Stewart Stogel
Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003

Efforts Were Under Way to Reinforce Area Bombed

UNITED NATIONS – NewsMax has learned that the United Nations was concerned about parts of its Baghdad compound being seriously exposed to a terrorist attack. As such, it began the process of erecting a new reinforced concrete wall several meters tall this week.

The U.N.'s World Food Programme, whose offices were in the area of the Baghdad blast, had decided last month to increase security in its area of the compound, explained a U.N. official.

The WFP offices were in the viciniy of those of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in the attack.

Ironically, the facilities of the U.N.'s Iraq arms inspectors (UNMOVIC) survived the massive explosion. Offices once used by U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix and the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, also survived the attack.

Those facilities were located in the interior of the sprawling U.N. operations center, once the Canal Hotel, and not exposed to the public roads that encircled the compound.

U.N. officials tell NewsMax that de Mello's office on the second floor, in an area of the building overlooking a public road, was one of the "softest" sections of the compound.

"It is one of the areas which had the least security," confided one U.N. official.

De Mello's second-floor office directly overlooked the point where the terrorist cement truck exploded.

The U.N. envoy in essence was "sandwiched" between the first and third floors of the building as a result of the blast.

Why the U.N.'s security department allowed its most senior official in Iraq to occupy such an exposed office is a question many at the world body's New York City headquarters are now asking.

The road in question was occupied several weeks ago by Coalition troops, which had since re-deployed to other areas around Iraq.

De Mello himself recently warned the Security Council that U.N. personnel in Iraq were becoming dangerously exposed to terrorist threats.

Ironically, Annan was against assigning a high-ranking official to Iraq. He had considered the country too unstable.

Under pressure from the White House to "internationalize" the U.S. occupation, Annan named De Mello to temporarily lead the U.N.'s effort in the country last May.

He was due to conclude his assignment next month.

A report by U.N. security chief Michael McCann, who visited Baghdad in June, advised the U.N. to consider hiring "private" (local) contractors to make up for any personnel losses made by the potential re-deployment of Coalition troops.

The report was never acted on.

McCann was unavailable for comment.

"We just thought this could never happen to us," lamented one U.N. staffer.

They were wrong.

Late Tuesday night, U.N. security officials told NewsMax, there were several instances of "Middle Eastern"-looking men driving by Annan's home on New York's Upper East Side and photographing it.

"We ran license plate checks on them," one U.N. officer explained. He added that the plates "did not check out."

No other information on the investigation was offered.

Annan returns to New York City from s European vacation Wednesday afternoon.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
United Nations

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