- UNITED NATIONS (Reuters)
- Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered new cutbacks of U.N. staff in Iraq,
a blow to demands the United Nations help draw up a new constitution the
Bush administration would like completed in six months.
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- During this week's U.N. General Assembly session, where
the Iraq crisis became a focal point, presidents and prime ministers from
Russia to Brazil called for the United Nations to assume more political
responsibility in Iraq.
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- But drastic reductions among the remaining 86 foreign
staff are expected by Saturday following two bombings against the U.N.
compound in Baghdad over the past five weeks that killed nearly two dozen
people and injured 160.
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- In proposals for post-war Iraq, some nations, like France,
want a rapid timetable for self-rule.
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- In response Secretary of State Colin Powell advocated
a deadline of six months for Iraqi leaders working under the American occupation
to produce a new constitution.
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- "We would like to put a deadline on them,"
he said in an interview in the New York Times published on Friday. "They've
got six months. It'll be a difficult deadline to meet but we've got to
get them going."
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- On Wednesday a member of the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing
Council told a news conference the 25-member body hoped to have a constitution
completed by May, albeit with difficulties.
-
- Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, said this
would involve U.N. assistance to write the document, the holding of town
hall meetings to explain the process, a referendum and finally elections
for a new sovereign government.
-
- However, it is uncertain if a fixed timetable will be
written into a Security Council resolution Powell wants adopted next month
to help persuade more nations to send troops and money to secure and rebuild
Iraq.
-
- A senior State Department official said no agreement
had been reached with France "on sovereignty issues."
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- REWORKING DRAFT
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- The Bush administration is reworking draft proposals
that would give U.N. authorization to a multinational force under U.S.
leadership. An early version asks the Governing Council to draw up a schedule
for a new constitution and elections, in cooperation with the U.S.-led
occupying coalition.
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- Wavering between calls from security experts for a total
withdrawal from Iraq and pressure from the United States and others to
stay the course, Annan on Thursday decided to pull back some of the remaining
86 international staff until their safety would be assured.
-
- U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said 42 international staff
were in Baghdad and 44 in northern Iraq and "these numbers can be
expected to shrink further over the next few days."
-
- No numbers were given but U.N. sources said they expected
more than half of the staff to be withdrawn and humanitarian duties left
to 4,233 Iraqi employees.
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- Some 600 foreign staff were in Iraq before the Aug. 19
bombing that killed the head of the U.N. mission, Sergio Vieira de Mello
and 21 others. On Monday a second bombing killed an Iraqi policeman and
injured 19 people.
-
- Russian President Vladimir Putin, a sharp critic of the
U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein, called for a stronger U.N. role in
Iraq on Thursday but did not join France in calling for a swift handover
of power to Iraqis.
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- Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi demanded an immediate
transfer of Iraqi sovereignty and a withdrawal of American and other foreign
troops.
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- He told the General Assembly that the United States went
to war without U.N. approval to find weapons of mass destruction and to
fight international terrorism.
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- "The first (goal) is yet to be realized. The second
has backfired," he said.
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- Kharrazi also addressed his country's own dispute with
the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has given Tehran until Oct.
31 to prove it does not have a secret atomic arms program. Diplomats in
Vienna said the IAEA had found traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium
at a second site in Iran.
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- Sounding a defiant note, Kharrazi said, "Iran will
vigorously pursue its peaceful nuclear program and will not give in to
unreasonable demands that are discriminatory, selective and go beyond the
requirements of nonproliferation in accordance with existing IAEA instruments."
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