Posted on: Sunday, March 30, 2003

EDITORIAL
U.S. should seek help on Iraq reconstruction

Once the war in Iraq is finished, it clearly makes good sense to assign relief and rebuilding efforts as broadly as possible, including to the United Nations, for a number of reasons.

One reason is that the American economy will have difficulty enough in paying for the war itself without having to foot the bill for the bulk of reconstruction. Another is that, because the Bush administration claims the war is authorized by U.N. resolutions and backed by a broadly international "coalition of the willing," it is unseemly to leave control of rebuilding to just a few states.

At first glance, it would seem that the Security Council's reorganization Friday of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, by putting Secretary-General Kofi Annan in charge of it for the next 45 days, is a good sign. But on closer inspection, it's clear that any meaningful, continuing role of the U.N. in postwar Iraq remains problematic.

At their summit last week at Camp David, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Bush that he wanted an important role for the U.N. after the war. But Blair finds himself in the middle of some bitter players.

On one side is Secretary of State Colin Powell, who insists that Washington will remain in control of Iraq's postwar political structures. "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners," he said, "not to be able to have significant, dominating control over how it unfolds in the future."

That may mean little or no role for the U.N., which many officials in the Bush administration feel is a plodding, ineffective organization on its last legs. Indeed, the administration has already hired an American company to start running the port of Umm Qasr as early as this week.

On the other side are the French, and perhaps the Germans and Russians, who fear that U.N. postwar participation in Iraq might somehow make the war appear justified. Germany says it will join reconstruction efforts only if they are coordinated by the U.N., but adds that the war coalition should pay for it.

Annan, given a 45-day role for U.N. humanitarian relief, complains of having to administer funds and deploy U.N. staff members at the whim of the "occupying power," which appears to "legitimize the military action ex post facto."

Thus the bitter divisions that kept the Security Council from agreeing on disarming Iraq seem likely to marginalize its role in a humanitarian situation that grows more serious by the day.

If that's the case, it is both a humanitarian and diplomatic tragedy.