The root of the security problem in Iraq is the U.S. occupation of the country, argues Yasmine Sherif, adjunct professor of international humanitarian affairs and human rights at Long Island University, New York. Worse, she says, the United States has cornered the United Nations into legitimising its breaches of international law.
"I have come here to learn, not to teach," Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. Special Representative for Iraq, reassured the Iraqi people when he arrived in their devastated country in June.
"I am going to Iraq in solidarity with the Iraqi people," Nadia Younes, his chief-of-staff told colleagues as she signed up for the U.N. mission in Baghdad.
A similar commitment to serve was held by American Rick Hooper, who had previously worked with the U.N. in Gaza for seven years.
All three were among those killed on August 19 in the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
Sergio Vieira de Mello and his staff did what the United Nations does better than anyone, namely serving a war-weary people in their quest for self-determination and democracy.
The deaths of this dynamic U.N. veteran and 22 other people raise serious questions that go well beyond improving security for humanitarian workers.
They compel us to examine the Bush administration's questionable approach to liberty and self-determination.
If these indeed are the true intentions of the U.S. presence in Iraq, the coalition forces have fatally failed on at least three accounts:
First, as long as U.S. armoured vehicles roll down the streets of Baghdad, and Washington insists on handpicking the Iraqi representation, there will no peace in Iraq.
Reality on the ground demands we recognize that the occupation itself has greatly contributed to the magnitude of violence.
Besides its illegality under international law, occupation, by definition, is an unnatural state that prevents progress toward self-determination and national independence.
Second, the U.S. administration has proven to be wanting in technical expertise with regard to peacebuilding toward self-determination.
During the abhorrent and totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraqis had no personal nor political freedom, but they retained the basic necessities for their immediate survival, and U.N. humanitarian agencies operated with relative security.
Today, despite the coalition intervention, Iraqis and the U.N. enjoy neither.
The U.S. appointed Governing Council is deprived of the political power required to have any significant say in the affairs of Iraq.
Moreover, the infrastructure remains highly dysfunctional, while the security situation for skilled national and international U.N. workers has never been as insecure, preventing the implementation of a solid reconstruction programme.
Third, and perhaps worst, the Bush administration lacks the humility needed to win the hearts of a long-suffering people.
In stark contrast to the words of Sergio Vieira de Mello and his staff, the Bush administration, through U.S. civil administrator Paul Bremer and his staff on the ground, tends to tell the Iraqis what they should or should not do with an attitude of both teaching and preaching.
A case in point is Paul Bremer's bullet-point orders to the Iraqi Governing Council following the attack on the United Nation., whereby he urged the Council to give the public the impression that this puppet body was in charge of the country.
"Tell them that the Governing Council needs to be seen governing, not later, but now," the memo from his staff read.
The patronising tone of Bremer's command to the powerless Council, whose hands are tied to U.S. directives, did not go down well with some of its members.
"We should have a real government, and then we could begin to solve Iraq's problems," one Council member responded in indignation.
As for George W. Bush's personal attitude to international problems, we are all too familiar with his crusade-like approach in the name of the "civilised world".
Tragically, the definition of "civilisation" by the world's most powerful political leader has proven to be a world order where international human rights law and the U.N. Charter, both of which represent humanity's most profound and noble aspirations, are disregarded in favor of the U.S. national interest.
Most absurdly, the Bush administration has cornered the United Nations into legitimizing its breaches of international law.
By adopting Security Council resolutions 1483 and 1500, the U.N. -- scrambling for space to protect the Iraqi people -- was placed in the bizarre position of collaborating with the very same power that had trashed its founding principles.
As the Security Council meets again to find a solution to a problem that is inextricably linked to the Bush administration's disrespect for the U.N. Charter, one can only hope that U.N. diplomats will be guided by Sergio Vieira de Mello's last words, spoken as he lay dying in extreme pain: "Don't let them pull out the mission."
In remembrance of our colleague who died for the founding principles of the U.N., the Security Council must now opt for a path that is consistent with the U.N. Charter and our universal standards.
Moving to end the occupation based on a clear timetable, allowing free and fair elections, and restoring Iraqi sovereignty will be more effective at ending the current insecurity and instability in Iraq than adding more tanks to the streets of an occupied country.
The U.N. must finally take charge of the reconstruction of Iraq, simply because it knows something that the current U.S. administration has proven it does not understand: liberty and human rights emerge out of trust and national ownership, not out of force and humiliation.
Yasmine Sherif, who has served with the United Nations for 15 years in Africa, Asia and Europe, worked under Sergio Vieira de Mello's leadership during his term as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in New York.
Survivors of the 2004 tsunami pass time outside their newly-built house in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast in this December 9, 2009 file photo. ...
