U.N. envoy urges Iraq to seize moment for peace

The U.N. envoy to Iraq urged the Iraqi government Saturday to seize upon the drop in violence in the country over the last year to move forward on reconciliation and improving public services because its window of opportunity won’t last forever.

“In spite of the spike of horrific spectacular acts, there is still a lot of improvement compared to the past, which should be interpreted by all of us and by the Iraqi political leaders as an opportunity,” Staffan de Mistura told reporters. “The opportunity doesn’t last long.”

He spoke as the United Nations released its human rights report for the last six months of 2007. Although the report draws attention to allegations of torture in Iraqi prisons and targeted killings by armed gangs, De Mistura praised strides by the government in improving prison conditions and passing some legislation dealing with reconciliation issues, and he noted a dramatic reduction in sectarian violence.

However, echoing the remarks of U.S. diplomats and military commanders, De Mistura made it clear that the Iraqi government needed to do much more for its people.

“This is not enough, especially in the view that 2008 is not going to be a normal year -- everybody knows it. That is why we hope this report is an additional reminder . . . in line of saying, this is the year of grabbing the Iraqi opportunity to go forward in many fields,” De Mistura said.

Iraq’s death toll fell from more than 2,000 fatalities in January 2007 at the height of the sectarian conflict to 466 a year later. In the last month and a half, violence has crept upward amid a string of suicide attacks, which have seen women and people with disabilities being used as bombers.

The rising bloodshed has given a new urgency to the U.S. and U.N. pleas for the Shiite Muslim-led government to broker a peace with its Sunni Arab minority while the bulk of the additional 28,500 American troops sent to Iraq to put the brakes on a civil war last year remain in the country.

Key issues remain unresolved, including the fate of former Sunni fighters who have joined the battle against militants and who are paid by the U.S. military. The U.S. wants the Iraqi government to employ them, but the government has moved slowly.

The continuing calm also hinges on Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. Sadr has ordered his men to abide by a cease-fire, but his militia is caught in an intense power struggle with other Shiite political factions in southern Iraq.

The U.N. report expresses caution about how long the present calm might endure. “The extent to which the decrease in the violence was sustainable remained unclear,” the report says. It notes that the Iraqi government was hindered by “political instability” and says its reconciliation efforts are “stalled.”

It draws attention to the behavior of private security firms such as Blackwater Worldwide, whose employees shot dead 17 Iraqis in a controversial incident in west Baghdad last year. It also highlights allegations of mistreatment and torture of detainees in Kurdish prisons.

In violence Saturday, a U.S. soldier was killed by small-arms fire in southwest Baghdad, the American military said. The death brings the U.S. military toll since the invasion in 2003 to 3,988, according to the independent website icasualties.org.

A bomb exploded in Karrada, a commercial district in the Iraqi capital, killing one street cleaner and wounding eight.

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ned.parker@latimes.com