BAGHDAD: Weapons inspectors from the UN Special Commission in Iraq have a serious public relations problem: Hardly anyone - Iraqi or foreigner - has a kind word for them. That the Iraqis have problems with UNSCOM staff is well known. But employees of other UN agencies here are equally critical of them. "They roam around like cowboys, as if they own the place", said one observer for the UN's 'Oil-for-food' programme in northern Iraq. "They are uncouth and rude". Another told The Times of India: "They have no respect for the culture and sensitivity of the people and are deliberately provocative." Diplomats in Baghdad say the Australian head of UNSCOM, Richard Butler, is partly to blame. One ambassador said he was too brusque. It is true his solecisms tend to offend. After he told The New York Times that he came from a "Western tradition" where "truth-telling was important" and that it was "frustrating" to deal with others where this wasn't the case, the UN Secretary General ticked him off. Another ambassador sees a method in his manner, describing Butler as "a self-perpetuating bureaucrat shoe-horned from obscurity to the centre of the world's attention. He is not going to be in a hurry to give up his job". Since the UN has a dual role in Iraq - humanitarian assistance and sanctions enforcement - it is not surprising the two aspects have led to tension within. The UNSCOM people see the humanitarian workers as softies keen for sanctions to be eased. They call them "bunny-huggers". The latter, in turn, refer to UNSCOM as 'UN-SCUM.' Many feel the inspectors are deliberately dragging their feet to suit those countries which want sanctions against Iraq to continue. One 'bunny-hugger' from an Asian country said: "I once saw an UNSCOM guy with a US flag stuck on his radio. Normally my colleagues avoid them but I told him he had no right to wear his flag since he was on UN duty and he just brushed past me. I thought, God, if these guys are like this with us, how must they be treating the Iragis?" A UN relief worker from a European country provided details. "There have been many instances where they turn up at warehouses on a Friday knowing it is a holiday," he said. "They then demand to be let in but since the guard doesn't have the keys and they don't wait for the storekeeper to be contacted, they break the padlock, search the place and go away, leaving the poor guard to figure out how to lock up the place again." Often, they will arrive at a site and demand immediate access. But since the person in-charge naturally would like the clearance of his superiors, he asks them to wait, at which point, the UNSCOM experts return to their headquarters and complain of non-compliance. And then there is the infamous incident at the Mar Yousif and Saydat Al-Sinabul monasteries in Zafaraniya in June 1997, which inspectors desecrated. The Papal Nuncio formally protested and UNSCOM was forced to apologise. There have also been searches of kindergartens and university offices. Sometimes, the latter have had their records taken away to help identify potential chemical weapon experts. On one occasion - captured on film - an UNSCOM inspector demanded access to a farm. When the Iraqi official accompanying him said it was private and asked "How would you like it if I demanded to enter your house", the UNSCOM man jabbed a finger in his chest and bellowed in a thick American accent: "YOU would never enter my home." "The Iraqis feel really humiliated," said one UN employee, "but their endless patience and courtesy never fails to impress me and my colleagues." She said that if anyone tried to conduct similar searches in her country, "there would be riots in the streets". The problem with UNSCOM, another woman said, is that it is heavily staffed by nationals of countries which fought the Gulf War. The fact that most are soldiers doesn't help. "The UN always had a rule of not sending non-neutral people into any area. In the case of Iraq, this rule has been broken. It's like sending Israelis to Lebanon or Pakistanis to the Kashmir border."

From: fellowship@igc.apc.org (Fellowship Editor)

Subject : Underlying problems in the confrontation with Iraq

The attached letter and clipping came to me from Colin Masica, an OPF member in Wisconsin. Colin, now retired, was professor of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Linguistics, at the University of Chicago. I haven't seen much about the "work style" and behavior of UNSCOMpersonnel in Iraq, but if this report is true, it explains a good deal.

Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 20:00:04 -0600 (CST)
To: Jim Forest jim_forest@compuserve.com
From: c-masica@uchicago.edu (colin paul masica)

Dear Jim, And here is one for you (just in case you haven't seen it), from THE TIMES OF INDIA, passed on to me by an Indian friend. The Secretary-General found himself in hot water for just hinting at this, but here are more details, which I haven't seen reported in the American media (which of course proves nothing, because I couldn't dream of attempting to monitor it exhaustively - but have you?) To raise such questions is not, despite what Secretary Albright said in Columbus, to "defend Saddam Hussein". Possibly the new proviso that the inspection teams be accompanied by diplomats is to cut down on such behavior as the Times reported. [Note the item about desecrating of Christian monasteries - perhaps by the same type of anti-Catholic Anglo-Saxon as the New Zealand general who ordered the destruction of Monte Cassino in WWII.] Colin