April 7, 2003

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: DANIEL McKIVERGAN, Deputy Director

SUBJECT: Post-War Iraq

You may find two recent Weekly Standard pieces of interest as debate continues over what role the United Nations should play in post-war Iraq. In the first ("UN Go Home," April 14, 2003), Steven Schwartz offers a first-hand account of UN mismanagement in the post-war reconstruction of Kosovo. "Kosovar journalists," Schwartz writes, "are now warning the Iraqis of the fate that might await them if the UN is entrusted with their country's reconstruction."

In the second ("Oil for Food, Money for Kofi," April 7, 2003), Wall Street Journal Europe columnist Claudia Rosett explains how a UN program that was crafted in 1995 to funnel basic necessities to the Iraqi people eventually morphed into to a large, bureaucratic entity -- allowing Saddam, for example, to purchase equipment to enhance his propaganda efforts at the Ministry of Information. Looking ahead, Rosett argues that the program is so "spectacularly ill-suited" to effectively deal with post-Saddam Iraq that it should be scrapped when it comes up for renewal in May.

Both articles deserve close reading as we begin to debate what role the UN should or should not play in post-Saddam Iraq.