Bush Agrees to a Larger U.N. Role in Iraq

Culminating a reversal of policy toward the United Nations, President Bush officially embraced a plan Friday that would give the world body a more prominent role -- perhaps even the central role -- in guiding Iraq’s postwar political transition.

After the U.N. Security Council refused to authorize use of force in Iraq early last year, the Bush administration resisted any significant involvement by the United Nations in postwar Iraq.

But as violence has surged in recent weeks and a June 30 deadline for transferring sovereignty nears, the president has gradually given in to arguments that only the United Nations could bestow legitimacy on an interim government.

Bush endorsed a plan under which U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi would appoint an interim body to succeed the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and oversee national elections in 2005.

“This week we’ve seen the outlines of a new Iraqi government that will take the keys of sovereignty,” Bush said in a ceremony at the White House Rose Garden with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. “We welcome the proposals presented by the U.N. special envoy Brahimi. He’s identified a way forward to establishing an interim government that is broadly acceptable to the Iraqi people.”

Blair, for his part, said, “The U.N. will have a central role ... in developing the program and machinery for political transition to full Iraqi democracy.

“And we will seek a new U.N. Security Council resolution to embody the political and security way forward.”

Both leaders acknowledged that, so far, Brahimi has described his plan in outline only, and that many details remain to be decided, including the kind of presence the United Nations would have in Iraq.

Security is a paramount concern for U.N. officials, who pulled out of Iraq last August after the bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed 22 U.N. employees.

On Friday, as skirmishes continued between U.S. forces and insurgents in the hot spots of Fallouja and Najaf and a video was released of a captive U.S. soldier, Blair and Bush sought to send a strong message of resolve. They said the United States and Britain would not change course in Iraq despite a surge in attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops and on foreign civilians.

“We will not waver in the face of fear and intimidation,” Bush said.

The two leaders also insisted that the June 30 date for transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government was sacrosanct.

“We hold absolutely to the 30th of June timetable for the hand-over of sovereignty to the Iraqis themselves,” Blair said.

The move was the latest in a string of policy reversals for the Bush administration, which enjoyed a swift military victory in deposing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but in the aftermath has struggled to ensure security and foster the establishment of a new government seen as legitimate by the Iraqi people.

In the last several months, the president and his aides have been moving gradually toward giving the United Nations more say in Iraq’s political future.

“The United States has seemed not to want to let the United Nations play the role of defining the political transition process,” said Bathsheba Crocker, a post-conflict reconstruction expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That is now the role the United Nations is playing.”

Crocker noted that the Iraqi Governing Council was seen by many Iraqis as a U.S. puppet. The Bush administration eventually recognized that it needed to find an international organization that could confer legitimacy on a new government, she said.

“It’s obviously good news and it’s a concession to the multilateral approach people have been pushing [Bush] toward for months,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution.

O’Hanlon added that it would have been better for Iraq if the U.N. had been brought in immediately after the end of major combat last year.

“The damage of the delay has been very great. It helped permit some of the anti-Americanism to fester,” he said. “Anti-Americanism has become the rallying cry for the opposition instead of Baathism.”

White House officials declined to describe the president’s shift as a change in policy, saying it was consistent with their months-old promise that the United Nations would play a “vital” role in postwar Iraq.

“The president all along said that the United Nations has a vital role to play in the political process in Iraq,” said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

But other administration officials have acknowledged that the president and his top aides had gradually been forced to recognize that they would not meet the June 30 deadline without help from the United Nations.

John D. Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters Friday that Iraqis and allies alike had been pushing for an early transfer of sovereignty. Negroponte is considered the administration’s leading candidate to become its ambassador to Iraq.

“The advice we’ve been getting from many quarters over the months has been that Iraq’s sovereignty -- the exercise of that sovereignty -- ought to be restored to the people of Iraq as soon as possible,” Negroponte said in New York. “So I think that as long as an adequate and acceptable mechanism can be found to establish a transitional government to whom to restore that exercise of sovereignty on the 1st of July, that process will go forward. There’s a strong commitment to achieving that.”

Negroponte called on U.N. member states to provide forces to protect future U.N. installations in Iraq.

“We would visualize that force as being especially dedicated to the protection of United Nations operations, but still under the Unified Multinational Force Command,” he said.

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has argued that the United Nations should be given the lead role in establishing Iraq’s political future and that Bush has erred with his approach.

“If they are tacitly admitting the failure of their unilateral policy and the unnecessary cost to American soldiers and American taxpayers, the country has a right to know why they won’t admit those mistakes publicly, why they failed to accept personal responsibility,” Kerry spokesman David Wade said.

Answering reporters’ questions, Bush insisted Friday that the June 30 date was not politically motivated.

“We’re not leaving because of politics,” Bush said. “We’re standing firm on our word because it’s right.”

The president’s warm reception of Brahimi’s proposal stood in marked contrast to his administration’s attitude toward the U.N. last summer. At that time, the common understanding was that the U.N. was there primarily for humanitarian reasons and was to play little more than a supporting role in the transition.

Brahimi’s proposal has yet to receive much of a hearing before the Iraqi people.

The Governing Council has not yet discussed the proposal. Many, if not most, of the council members are expected to be bypassed by Brahimi, who has indicated he probably will choose caretaker bureaucrats for a U.N.- appointed interim government, not potential political leaders. However, his choices will be made “in consultation” with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and local leaders.

The transitional government, which Brahimi said could be led by a group composed of a president, two vice presidents and prime minister, would govern until elections could be held early next year.

Adel Abdul Mahdi, the council member who often represents the influential Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said members’ approval “will all depend on who the people are that are appointed.”

In addition to an interim government, U.N. officials are working on plans to hold national elections in Iraq next January. And in the coming weeks, the Security Council is expected to prepare a new resolution that will recognize the upcoming change in sovereignty and to authorize the continuing presence of coalition troops.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has expressed support for Brahimi’s plan but has not yet given approval for the United Nations to oversee elections because of concern for the safety of U.N. personnel.

Times staff writers Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad, Maggie Farley in New York and Matea Gold in Philadelphia contributed to this report.