U.N.’s Annan Seeks to Prevent an Assault on Fallouja

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned leaders of the United States, Britain and Iraq that another full-scale assault on the rebel-held city of Fallouja would further alienate Iraqis and disrupt elections planned for January.

Annan’s warning, contained in a letter sent Sunday, has angered some officials here.

“This is an issue for the government of Iraq,” said British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry. “It’s easy for those not in Iraq to underestimate the overwhelming concern the Iraqis have for security. There cannot be an area as big as Fallouja which is allowed to be a base for terrorism.”

Some diplomats said Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was “furious” when he received the letter. Iraq’s new U.N. ambassador immediately sought to meet with Annan to argue that the U.N. was interfering. Allawi recently criticized Annan for not doing enough to help Iraq prepare for elections. The world body’s officials say Iraq is not secure enough for more U.N. workers to help organize the nationwide vote.

Annan’s letter underscores a fundamental disagreement between the U.S.-led coalition and the U.N. about how best to bring stability to Iraq.

Leaders of the U.S., Britain and Iraq say that retaking insurgent strongholds is the only way to secure the country before the elections. But Annan argued in his letter that another invasion of Fallouja would only create more enemies and spark an election boycott by Sunni Muslims.

In the letter to Allawi, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Annan acknowledged the need to restore security in Iraq but said a political process that included groups not represented in the interim government would be the best foundation for stability.

“The threat or actual use of force not only risks deepening the sense of alienation of certain communities, but would also reinforce perceptions among the Iraqi population of a continued military occupation,” he wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Times.

As U.S.-led forces massed on the outskirts of Fallouja in mid-October, Allawi demanded that Falloujans hand over Jordanian-born militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi or the city would face all-out attack. Allawi has appealed to religious and tribal leaders to try to persuade militants to stop their attacks and join the electoral process, but he warned Sunday that the “window for diplomacy is closing.”

The Iraqi government, however, is not united on the need for a military solution. In a direct challenge to Allawi on Monday, Iraqi President Ghazi Ajil Yawer, a Sunni, said an attack on Fallouja was unnecessary. “The way the coalition is managing the crisis is wrong,” Yawer told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas.

“It is as if someone shot his horse in the head to kill a fly that landed on it. The fly flies away, and the horse dies,” he said.

As U.S. airstrikes on Fallouja continued Thursday, Bush defended the need to rout the insurgents.

“In order for Iraq to be a free country, those who are trying to stop the elections and stop a free society from emerging must be defeated,” Bush said during a White House news conference.

The U.S. has been urging the United Nations to provide more experts to help organize the balloting, but Annan has limited the staff in Iraq to 35 until the U.N. is guaranteed better protection.

On Thursday, the State Department announced that Georgia would send 691 troops to Iraq as part of a special U.N. security force. Fiji has committed 170 troops to protect U.N. workers and facilities in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad.

British and American officials expressed hoped that the additional troops would prompt the U.N. to send more election experts soon -- and that the world body would leave decisions about Fallouja to the Iraqi government.

“We want a peaceful end in Fallouja as much as anybody. But this is something the government of Iraq is working to effect and they’re in the best position to know what will work and won’t,” said Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman. “The important principle here is that the Iraqis be allowed to determine the future of their government and not be held hostage to terrorists.”

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Times staff writer Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad contributed to this report.