Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (64 page)
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Authors: Samantha Power
BOOK: Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World
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Vieira de Mello had visited Pakistan in late February. There he had met a man who believed his sons were in Guantánamo but was not sure. Vieira de Mello told Bush of the father’s desperation and appealed to him as a parent to alert families to the whereabouts of their relatives. Bush turned to Rice and said,“We need to look into this. It would be terrible not to know where your children are.” Nonetheless, the Bush administration would not in fact disclose the identities of the Guantánamo detainees until March 2006. On the issue of torture, Bush was adamant. “Americans won’t torture anybody,” he said. “I won’t allow it.” Bush justified the war that the United States would soon launch in Iraq on human rights grounds. “I cannot say how strongly I feel about what Saddam Hussein has done to his own people,” Bush said. “Deep in my bosom is a real desire for the freedom of people. The human condition matters to me.”
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Bush also said that in going to war to disarm Iraq, he would be defending the United Nations. “UN words must mean something,” he said.
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Bush also said that in going to war to disarm Iraq, he would be defending the United Nations. “UN words must mean something,” he said.
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Although Vieira de Mello brought up the thorniest human rights issues of the day, Bush took a visible liking to him. The president was so engaged in the discussion that he doubled the length of the meeting, which had been scheduled to last fifteen minutes. When Bush’s secretary came in to tell him it was time for his scheduled call, he waved her away. "Tell Tony I’ll call him back,” Bush said, referring to the British prime minister. “Sergio was Sergio,” recalls Banbury. "The president was so used to people bowing to him that he appreciated Sergio’s directness.”Another observer recalled,“The courtiers took note that the king was happy.” Banbury remembers that U.S. officials came away from the meeting thinking, “This is a reasonable guy we can do business with. He’s not going to give us everything we want, but he’s a smart guy we can talk to.”
In early 2003 the world was so polarized and the debate over the war in Iraq was growing so vitriolic that any inroads Vieira de Mello made with Washington inevitably cost him elsewhere in the UN. Some of his critics began whispering that President Bush had agreed to the meeting only because Vieira de Mello was having an affair with Rice (he was not). At UN Headquarters in New York others speculated that Vieira de Mello had offered Bush a friendly UN face so as to earn himself a job in Iraq after the war—and the top job of UN secretary-general after Annan. “Guys like Sergio don’t meet with George Bush,” recalls UN spokesman Fred Eckhard.“I could only see it as a big interview.” Vieira de Mello laughed off these comments and got back to work, relaying word to the families he had met with in Pakistan that he had passed on their concerns to the president of the United States.
President Bush had insisted that he would return to the UN Security Council for a resolution to authorize an invasion of Iraq. But as the weeks passed, even seemingly reliable allies like Vicente Fox of Mexico and Ricardo Lagos of Chile rejected the president’s war plans. Bush did not take these rebuffs as grounds to reexamine his thinking, but rather as proof that the UN was not up to the task of combating rogue regimes. “The UN must mean something,” he said. “Remember Rwanda or Kosovo. The UN didn’t do its job. And we hope tomorrow the UN will do its job. If not, all of us need to step back and try to figure out how to make the UN work better as we head into the twenty-first century.”
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Vieira de Mello drafted an op-ed in response to these taunts, stressing that the UN’s “major crisis” was the fault of the countries in it, not of the organization itself. “When member states make a mess of their own rules or disrupt their own collective political architecture,” he wrote, “it is wrong to blame the UN or its Secretary-General.”
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Vieira de Mello drafted an op-ed in response to these taunts, stressing that the UN’s “major crisis” was the fault of the countries in it, not of the organization itself. “When member states make a mess of their own rules or disrupt their own collective political architecture,” he wrote, “it is wrong to blame the UN or its Secretary-General.”
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When Ruud Lubbers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, asked him to join in rallying the heads of UN agencies to jointly oppose the war, Vieira de Mello declined. He had come to see the war as inevitable. “When I sat down with Bush, I saw a very relaxed man,” he told Lubbers. “This was not a man pondering other options.”
