The United Nations Refuses To Help the U.S. in Iraq By Luc de Barochez Le Figaro Friday 26 September 2003 No country asked has offered to send troops or contribute financially to the country’s reconstruction. Neither money nor men: at the end of a decisive week at the UN, American president George W. Bush measures the failure of his attempted return to the international organization. “The Iraqi nation needs our help”, he pleaded Tuesday before the General Assembly in New York. Two days later, not one of the 191 countries represented there had responded to his appeal for help with a concrete promise, whether in the form of a financial contribution or by placing troop contingents at his disposition. The UN even decided yesterday to withdraw part of their expatriate personnel in Iraq, undermining American normalization efforts a little more. The reserve of those countries that have been solicited may be explained by their reluctance to legitimate American intervention a posteriori, by their security fears given the increased number of attacks, but also by their irritation with the United States’ objective of confining the UN to a subsidiary role. Many countries following the examples of France and Germany are also convinced that sending additional troops in the framework of a military occupation would not facilitate the country’s pacification. The vast majority of those countries which have expressed themselves up to now at the UN podium consider that only the end of the occupation and a restitution of sovereignty to Iraq could turn the situation around. Mexican president Vicente Fox, whose country is presently a Security Council member, has thus spoken in favor of “a rapid restoration of complete sovereignty and independence to the Iraqi people”. The Chilean head of diplomacy, Soledad Alvear, who also sits on the Security Council, considers it “essential to fix a schedule” for Iraqi sovereignty. Along the same lines, the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, yesterday demanded a political “road map” for the constitution of a representative Iraqi government. Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, posed a whole series of conditions for the dispatch of his country’s troops to Iraq, the first of which was the desire that they not be “occupation troops”. The Pakistani and Indian reactions are important because American officials have been besieging New Delhi and Islamabad the last two months, in the hope of obtaining large troop contingents of over 10,000 men. Bush himself personally met with Vajpayee and Musharraf separately in New York. In vain. Also importuned, Turkey balked, despite the grant of 8.5 billion dollars to Ankara. “We have clearly stated that we don’t want to take part in an occupation”, explained Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah Gul. Before his meeting with Bush today at Camp David, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke with a different tone, avoiding the question of Iraq’s sovereignty in his UN speech. Nevertheless, he demanded a “direct UN participation in Iraq’s reconstruction”. International reticence poses three series of difficulties for American leaders. For one thing, meager international aid increases Congress’ hesitation to grant the 87 billion dollars demanded by the White House. For another, the absence of new foreign troops will undoubtedly constrain American military heads to dip into the National Guard and mobilize new reservists. Finally, international passivity risks stripping away any relevance from the new resolution to facilitate the dispatch of troops and financial mobilization the United States hopes to see the UN Security Council adopt. All of a sudden, an American official acknowledges that the resolution might not see daylight for several weeks. The deadline has been set for October 23, the date scheduled for the meeting of international donors in Madrid. The United States, however, remain essentially intransigent: Secretary of State Colin Powell explained to his listeners in New York that the United States would not cede control of Iraq to any but a democratically elected power in Baghdad. From now until the time democratic elections can be organized in Iraq much water will have flowed beneath the bridges of the Tigris and Euphrates.              Printer-friendly version Click here to be added to our mailing list.