UN's Annan makes first post-Saddam visit to Iraq

BAGHDAD - An emotional United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid tribute to fallen colleagues when he made his first visit to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The United Nations has been operating at greatly reduced levels in the country since international staff were withdrawn in October 2003 after two bombings at its Baghdad offices but its operations are slowly beginning to expand.

"I have been wanting to come for quite some time," Annan said, recalling his envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was among 22 people killed in a truck bombing at the former UN headquarters in August 2003.

"As I walked into our building I stopped by a monument erected to our dear friends who died here in 2003 ... They carried no guns, they came to help and their lives were cut short," he told reporters inside the heavily guarded UN compound in central Baghdad.

Annan addressed many of the more than 200 staff working in Baghdad and spoke with feeling of Vieira de Mello and other UN workers who died.

Annan earlier met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and several other senior political leaders, including former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and nine Sunni Arab leaders who will contest parliamentary elections on December 15.

The visit to Iraq was Annan's first since a highly critical report on the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq before 2003 that has severely damaged his reputation.

A year-long probe of the US$64 billion ($94.25 billion) humanitarian programme for Iraq castigated top UN officials for tolerating corruption and faulted the 15-member Security Council for turning a blind eye to oil smuggling and other illicit earnings outside the programme, a violation of UN trade sanctions.

The probe found no evidence of corruption by Annan but said he shared blame for mismanagement.

Iraqi officials have been pressing the United Nations for months to significantly increase its involvement in humanitarian, political and reconstruction activities. The UN mission in Iraq opened two offices outside Baghdad in Basra and Arbil late last year and will soon open another in Kirkuk.

"As difficult as it is, we need to continue with our work and do whatever we can to stabilise and bring peace to Iraq," Annan said.

- REUTERS