Annan Resists Calls to Send U.N. Staff Back to Baghdad:
"It is the quick-fix remedy prescribed by many critics of the American-led effort in Iraq — send in the United Nations.

For Europeans, the United Nations' presence would provide a global-law seal of approval and a counterweight to American influence.

For the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, it would introduce a notion of outside acceptance."

Public opinion surveys of Americans showing 60 percent approving of President Bush's conduct of the Iraq operation also show nearly 70 percent of those polled calling for greater United Nations activity there. Even the United Nations-wary Bush administration has joined in the calls for the world body to get more involved right away.

Yet, with these urgent summonses coming into its New York headquarters from all sides, the United Nations itself is resisting.

It is doing so despite being a champion of joint international endeavors, an experienced hand at helping restore postconflict societies and an institution hounded by detractors' charges that its performance in Iraq is proving its irrelevance.

The issue for Kofi Annan, the secretary general, is what the United Nations' precise role would be and whether its people would be safe.

He pulled out all non-Iraqi staff members in October after a surge of attacks on relief workers and diplomats and the bombing of the organization's Baghdad headquarters in which 22 people, including the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, were killed.

In a chilling comment later to foreign ministers meeting in Geneva, Mr. Annan underlined how gravely he viewed the responsibility of having clear orders for his people. "Bad resolutions," he said, "kill people."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/international/middleeast/28NATI.html