What the United Nations Can Do.(humanitarian aid in Iraq)

Tharoor is Under Secretary-General of the United Nations.

When Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, stepped out of his car in Baghdad at the end of a grueling 900-kilometer journey from Amman, he saw at first hand the task that awaited him and his team. The United Nations' longtime headquarters, the Canal Hotel, had been looted and practically stripped bare in the chaotic aftermath of the city's fall two weeks earlier. The task of rebuilding would literally begin at home.

Not that the rebuilding of Iraq is Lopes da Silva's priority, strictly speaking. He and his colleagues have a more urgent challenge--working with the United Nations' Iraqi staff, who stayed on through the war, to restore essential supplies and services to forestall a humanitarian emergency. Anything beyond such aid would require a new mandate from the Security Council. But as the U.N. flag flies again in Baghdad, many have begun asking what else the United Nations can do.

The United Nations isn't yearning to "nation-build" in Iraq. It isn't a multinational corporation whose survival depends on increasing market share. The Coalition has won the war; the world must now ensure that the Iraqi people win the peace. If the United Nations can help, it is ready to--provided the Security Council agrees on its role.

The United Nations' first major effort in nation-building came in Cambodia, following the 1991 peace accords. Setbacks and successes there and, later, in Kosovo and East Timor have taught valuable lessons. In Cambodia the United Nations was asked, in effect, to reinvent a country. We did many things right: ran five key government ministries, brought home hundreds of thousands of refugees and organized free elections that created a new internationally recognized government. But we got things wrong, too. Some of our peacekeeping troops proved inept. Critics felt we placed more emphasis on elections than on institution-building. Many thought we left too soon. The United Nations learned from this experience, and did better next time.

In Mozambique, we ended a brutal civil war, disarmed the rebels, held free elections and left in place a government that is one of the success stories of Africa. In Afghanistan, the United Nations midwifed a political process that gave birth to an interim Afghan government, whose ministers began their work with desks, stationery and telephones provided by the United Nations. We work with a "light footprint"-- treading softly as a sovereign ...