UNSC members wrangle over UN’s role in Iraq

* Pakistan for collective peace effort
* No consensus on oil-for-food plan

UNITED NATIONS: Security Council members wrangled over the UN’s role in Iraq on Thursday as they wound up a two-day public debate held to allow all countries to express their views on the US-led war.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, hit back at the majority of the 85 speakers who took the floor, saying: “We disagree profoundly with those who avoid the central issue.”

Iraq was to blame for the war because it had rejected demands, spelt out in a series of council resolutions over the past 12 years, to strip itself of its weapons of mass destruction, he said.

“The coalition action is legitimate and multilateral,” he said, rejecting the criticism that the United States and Britain had invaded Iraq without the council’s authority.

While most of the 70 preceding speakers described the war as a violation of the UN Charter, condemnation by the 15 council members was in general more muted.

“Even in the midst of conflict, we must continue our collective efforts to search for ways and means by which peace can be restored,” Pakistan’s ambassador Munir Akram said.

“Obviously we will not be able to achieve this through condemnation or recrimination, however deplorable the use of force.”

The French ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, did not even call for an end to hostilities. “Our chief concern today is for the fate of the civilian population in Iraq. That is why we hope the military operations will be as quick and cause as few casualties as possible,” he said.

Like other members, he said the council should quickly adopt a resolution to reactivate the oil-for-food programme, which was suspended on March 18, when Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered all UN international staff to leave Iraq.

But Russian ambassador Sergei Lavrov warned the United States and Britain that it would not allow the UN’s humanitarian role to gloss over and justify their military action.

“We will not support the proposal that the mechanism of the oil-for-food programme be adjusted to the military scenario,” he said.

“While humanitarian objectives are important, there is no more urgent task than trying to halt the war and return to the path of a political settlement,” he went on.

“In pursuit of this objective we will continue to oppose attempts to legitimise the use of force against Iraq, directly or indirectly, or to shift responsibility to the international community.”—AFP



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