U.N. Was Wary of Role in Post-War Iraq (under US security)

[Nambe]

The Associated Press

The United Nations went into post-war Iraq with more trepidation than usual there was little security, the United States had waged a war without U.N. backing and relations with Washington were at an all-time low.

The strains led the U.N. Security Council to authorize a loosely defined mission which was forced to work with the U.S.-led occupation. The cooperation and a dependence on U.S. security may have compromised U.N. neutrality, many suggested.

But Tuesday's bombing, which took the lives of at least 20 people at the U.N.'s Baghdad headquarters, may have cost the organization even more. For the first time, U.N. employees, willing to brave war and disease to help the world's needy, demanded the United Nations leave Iraq and spoke angrily about having gone there in the first place.

In a statement, the U.N. Staff Council's security committee called on Secretary- General Kofi Annan "to suspend all operations in Iraq and withdraw its staff until such time as measures can be taken to improve security." ---