There is a ghastly irony in the atrocity in which so many people were killed and injured in Baghdad yesterday when the United Nations headquarters was car-bombed. Many critics of the United States led occupation of Iraq have called for a new UN resolution to legitimise a more international force with greater peacekeeping and nation-building capacity and allow more states join it.
This bomb shows that whatever the role of the UN as the focus of such criticisms there are significant forces at play in Iraq capable of delivering a devastating blow against even its present circumscribed role. It is difficult to see who can profit from such chaotic disorder.
Criticism has been increasing of how the US occupation forces have been running the country after the war, along with their allies from Britain and other members of its "coalition of the willing". Sabotage of major water, electricity and oil facilities in recent days has added greatly to the growing inconvenience of ordinary Iraqis who are without basic security and order. Elementary policing and public administration functions are lacking, allowing looters, thieves and saboteurs virtually free rein in Baghdad and other cities. As Michael Jansen reported yesterday in this newspaper, "in the absence of order, educators, factory managers, plant foremen and businessmen are being killed, blackmailed and intimidated". Resentment of the US occupation authorities is mounting.
Unresolved conflicts between them and their Iraqi appointees means ministries mark time rather than working around the clock to rebuild the shattered infrastructure and economy. These failures have overshadowed modest successes such as the pursuit and capture of former regime leaders, restoration of local administration, some demilitarisation and initial preparations for elections next year. The rapid military victory last March did not prepare the US for the peacekeeping and reconstruction tasks involved in the occupation. The Pentagon -dominated administration running Iraq is presiding over an inefficient and ineffective post-war regime; but the Bush administration is loath to broaden its political base with a new mandate from the UN which would allow the involvement of states with more experience of reconstruction like India, Turkey and even France.
Despite this attack on the UN, such a broadening of the mandate governing the post-war occupation is increasingly urgent if Iraq is not to disintegrate. President Bush once again denounced terrorist enemies in his statement yesterday on the atrocity. But resistance is being bolstered by the growing failure of the occupation to tackle the most elementary tasks, as well as by those opposed in principle to the United States presence in Iraq.