Posted on 11/12/2005 8:25:20 AM PST by ncountylee
BAGHDAD, Nov 12 (Reuters) - An emotional United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid tribute to fallen colleagues on Saturday 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The United Nations has been operating at greatly reduced levels in the country since international staff were withdrawn in October 2003 after two bombings at its Baghdad offices but its operations are slowly beginning to expand.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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 U.N. 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 Dec. 15.
The visit to Iraq was Annan's first since a highly critical report on the U.N. oil-for-food programme in Iraq before 2003 that has severely damaged his reputation.
year-long probe of the $64 billion humanitarian programme for Iraq castigated top U.N. 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 U.N. trade sanctions.
(Excerpt) Read more at alertnet.org ...
The man is obviously "moved"...He needs to be left alone yall.....In the middle of Baghdad....at 1:30 am...
Is Kofi a moose?
Couldn't agree more about this human garbage.
Hey while he is in Iraq, maybe the Iraqis can give him a tour of Abu Ghraib prison with a little pink panty hat for the next 40 years.
That's a good question. I don't think so, but anybody know?
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