US embassy cable - 05AMMAN2791

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 002791 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2015 
TAGS: EAID, PREL, IZ, UN 
SUBJECT: UN IRAQ SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE EAGER TO REURN TO 
IRAQ 
 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
1.  (C)  Special Representative of the United Nations 
Secretary General for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura (protect), met 
 
SIPDIS 
Coordinator for Iraq Reconstruction Ambassador Robin Raphel 
on March 15 in Amman.  De Mistura opined that the UN needs to 
start now the process of returning its international staff on 
a permanent basis to Iraq.  While security concerns in the 
Sunni triangle may slow expansion of the current UN presence 
in Baghdad, they should not continue to hinder effective 
operations and establishment of a robust permanent presence 
in relatively "safe" areas such as Basra and Erbil.  De 
Mistura asked for USG help in "pushing" UN headquarters in 
New York closer to this view.   De Mistura also commented on 
the need for the UN and other donors to identify "paper" 
allocations of assistance funds that are not actually spent 
and potentially reallocate these to projects that are better 
able to get off then ground soon.   Iraq UNDP chief Boualem 
Aktouf echoed several of De Mistura's points in a separate 
meeting with Raphel, and discussed modalities by which the 
UNDP is successfully implementing many of its Iraq assistance 
projects by "remote control" from Jordan.  In this context he 
cited the UNDP's Iraqi Rehabilitation and Employment Program 
as a potential model for other donors in successfully 
generating employment and forging partnerships with 
municipalities.  End Summary. 
 
UNAMI Chief: Working to Get Back to Iraq 
---------------------------------------- 
 
2.  (C) De Mistura told Ambassador Raphel that he believes 
the UN should begin redeploying its international personnel 
on the ground within Iraq as soon as possible, and indicated 
that he is doing everything possible from his end to bring 
this about (Note: UN Iraq Offices currently relocated to 
Amman employ approximately 200 staff.  End note).   He said 
that he has pushed the limits of his authority by arranging 
for his deputy, Paolo Lembo, to take up de facto "permanent 
residence" in Baghdad, adding that he will personally replace 
Lembo in Baghdad on those occasions when Lembo is out of the 
country.   He noted that he is working to re-establish a 
substantive UN monitoring and reporting unit in Amman, and 
move it to Baghdad as soon as feasible.    He cited security 
and recruitment as the main practical obstacles to rapidly 
resuming significant UN operations in Baghdad, and asked for 
US help in lobbying the Secretary General to move 
aggressively to meet both of these challenges. 
 
Encouraging the UN on Donor Coordination 
---------------------------------------- 
 
3.  (C) De Mistura argued that there is a serious need for 
better donor coordination in every sector, even in 
non-infrastructure areas like constitution drafting and 
rule-of-law, where he said that the French, Germans, 
Americans, EU, and others are all pursuing separate, 
uncoordinated assistance plans.  He asserted that the 
practical reality is that the French and the Germans (for 
example) are unwilling to be led or to appear to be led on 
donor issues by the USG or the Coalition.  Given the 
political sensitivities and the panoply of special interests 
involved, no bilateral donor is well positioned to manage 
overall donor activity in most sectors.  Because of their 
perceived objectivity, only multilateral organizations like 
the World Bank and the UN are well positioned to do this. 
Currently, he noted, the British government international 
assistance agency DFID convenes a weekly donor coordination 
meeting in Baghdad: the UN should now take it over.  De 
Mistura stressed that the UN should be encouraged by the USG 
and others to help bring overall coherence to donor 
assistance in specific social and economic sectors, and to 
develop its potential to become clearinghouse for donor 
information and best practices.  De Mistura asked that the 
USG openly endorse this kind of constructive UN role and 
actively encourage the idea in public fora and with the UN 
leadership in New York.  "There is no time to lose," he said. 
 
4.  (C) De Mistura also asked that the USG actively encourage 
UN leadership to establish a perceptible presence in 
currently stable regions of Iraq.  Instead of joining other 
organizations in "hiding behind the security issue," de 
Mistura opined that the UN could set a path for other donors 
by opening and staffing regional offices in relatively safe 
centers, including Basra and Erbil.  The UN already has 
buildings in these two cities, de Mistura noted, and just 
needs "a small push" from the U.S. and other members to start 
positioning international staff and get operations moving 
again.  He strongly requested that the USG make such a 
"push."  "If it,s hellish in Baghdad, we should move our 
operations, and our aid if necessary, to other regions," he 
added. 
 
Rethinking Non-Performing Project Allocations 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
5.  (C) De Mistura commented that too many projects exist on 
paper with little money actually being spent.  He said that 
donors, including the UN, need to take another look at these 
projects and pull back those that are mired in delays and/or 
in retrospect seem inadvisable.  He said he had ordered just 
such a scrub on UN Trust Fund-managed International 
Reconstruction Fund For Iraq (IRRFI) projects, and had placed 
an informal moratorium on further projects until such a scrub 
was performed.  He added that money not being spent should be 
reallocated to other projects or returned to donors.  He 
cited an alleged failure to ensure that Iraqi Ministry 
officials are "really on board" with regard to proposed 
projects as another common donor flaw, observing that this is 
another problem that the UN and the World Bank should be 
encouraged to help correct.  De Mistura also recommended that 
the Trust Fund headquarters, now located in New York, should 
be based in Amman until it could be moved to Baghdad. 
 
UNDP 
---- 
 
6.  (C) De Mistura,s comments were partially echoed by 
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Iraq Country 
Director Boualem Aktouf in a March 18 meeting with Ambassador 
Raphel.  Aktouf related that the UNDP Iraq office currently 
has approximately 100 employees, currently spread out among 
offices in Jordan, Cyprus, and Kuwait (no staff is currently 
positioned in Iraq).  Aktouf noted that the exigencies of 
having to run their Iraq programs by "remote control" from 
outside Iraq have led to a UNDP focus on two categories of 
projects - infrastructure (e.g., port dredging, electricity 
generation, etc.), which can be given over to outside 
contractors and monitored by Iraqi staff, and 
"capacity-building" projects that can be addressed by 
training of Iraqi expert staff outside of Iraq.  He commented 
that the Iraqi Rehabilitation and Employment Program in the 
South had been so successful in generating employment that 
the UNDP is initiating the same program in the North, adding 
that such programs also foster decentralization by forging 
partnerships with municipalities. 
 
7.  (C) Aktouf said that the UNDP Iraq projects are moving 
forward steadily, but slowly, within these constraints. 
While optimistic on the early placement of permanent 
international UNDP staff in the south and north of Iraq, 
Aktouf felt it would be a long time before significant 
numbers of UNDP international personnel would return to the 
central areas of Iraq.  He noted that this is not merely a 
consequence of security per se, but of recruitment realities 
and housing accommodation shortfalls.  Aktouf noted that 
several UNDP projects occur at the same facilities or 
otherwise overlap infrastructure work being done by USAID, 
and expressed frustration with current  levels of 
coordination between the two organizations in  Iraq, which he 
blamed on a lack of effective institutional  mechanisms 
promoting such coordination. 
 
8.  (U) This cable was cleared by Ambassador Raphel. 
 
9.  (U) Baghdad Minimize considered. 
HALE