The Bush administration will soon prepare the initial draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution setting up Iraq’s transition to self-rule, which would recognize the new interim government even before it has been formed, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Although consensus on the details has yet to be reached among different agencies, the officials said there is broad agreement about the document’s main objectives.
In addition to endorsing the new government, the text would include a provision authorizing U.S.-led forces to remain in Iraq after the June 30 transfer of power. It would also define a role for the United Nations and regulate assets from the U.N. oil-for-food program and other sources, which were frozen during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
To avoid the appearance that it gives its blessing to a government that has not even been selected, the Security Council would not grant “formal diplomatic recognition,” but would “express its support and endorsement,” a senior State Department official said.
“The resolution would endorse the process that creates the government, in which the United Nations is deeply involved,” the official said.
But he acknowledged that such an act would have practical value, rather than only symbolic, saying it would make the body “legitimate in the eyes of the world” and would “encourage” other countries to work with it.
The official declined to specify a time frame for introducing the resolution, but he said that Washington would “need more movement in the Brahimi process,” in reference to Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy to Iraq who is leading the effort to form the transitional government.
Mr. Brahimi, who made his initial visit to Iraq last month, met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on his way back to Baghdad yesterday.
On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the resolution should be written in a way to encourage other countries “to come together in a genuine international effort to help stabilize Iraq.”
U.S. officials expressed optimism about negotiating the new text with other U.N. members.
“I know there will be some issues we’ll have to work out — that’s the nature of the Security Council,” a senior administration official said. “But we won’t judge the first time someone raises an issue that they are against the resolution.”
The official also said the Bush administration is surprisingly united on what the document should say.
“There is no big debate on this,” he said. “We know what we have to do; the issues are fairly obvious and we are all pretty much on the same page.”
The official said the resolution will have “provisions for the multinational force to continue its security responsibilities in some fashion” and “would establish what the U.N. role would be after June 30.”
It will also address “development funds, such as frozen assets and oil-for-food money that was carried over,” he said.
“We’ve been following Mr. Brahimi’s lead and most of the timing has been related to that,” the official said. “It’s important for him to come up with a plan before we go to the council.”
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