U.S. Faces Hurdles Over Dispatch of U.N. Multinational Forces to Iraq.

A U.S. resolution to get more countries to contribute troops under a U.N. umbrella for maintaining security in Iraq faces an uphill struggle.

Countries that consider dispatch of troops are raising their voice, saying “The coalition forces should hand over command over Iraq to the U.N,” but the United States is ignoring their demand.

The U.S. administration believes that the U.S. has the right to have command over Iraq since the U.S. pays 95 percent of expenses in Iraqi reconstruction, the CNN reported Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also made its stance clear by saying that “Transfer of control is not something that needs to be discussed today,” at a press conference in U.N. headquarters.

President Jacques Chirac, however, emphasized Thursday that “Unless U.S.-British coalition forces hand over their control over Iraq, we will not dispatch our forces.” Moreover, permanent member countries of the U.N. Security Council, including Syria, even set a date for the withdrawal of the coalition forces on condition of dispatching their forces to Iraq.”

Hence, any one in the U.S. administration hardly believes that the U.S.`s new resolution will be adopted soon, the CNN noted.

Even if the resolution is adopted, it is hard to say if U.N. member countries will be able to dispatch their forces. “The problem is the public consensus. How we can convince people that U.S. is not occupying Iraq is important.” Pakistani ambassador to the U.N. Munir Acram said.

Countries like Russia, France, China and France are not likely to be able to send their troops to Iraq anyway as they all have already dispatched quite a significant number of soldiers to the conflict regions, including Afghanistan.

In the meantime, the U.S. government that is conducting investigation on the terrorist attacks of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad found out that there were former Iraqi intelligence agents among the security guards of the headquarters, the New York Times said. The paper also added that terrorists knew exactly where and when late top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello was working at the time of the bombing attack and argued this indicates involvement of the suspected security guards in the terror.

Ki-Tae Kwon kkt@donga.com