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Whitehouse wants un return to iraq { January 9 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1495-2004Jan8.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1495-2004Jan8.html
White House Wants U.N. to Return to Iraq
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2004; Page A12
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 8 -- The Bush administration is launching an effort to persuade the United Nations to return to Iraq in coming months and to support the U.S. plan for transferring governing power to Iraqis by June 30.
The emerging U.S. strategy will be outlined Friday by John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Britain's U.N. envoy Emyr Jones Perry, in a closed-door meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.
The United Nations withdrew its personnel after a suicide attack killed 22 of its staffers. Annan remains reluctant to send them back into harm's way, particularly if the delegation will not have independent authority to help shape the country's political future. Annan has set a Jan. 19 meeting to discuss the United Nations' role in Iraq.
On Friday, the U.S. and British delegations will sound out Annan on new pledges by the United States to protect U.N. personnel and on possibilities for a more sharply defined role for the organization.
They will also seek to enlist the U.N. chief's help in heading off an effort by influential Shiite Muslim leaders, including the cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to renegotiate the plan for political transition in Iraq. The current plan calls for a series of regional caucuses to appoint a provisional government this summer. Sistani wants elections conducted to create that government.
Abdel Aziz Hakim, a Shiite political figure who served as rotating president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council last month, asked Annan in a confidential Dec. 29 letter to send a U.N. team to Iraq to determine whether national elections could be organized before creation of a provisional government. He also appealed to Annan to help negotiate the terms for the country's political transition in the event that elections were deemed "unfeasible."
In an important concession to the United States, the U.N. chief sent Hakim a reply Thursday night, saying that elections cannot be organized in time for the establishment of the provisional government. He also declined to commit to a role in negotiating new terms for elections, but said that a more representative group of Iraqis should participate in the political process, sources familiar with the letter said.
Despite Annan's gesture, the United States on Thursday canceled plans to send a high-level delegation to Friday's talks. Officials had expected the delegation to include Kim Holmes, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, and William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. Burns will travel to Baghdad next week to refine the plan in discussions with L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of Iraq.
The United Nations withdrew most of its staff from Iraq in November after a string of terrorist attacks against the organization, including an Aug. 19 suicide attack that killed 22 U.N. officials and associates, including special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has been engaged in discussions with Annan on how the United States and its military allies might provide greater security for U.N. officials.
U.S. officials concede that they have no intention of assigning the United Nations sufficient independence in Iraq to negotiate new terms for the political transition.
But they insist that they do want to deepen U.N. participation. They said they want the organization to participate in drafting an interim constitution and help organize regional caucuses.
The Bush administration would also like the United Nations to urge groups outside the political process to support the U.S. plan for creating a government. Those groups include key Shiite Muslim leaders and representatives of the Sunni Consultative Council, a newly established association of Sunni religious and political figures. "We hope that the United Nations can play a useful role in bringing these groups along in support of the agreement," a U.S. official said.
Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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