogue on issues such as border security, energy and refugees. It will also help settle disputes over internal boundaries - all the tasks that the U.S. has so far failed to fulfil in Iraq.
"A peaceful and prosperous future is for the Iraqis themselves to create, with the international community lending support to their efforts,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon said after the vote.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Friday’s resolution “sends an important signal of the United Nations' commitment to support stability and security in Iraq.”
The Iraqis too welcomed the resolution, but acknowledged that the greater responsibility for improving Iraq’s situation falls on their shoulders.
"Our view right from the beginning was that we should have an important role for the UN," said the Iraqi ambassador to the UN, Hamid el Bayati, adding that his government hopes that the special UN envoy would have the strong personality needed for the critical job.
"We are aware that these challenges should be addressed by the government and the people of Iraq," he also said. "While we realise that it is in principle a national responsibility, we however cannot achieve it without the assistance of the international community, represented by the United Nations.”
Bayati also said that he didn’t see U.S. support for the resolution as heralding a move to eventually pass security responsibility for Iraq over to the United Nations. "The U.S. is having a different role. U.S. forces are not going to be replaced by the UN. The UN is not going to send forces… The U.S. is doing a military and security role but the UN will do another role which is political, humanitarian,” he stressed.
The fact that the UN will have no military or security responsibilities in Iraq prompted fears among UN staff; mainly because Iraq’s security conditions have sharply deteriorated since the 2003 attack on the UN headquarter in Baghdad. Perhaps this is the major obstacle to the success of any UN mission in Iraq.
Although postings in Iraq would be voluntary, many UN employees feel that refusing to travel to Baghdad would hinder their career promotions, according to a BBC article.
In a statement Tuesday, the UN Staff Council called on Ban "not to deploy any additional staff members to Iraq and to remove those currently serving at the duty station in Baghdad until such time as the security situation and environment improves."
"We would love to help the people of Iraq but the situation is not ready. UN staffers, when they go to a mission they mingle with the people to find out what their needs are, but at the moment we cannot do that," said Emad Hassanin, vice president of the UN Staff Council. "We want to make sure that no staff are forced to go to this mission if they don't want to go because of safety and security reasons."
But Ban sought to ease such fears on Friday, saying that the safety of UN staff in Iraq “will remain a paramount concern”.
Although the UN has been involved with Iraq’s refugees issues and election monitoring, it has been mostly an observer in other aspects. But many diplomats criticize the U.S. attitude, with some saying that the Bush administration now wants the UN to clean up the mess it created in Iraq after it sidelined the world body when it decided to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Washington has for months been pushing for an expanded UN role in Iraq, a proposal that Ban backed during a meeting with President Bush last month.
In the day preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush had predicted that the UN would meet the fate of the now defunct League of Nations, if it did not help confront Saddam.
On the other hand, supporters of Friday’s resolution say that it could be the right decision to help make progress in Iraq and ease the political crisis there by bringing rival factions together -- particularly those who aren’t willing to talk to the United States.
The adoption of resolution 1770 would definitely bring some changes, though how far reaching such changes would be is still unclear.
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