Indeed, without an authorizing Security Council resolution, President Bush charged ahead. On March 17, 2003, he issued a forty-eight-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, demanding that he and his sons leave Iraq. The ultimatum expired on March 19 at 8 p.m. EST, and roughly ninety minutes later U.S. and British forces invaded. “My fellow citizens,” President Bush declared from the Oval Office, “at this hour, American and Coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
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In mid-April, by which time Baghdad had already fallen,Vieira de Mello telephoned UN Headquarters and pleaded for guidance. “What is the UN position on the war in Iraq?” he asked. He was scheduled to appear on the notoriously confrontational BBC talk show
HARDtalk
the following day, and he needed the secretary-general and his top advisers to develop a strategy in a hurry. "What message does the UN want to give the public on Iraq?” he asked. “If we don’t figure out where we stand, I’m going to get massacred.” Even though he received no instructions from New York, he felt he had to go ahead with the interview because the UN couldn’t be silent at such a vital time. As he headed into the studio in Geneva, he told Prentice, "Watch this little lamb go to slaughter.”
HARDtalk
the following day, and he needed the secretary-general and his top advisers to develop a strategy in a hurry. "What message does the UN want to give the public on Iraq?” he asked. “If we don’t figure out where we stand, I’m going to get massacred.” Even though he received no instructions from New York, he felt he had to go ahead with the interview because the UN couldn’t be silent at such a vital time. As he headed into the studio in Geneva, he told Prentice, "Watch this little lamb go to slaughter.”
He was smooth but evasive and thus came across as apologetic on behalf of the American invaders.When the interviewer,Tim Sebastian, asked about collateral damage,Vieira de Mello said it was “difficult to avoid civilian casualties.” When Sebastian asked him about the looting that had broken out in Baghdad, he said, “It is probably unavoidable after you’ve kept the lid on those people for so many years.” When Sebastian asked him about reports that U.S. Marines were firing on unarmed civilians, he explained, “The problem is that there has also been a lot of deceit on the other side using fighters disguised as civilians.” When Sebastian asked him about the Coalition’s poor planning, he said, “I’m not sure it was badly planned. I think the planning was to topple that regime and to neutralize its armed forces. . . . I’m sure sooner or later they’ll get a grip on that.” When Sebastian asked him whether he worried that the rights of detainees in Iraq would be trampled as they had been in Guantánamo, he answered, “I have no reason to presume that they will subject them to the same treatment.” And when Sebastian pushed him to answer whether the Iraqis were paying too high a price for freedom, he urged people to recall the twenty-four years of suffering under the prior regime. Sebastian eventually lost patience. “Is the human rights commissioner too scared to speak out against the United States?” he asked.
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When Vieira de Mello and Prentice left the studio, they did not discuss the interview.“You could tell from his body language afterward that he knew how terrible it was,” Prentice recalls. “I didn’t see the point of telling him after the fact that he sucked.” At UN Headquarters in New York, the transcript of his appearance on
HARDtalk
was e-mailed from one outraged UN official to another. “With that interview,” one UN official remembers,“anyone who had suspicions about what Sergio was after or whether he was sucking up to the Americans got all the proof they needed.”
HARDtalk
was e-mailed from one outraged UN official to another. “With that interview,” one UN official remembers,“anyone who had suspicions about what Sergio was after or whether he was sucking up to the Americans got all the proof they needed.”
Eighteen
"DON’T ASK WHO STARTED THE FIRE”
Once the Coalition invasion began, two questions consumed UN officials: Would Saddam Hussein put up a fight? And would the UN play a postwar political role in Iraq? While the U.S. and British embassies in Baghdad had been closed since 1991, the UN had maintained a continuous base of operations in Iraq since the Gulf War. Before the U.S.-led war more than a thousand expatriates worked in the country, partnering with some three thousand Iraqi staff.
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At Headquarters in New York, UN senior staff had spent months debating whether and how they should be involved in the postwar “peace.”Annan feared that Washington’s marginalization of the UN over Iraq would detract from the organization’s overall global relevance, and this made him eager to find a way to get UN international staff back to Iraq as soon as possible. With his senior advisers he repeatedly stressed, “We have to prove we can do something useful.” Mark Malloch Brown, Vieira de Mello’s friend from their days together at UNHCR and now the head of the UN Development Program, agreed, arguing, “For Iraq’s sake, for the world’s sake, and for the UN’s sake, we can’t sit this out.” As Malloch Brown remembers,“There were lots of tactical conversations about how much of our virginity to lose, but the overwhelming majority of us felt that, if you’re the fire brigade, you don’t ask who started the fire and whether it is a moral fire before you get involved.”
