Developing Nations: The UN in Iraq
by Simon Marks

No issue on the world stage has raised more questions about the future relevance of the United Nations than the crisis in Iraq.

Indeed, when President Bush addressed the UN Security Council in September 2002—making an ultimately futile appeal for support for the concept of taking action against Saddam Hussein—he personally challenged the organization to rise to the occasion.

"Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance," Bush said. "All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?"

But it isn't just the fact that the war in Iraq eventually went ahead without the approval of the Security Council that raises questions about the UN's future. Since Saddam Hussein was overthrown, the UN has played a very limited role in the economic and social development of the country.

That raises questions about the UN's ability to honor its own charter.

'Important to Have the UN Aboard'
Umm Qasr was the first major town that US forces freed from the iron grip of Saddam Hussein, and as they swept north toward Baghdad, the port of Umm Qasr briefly became a household name around the world.

Today the docks are working once again, receiving regular shipments of humanitarian and reconstruction aid. That in large part is due to the work of the United Nations.

The docks were mined by Iraqi military forces in the days leading up to war and the seabed was littered with more than 280 shipwrecks—many of them dating back to the first Gulf War in 1991.

The spoils of war made access to the port extremely hazardous, so the United Nations Development Programme oversaw a project designed to get the docks operational again.

"The UN is important in convincing Iraqis that things, at the moment, need to be sorted out," said Hamid Alkefai, spokesman for the Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad, the 25-member body appointed by the United States to assist in the governance of Iraq immediately following Saddam Hussein's fall.

"It is important to have the UN with us so that you have an impartial organization telling us exactly what is happening in the country, and also giving us help in areas where it has long experience, like providing humanitarian experience and many other areas. So it is important to have the UN on board."

No Shortage of Projects
But in Iraq, the UN was not on board for much of the 15 months immediately following the war.

On August 19, 2003, a routine news conference at the UN's headquarters in Baghdad was tragically interrupted by violence when a suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives at the compound.

The attack on the UN building took 22 lives, and with it the hopes that the organization could play a significant and immediate role in the reconstruction of the country.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered all but a handful of the 600 international staff working for the UN in Iraq to leave the country. More than a year after the war began, he still considered it too dangerous to redeploy.

But there is no shortage of projects in Iraq that would—under more normal circumstances—have commanded the attention of that large UN team.

Pay a visit to what was once the Saddam Children's Hospital in Baghdad—today it's called the "Central Teaching Hospital for Children"—and you'll find a scene that hasn't appreciably changed since its former patron fell from power.

The wards are still crammed with children suffering from respiratory diseases. The facilities still exhibit years of neglect. And doctors like Shafik Khodora—one of the hospital's senior medics—are battling to deal with a shortage of medicines and drugs that hasn't improved much since an international embargo ranged against Saddam's Iraq was lifted.

"Management is the same," Khodora said. "Diseases are the same. Sources of the diseases are still the same. I mean, we are still facing critical situations regarding poverty, regarding poor housing, poor hygiene. And these all are a challenge to the new government and a challenge to the coalition forces because unless they deal with these things and fix it, nobody can say that you have achieved any improvement or any aims."

Time to Reengage?
But in large measure, the United Nations' economic and social development work in Iraq came to an end where it started, with the project in Umm Qasr.

The UN Development Programme's Web site lists a handful of planned projects, including rehabilitation of Iraqi power stations and monitoring of the country's macroeconomic condition. But the list hasn't been updated since October 2003, and the UNDP home page makes no mention of Iraq whatsoever.

"I think there is a pressing need for the UN to be reengaged in Iraq as soon as possible," said Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister.

Pointing out that Chapter 1 of the UN Charter describes "solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character" as one of the purposes of the UN, he says it is time for the organization to meet its obligations.

"I think we need the UN, the UN expertise, to help us," he said. "We want it. There is no good going away from the problem, or trying to handle the situation from abroad, from Amman or Cyprus. I think the UN should be in Baghdad."

But Ross Mountain argues that the United Nations still IS in Baghdad.

