The UN's "dysfunctional" security system led to unnecessary casualties in the August bombing of its headquarters in Iraq, and the world body inappropriately shunned protection by US-led coalition forces, said a UN-appointed panel examining the agency's security.
The 40-page assessment by the independent panel, released Wednesday, was perhaps the most condemnatory report on UN actions since those on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia.
The report raised questions about the world body's ability to ensure the safety of its employees without appearing to work in concert with an occupying force that is itself the target of guerrilla attacks.
PHOTO: AFP
The UN staff union called the report a "damning indictment" of the organization's attitude toward the security of its employees.
"But while it points to gross negligence and massive shortcomings ... it fails to hold anyone accountable," the union noted in a statement. "The real problem lies with the failures of management to adhere even to the existing security system."
Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, who chaired the panel, said the UN must address the issue of accountability.
"In the end, I think everyone bears responsibility -- the member states who are asking the UN to carry out those responsibilities, and of course ... the buck stops always with the secretary-general," he said. "But obviously there are clear messages to those who are actually in charge of the UN security coordination."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who appointed Ahtisaari to chair the panel, said in a statement that he will study the report and take steps "to ensure early implementation of its main recommendations."
Ahtisaari said the UN needs professional security assessments before sending staff anywhere, despite political pressures to act quickly.
"I think it's only natural that pressure is there continuously when the resolutions are passed by the Security Council and many [of] the member states [are] demanding a greater role for the UN," he told a news conference.
The panel described widespread noncompliance with UN security procedures and inadequate assessments of threats, and concluded that "the current security management system is dysfunctional."
The UN was accused of major security failures that put hundreds of UN staffers in Iraq at great risk and caused unnecessary casualties when UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad was bombed on Aug. 19.
A truck carrying about one tonne of high explosives was detonated adjacent to the hotel, killing 22 people, including top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injuring more than 150 others.
The report said UN senior management in Baghdad asked coalition forces -- the only credible security force in the country -- on several occasions to remove military positions and equipment from the vicinity of the Canal Hotel, apparently because they wanted to distance the UN from the occupying force.
The UN received "credible information on imminent bomb attacks in the area" in August, the report said.
Ahtisaari read from a security report the day before the bombing that said attacks on coalition and other foreign personnel indicated "a growing threat to international organizations that cannot be ignored."
Adequate security arrangements might not have prevented the attack but would have reduced casualties, the report said. It said that "security threats should have been expected from the outset."
After the Aug. 19 bombing, Annan refused to order all UN international staff to leave Iraq, wanting to maintain a presence for critical humanitarian and other activities, the report said. After a second bombing outside UN headquarters on Sept. 22 killed a UN security guard and two Iraqi police officers, Annan ordered all but several dozen to leave.
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