UN anger over Iraq

Nobody said it would be safe

David Malone, International Herald Tribune (IHT), New York

Adangerous outgrowth of the deadly bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad a year ago has been an orgy of outrage and self- pity that has increasingly paralyzed the UN’s capacity to respond meaningfully to needs in Iraq that it might be best placed to address.

When the UN’s charismatic and talented representative in Baghdad, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 of his colleagues were killed on Aug. 19, 2003, the shock waves within the organization were severe. De Mello’s team included many of the UN’s most dedicated people, who had volunteered to assist in what they knew was a difficult and risky job.

The UN’s presence on the ground in Iraq was a patchwork of international humanitarian and development programs, in addition to de Mello’s political mission and the residual oil- for-food program set up to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the sanctions against Saddam Hussein.

In retrospect, there were more staffers than strictly necessary, not least because UN pro- grams tend to expand wherever funding is available. And the UN, not least de Mello him- self, made serious security mistakes, for exam- ple, ignoring basic safety measures like the blast-proofing of windows and insisting that
U.S. military protection be withdrawn. Grief and rage among the staff ran deep, and I share their mourning, having lost one of my closest and most admired friends, Rick Hooper. I also still very much miss Sergio, a member of my institution’s board and one of the most engaging, dynamic and creative international administrators I have ever met.

At first, the response seemed normal, but as time went on, internal criticism of S.-G. Kofi Annan and his senior staff for allowing a UN deployment to Baghdad grew – a great deal of it tinged by hostility to U.S. policy in Iraq, some of it by anti-American sentiment.

Staff members seemed to want the world to feel sorry for them, the survivors, and to punish Annan for seeking to forge a bridge in sup- port of Iraqi needs between the coalition occupiers and the rest of the international community. Increasingly, it seemed to be Annan’s political judgment, not the UN’s security mistakes, that some were aiming at.

Over time this discontent has led to perverse results. The UN’s new representative in Baghdad, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, has insisted that security is « not only the first consideration, it is the first priority, the second priority and the third priority » for his mission. Can this be? Is the UN leadership now running scared of staff attitudes that have become dysfunctional?

UN staff members in Baghdad volunteered to be there. They were well aware of the risks. Unlike many representatives of nongovernmental relief agencies, UN staffers are well remunerated and generally work in better conditions than those available to other international actors.

Annan was initially lionized by his secretariat colleagues. He was one of them, the first secretary general elected from the UN’s career staff. His advocacy of human rights and the humanitarian imperative, and his diplomatic skills, won him the Nobel Peace Prize. But after excessive adulation has come irrational rejection, a syndrome well known to those who have fallen out of love.

Why does any of this matter? One reason is that the UN retains critical security functions in international relations, in which the secretary general plays a vital, often central, role.

Consider Africa: Most major powers do not wish to engage unilaterally, so they look to the UN for leadership and action. And while the African Union may be able to pick up some of the peacekeeping challenges in years ahead, the UN will remain at the center of efforts to mobilize international will to address the deadly contemporary conflicts unfolding on that continent. If Annan’s margin for diplomatic and operational manoeuver is to be con- strained by staff challenges to his judgment, the UN will be significantly weakened.

UN staffers, many of them highly dedicated and professional, and most prepared to take personal risks in the service of their ideals, need to get a grip. We don’t need the UN in Denmark or Canada. We need it in difficult and often unsafe environments, where absolute security cannot be achieved. This is part of the job, as it is in the foreign service, nongovernmental development and humanitarian organizations, and many private-sector groups, whose workers neither expect nor receive much recognition for the risks they run.

While the UN needs to adopt better security precautions, its staffers are wrong to display unwonted self-regard and to invite pity for their plight. The UN needs to move on.

David Malone, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, is completing his tenure as president of the International Peace Academy in New York.

Extract from The IHT, 01 October 2004.