US shifts on role for UN in Iraq

Would cede some control on troops, government

By Mike Allen and Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, 9/3/2003

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to win broader international support for US policies in Iraq, President Bush decided yesterday to seek United Nations Security Council approval of a resolution granting the world body greater control over multinational peacekeeping forces and a role in forming a new Iraqi government, administration officials said.

The decision marks a major shift for Bush after months in which the administration had strongly resisted granting any significant military or political authority to the UN. It reflected a growing recognition within the administration that a stronger UN mandate was essential to winning greater foreign military and economic help in stabilizing Iraq.

Central to that effort is winning more pledges from foreign governments to send troops to Iraq to ease some of the burden on US forces, who have come under daily attacks for weeks and are struggling to contain an outbreak of bombings against institutions supporting the US effort. "We need the forces," a senior administration official said.

Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are among the countries that could supply substantial peackeeping forces but have held back because of the absence of a resolution conferring greater UN legitimacy on the US-led occupation.

It remains unclear how much authority the administration is willing to cede. The Pentagon insists that US generals remain in command of the nearly 150,000 US troops in Iraq, and the administration also has been reluctant to grant much control to the world body over the shaping of Iraq's political system and economy.

The president's decision, which was made in the face of mounting congressional calls for allowing the United Nations to play a greater role, marked an opening gambit in what should prove to be prolonged and difficult negotiations with Security Council members in the runup to an address by Bush to the opening of the UN General Assembly later this month. The speech will be made one year after the president went to the world body to outline his case for war against Iraq.

Several council members, led by France, have refused to back any measure that would endorse a US-dominated occupation. The differences have largely mirrored the disputes within the Security Council before the war, which Bush decided to launch without specific backing from the 15-nation chamber.

White House aides said that a draft of a resolution was circulating within the administration and that Bush asked Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during a meeting yesterday to begin negotiations with Security Council members to see what they would support. One White House official said the resolution was "in the consultative phase" and the response of Security Council members would determine what the United States does next.

Administration officials described the proposal as a variation on an idea advanced last week by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who told reporters the United States would consider supporting a multinational military force under UN leadership, but still subordinate to US commanders. One official said the idea was "a multinational force under a unified command," with a role for the United Nations in Iraq's political, economic, and security operations.

"What remains key is that the US remain in charge of the operation," a senior defense official said.

Security Council members reacted coolly to Armitage's proposal last week, saying it did not grant the United Nations a big enough say.

The officials would not spell out what role the United Nations might play in forming an Iraqi government, but said they will continue to keep the process in the hands of Iraqi citizens, first through a constitutional convention and later through elections.

State Department officials have long favored a resolution that would lend some United Nations legitimacy to the US occupation. But it appeared yesterday that the Pentagon was also coming around to this position. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon civilian leaders have adamantly opposed granting the UN a greater role in Iraq.

A senior administration official said Marine General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recently begun lobbying key members of the administration to support a UN resolution. The official added that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have become "much more interested in this than before," because they know a new resolution is necessary for them to attract new peacekeeping forces to Iraq. A senior administration official said recent assurances given by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to John Negroponte, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and others played a major role in the shift in the administration's thinking. Annan told the envoy that "there would have to be a unified command of any international participation and that that command would be the United States," the official said.