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Iraq-Jordan
U.N. Expands Iraq Presence Beyond Baghdad (Sorta.)
2004-12-15
The United Nations is taking the first baby steps to expand its presence in Iraq outside Baghdad to the cities of Basra and Irbil but is planning to have only about 25 electoral experts in the entire country ahead of the scheduled Jan. 30 elections, a U.N. spokesman said Wednesday. The announcement came on the eve of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's meeting in Washington with outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The two U.S. officials and the Iraqi government have been pressing the United Nations to expand its electoral team and its presence in the country. While deploying just 25 U.N. election experts is unlikely to satisfy the Iraqis or Americans, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said Monday the United Nations was "moving in the right direction" and expressed hope it would put personnel in northern and southern Iraq.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Wednesday that Annan "intends to proceed with further expansion" of the U.N. mission in Iraq and that a first step was sending security experts to the Shiite-dominated southern city of Basra and the mainly Kurdish northern city of Irbil. They will assess security conditions in order to establish U.N. offices "as soon as practicable," Eckhard said. Both cities have been relatively quiet, with British troops headquartered in Basra and 3,600 South Korean troops deployed in Irbil.

The security experts' mission will coincide with the arrival in Iraq of about 130 Fijian troops who will provide close protection for U.N. international staffers. The U.S.-led multinational force, in cooperation with the United Nations, is currently recruiting a special contingent to protect U.N. facilities and U.N. staff traveling outside the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad. "The Fijians are completing a training exercise and are in the process of being deployed," Eckhard said. In August, the secretary-general allowed a small U.N. contingent to return to Baghdad and imposed a ceiling of 35 international staffers. The upper limit was recently raised to 59 and Eckhard said Wednesday the number of staffers currently in Iraq is "in that neighborhood." With the arrival of the Fijians, who will be on the U.N. payroll, the ceiling will rise to about 200, Eckhard said. This would allow for a small increase in the international staff, presumably to staff new offices in Basra and Irbil.
Posted by:Seafarious

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