Formerly a deputy to Sergio Viera de Mello—the chief of the UN's mission who died in the August 2003 explosion—he's now heading a UN operation in which a handful of international officials oversee the work of some 4,000 Iraqi staff members spread throughout the country.

"There are, of course, problems with distribution of power," Mountain said. "Distribution of fuel, distribution of drugs, for example, remains a problem. But there's a huge amount of work going into addressing these problems. We are seeking to be part of that solution."

'They Ignore Their Charter'
But "seeking to be part of that solution" is not the same as "being" part of it.

And some Iraqi political analysts, like journalist Mazen Maen, argue that security difficulties notwithstanding, the United Nations has a legal obligation to be fully involved across the board in Iraq.

"If we return back according to the Charter of the United Nations, according to their charter, they should maintain peace and security all over the world," Maen said. "But when we look at the conditions here in Iraq ... they ignore their charter. They didn't work toward peace and security in the country. They ignore their charter and they lost their credibility here in Iraq. They have no role at all."

The working port of Umm Qasr testifies to what the UN can achieve. And the UN Development Programme is fully engaged fighting HIV in Africa, promoting poverty reduction in Latin America, and democratic development in Asia and the Middle East.

But many observers argue that Iraq represents a litmus test for the United Nations in a variety of ways, and that by failing to be more involved in the country's reconstruction immediately, the UN is failing both the Iraqi people and itself.

'The Framing Issue'
"Iraq has become the framing issue for everybody. And yet it was neither a failed state nor was the intervention in Iraq typical of modern conflict," said Mark Malloch Brown, who heads the United Nations' efforts to help poor countries become less poor.

"The great majority of the wars of our time are inside nations when indeed there is a failed state and different groups are vying to control the falling masonry of a government falling apart. And so in that sense an Afghanistan or an Africa or a Liberia is much more typical of the security challenges we face in the critical role as development, as an antidote to it, as building a democratic ruled-based law of government."

Since Brown became administrator of the United Nations Development Programme in 1999, he has overseen a shift in the way the world approaches economic and social issues in the world's poorest and most troubled regions.

UN Role 'Very Disappointing'
But not everyone is impressed with the UN's development work in recent global conflicts.

"I think that the UN role in Iraq thus far has been very disappointing; the UN has done basically nothing for the Iraqi people," said Dr. Nile Gardener of the Heritage Foundation.

"I don't think the United Nations has been very effective in terms of dealing with failed states, and I don't believe Washington will be looking to the United Nations in terms of solving the problems posed by failed states."

While some conservative critics dismiss the United Nations entirely, the Bush administration finds value in the global institution's emergency response development work.

"I think that's actually where we find the UN most useful: [in] tangible operational issues on the ground, in countries in crisis, or in countries with a lot of poor people in terrible situations. And then we can work with them on a very practical scale," said Andrew Natsios, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, which is part of the State Department.

"What really counts is are we helping the poor, are we helping the people suffering from tyrannical and predatory regimes around the world," he said. "When we are, the United States is first to step up to say let's use the UN agencies that are competent to provide leadership in these areas."

The UN As Coordinator?
Julia Taft directs the UNDP's Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery.

"In Afghanistan, we started with quick impact programs," she said. "We put together tens of thousands of people to give them day jobs. Only, these were shorter-term jobs. And what we found was that after 60 days the people had enough self-confidence to start their own little microprogram or to have some skills that they would go and work in building certain kind of infrastructure as there was economic vitality that was coming in."

But is supporting a goal like that asking too much?

"Well, it's asking too much and it's not deliverable," Taft said. "If you look at Afghanistan, the most generous donor to Afghanistan is the United States. [But] the United States, however, doesn't put its money through the United Nations. They have their own staff out there, they have the Agency for International Development.

"But there are so many very difficult tasks that it takes a lot of donors and a coordination point through the UN to accomplish. And that's what we want to help bridge."

Related Web Links
UN News Center "Focus on Iraq"
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=50&Body=Iraq&Body1=inspect

Biography of Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator
http://www.undp.org/dpa/journalists/biographies.html#Mark

United States Agency for International Development donor coordination page
http://www.usaid.gov/policy/donor.html

© 2004 by The Stanley Foundation
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