UN staff forced back into Iraq to provide ‘fig-leaf cover’ for US

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http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2854586.ece

Saturday, August 11, 2007

By Anne Penketh

The United Nations is to return kicking and screaming to Iraq under an internationally-approved plan for it to have an expanded political role in support of the Iraqi government.

The 15-member UN security council yesterday unanimously adopted a resolution authorising the UN to return to Iraq almost four years to the day that it pulled out most of its staff after a deadly car bomb that killed its envoy.

The resolution, co-sponsored by the US and Britain, will provide a fig-leaf, if needed, to cover a withdrawal of coalition forces from Iraq in the coming months, and pick up the pieces afterwards. But the US and Britain deny any such intention.

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1. the WH has to be seen to have 'international" help and support!

The organisation is asked to help facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and the return of the two million refugees who have fled the country for Syria and Jordan. The American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, expressed the hope that the resolution – backed by countries such as Russia and France which were opposed to the 2003 invasion – would be “a springboard to greater international support for Iraq’s government and people”.

The resolution has been adopted at a time when Mr Bush is under mounting political pressure to agree to a timetable to withdraw US troops, as his much-heralded “surge” of 20,000 additional soldiers has failed to gain control of Baghdad.

British forces in Basra are also facing increased attacks from Shia militias amid local expectations that Gordon Brown will withdraw the remaining 5,000 troops in southern Iraq.

Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, expressed