U.N. pledges to expand in Iraq, 5 years after blast

By Missy Ryan

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United Nations pledged on Wednesday to hasten its cautious steps in helping Iraq rebuild, five years after a devastating bomb pushed it to pull foreign staff out of the country.

U.N. and Iraqi officials gathered at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone for a somber ceremony commemorating the 22 people who died when a truck bomb struck U.N. offices in a Baghdad hotel on August 19, 2003.

It was a grim turning point in the first months after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, prompting the U.N. to withdraw most foreign staff and foreshadowing the bloodshed that quickly took hold across Iraq.

"There are moments when we wonder whether all this was worth it or not," U.N. special representative Staffan de Mistura said.

"What we are doing at the moment is sending a signal that the U.N. is back. The U.N. is back to stay. The U.N. is back to have its footprint increasing, its activities increasing."

U.N. officials say there are about 350 international civilian and military staff members across the country, and that the number of civilian foreign staff members increased by 30 percent over the last year.

Iraqi Planning Minister Ali Baban and David Shearer, De Mistura's deputy, signed a two-year pact governing the U.N.'s humanitarian, reconstruction and development activities in Iraq.

The new U.N. strategy targets what it called a "worsening human rights situation and an overall deterioration of services, infrastructure and shelter", among other challenges.

The needs are great. Violence has driven some 4.5 million Iraqis to flee their homes to other parts of Iraq or to neighboring countries.

Within Iraq, unemployment is sky-high. About half of the rural population lacks proper access to drinking water. Sewage flows into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. More than 3,000 primary schools and some 1.27 million new homes are needed.

CAUTIOUS STEPS

But officials said the new strategy does not foresee a quick ramping up of foreign staff levels in Iraq past current levels, due mainly to continuing security precautions, or in U.N. spending, which stands at about $350 million a year.

They say their focus has shifted from bricks-and-mortar projects, such as building schools, to training and advising Iraqi ministries and officials.

With violence at four-year lows across Iraq, the United Nations is also venturing further into the tempestuous world of Iraqi politics.

U.N. officials sought to broker a compromise this month to an impasse in parliament over plans for a provincial elections law needed to hold the anticipated polls this year.