Global Policy Forum

By Warren Hoge

The United Nations said today that it had decided to dispatch security advisers to Baghdad to study safety provisions in preparation for a possible early return of staff members to Iraq. Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary general for political affairs, told American Ambassador John D. Negroponte in a letter that a four-member team of military and security experts would be sent to the Iraqi capital within two weeks.

The move could be a first step in the world body's reconsidering its determination to delay returning to Iraq until the scheduled July 1 transfer of power to Iraqis from the Provisional Coalition Authority, which represents the United States and the other occupying forces. "The return to Iraq of United Nations international staff is contingent in part on acquiring and upgrading suitable working and living accommodations and enhancing security arrangements," Mr. Prendergast's letter read. "In that connection, there is an early requirement to strengthen our liaison with the coalition forces so that the United Nations is able, among other things, to supervise facilities upgradings and other security enhancements from a safe interim location in Baghdad."

Secretary General Kofi Annan withdrew all international staff from the country in October following attacks on relief workers and the Aug. 19 bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The United Nations Iraq mission is operated by almost 1,000 Iraqi staff members and directed from offices in Cyprus and Jordan.

The United States and some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been pressing Mr. Annan to recommit the world organization sooner than the July transfer date, but he has insisted on obtaining clearer details on what the organization's responsibilities would be and how its workers would be protected.

He is said by his closest aides to be deeply concerned that the United Nations not get caught in the middle between the emerging Iraqi leaders and the coalition, subject to manipulation by both. He reportedly feels that the perception among some Iraqis that the United Nations was part of the occupation made it a target of violence, and he is consequently wary of placing staff members back in the country until authority passes to Iraq.

In Washington, J. Adam Ereli, a State Department deputy spokesman, welcomed the trip of United Nations officials to Iraq and said they might play a role in American plans to revise its caucus-based process of selecting the interim legislature that is supposed to take power after June 30. The American occupation is refining the plan in response to the rejection of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is demanding that the legislature be chosen through direct elections. "The U.N. has a lot of expertise in electoral processes, in setting up systems, election commissions, election bodies, monitoring elections, helping people set up regulations," Mr. Ereli said. "The whole infrastructure of democracy is something that the U.N. does very well."

Last month, Mr. Annan invited members of the Iraqi Governing Council and the Coalition Provisional Authority to a meeting with him in New York next Monday to discuss the United Nations role in Iraq and the timing of its return. Four members of the council have accepted, but there still is no word from the United States on whether any authority members will participate. After meeting with Mr. Annan on Friday, Mr. Negroponte would say only that the United States would be "appropriately represented."

Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile, this month's Security Council president, disclosed that Iraq's minister of planning and development, Mahdi Hafedh, had written him to request a meeting with the entire Security Council on Monday. The letter will be discussed on Wednesday at a Security Council closed-door consultation, Mr. Munoz said.

Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for the United States mission, said that ranking security officials from the State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff were coming from Washington for a meeting with Mr. Prendergast late today. "The U.N. asked a lot of questions on Friday," he said, "and we wanted to get back with the the appropriate answers."

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