The under-secretaries-general for peacekeeping and political affairs, Jean-Marie Guéhenno and Kieran Prendergast, were more cautious.“It isn’t written anywhere in stone that the UN has to be deployed to every crisis,” said Guéhenno. Prendergast, who was strongly influenced by his American special assistant, forty-year-old Rick Hooper, argued that it was a mistake to chase “a role for role’s sake.” Hooper, who had attended the University of Damascus and spoke flawless Arabic, was known in UN circles for his strong views on Middle Eastern politics and for combining operational and strategic thinking. “We should look for the UN’s comparative advantage,” Hooper urged, “and not simply pick up whatever crumbs are thrown at us.”
It seemed likely that Washington would eventually need to involve the UN, because the U.S. welcome would wear thin in Iraq, because a U.S. occupation would harm U.S. standing internationally, or because the United States would not want to foot the bill for Iraq’s reconstruction on its own.Vieira de Mello participated in these high-level UN discussions by speakerphone from Geneva. He believed that the Bush administration would turn back to the UN as soon as it achieved its military objectives. He knew better than anybody just how hard it was to manage postwar transitions, and he knew that the United States did not have the in-house expertise necessary to reintegrate the Iraqi military, facilitate the return of refugees, or plan elections. Whenever he was asked whether the Iraq war signaled the end of the UN, he would say of the Americans, “They will come back.”
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Since late 2002 the British had been pressing the Americans to give the UN a prominent political role after the war. British prime minister Tony Blair, President Bush’s most trusted Coalition partner, knew that British voters were unenthusiastic about U.S. plans to run Iraq unilaterally. Polls in the
Daily Telegraph
showed that while British support for the war had risen to a high of 66 percent, only 2 percent of those polled supported the establishment of an American-controlled administration afterward.
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On April 3, two weeks into the war, British foreign secretary Jack Straw presented Secretary of State Colin Powell with a detailed “day after” occupation plan that envisaged the appointment of a powerful UN special envoy.
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If the UN ran the show, the plan showed, instead of paying for the occupation, the United States would be charged just 20 percent of the cost (its share of the UN peacekeeping budget).
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France and Germany naturally favored the British plan because, having opposed the war, they were dead set against the idea of leaving the Americans in charge of Iraq. France had proposed an arrangement like that after the 1999 Kosovo war, in which NATO had run the military operation and the UN, initially under Vieira de Mello, had overseen the political administration.
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Daily Telegraph
showed that while British support for the war had risen to a high of 66 percent, only 2 percent of those polled supported the establishment of an American-controlled administration afterward.
2
On April 3, two weeks into the war, British foreign secretary Jack Straw presented Secretary of State Colin Powell with a detailed “day after” occupation plan that envisaged the appointment of a powerful UN special envoy.
3
If the UN ran the show, the plan showed, instead of paying for the occupation, the United States would be charged just 20 percent of the cost (its share of the UN peacekeeping budget).
4
France and Germany naturally favored the British plan because, having opposed the war, they were dead set against the idea of leaving the Americans in charge of Iraq. France had proposed an arrangement like that after the 1999 Kosovo war, in which NATO had run the military operation and the UN, initially under Vieira de Mello, had overseen the political administration.
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But the Bush administration rejected the British approach. The U.S. attitude was “We aren’t going to expend blood and treasure to have
you
decide who runs Iraq.” Bush’s top advisers did not think highly of the UN, both because of the Security Council’s refusal to endorse the war and because they looked down upon the UN’s past performances in the Balkans, Rwanda, Kosovo, and even East Timor, which elsewhere was seen as a success.
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In a speech in February 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld had said that the United States intended to avoid the kind of “nation-building” that the UN did. He faulted the UN performance in Kosovo.“They issue postage stamps, passports, driver’s licenses, and the like,” he said, “and decisions made by the local parliament are invalid without the signatures of the UN administrators.”
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In poverty-stricken East Timor, he continued, the UN had caused the capital city of Dili to become “one of the most expensive cities in Asia.” Restaurants there “cater to international workers who have salaries that are some two hundred times the average local wage,” he said.“In the city’s main supermarkets prices are reportedly on a par with London and New York.”
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Rumsfeld seemed to believe that the United States would simply be able to dislodge Saddam Hussein and walk away without itself getting involved in Iraqi affairs.
you
decide who runs Iraq.” Bush’s top advisers did not think highly of the UN, both because of the Security Council’s refusal to endorse the war and because they looked down upon the UN’s past performances in the Balkans, Rwanda, Kosovo, and even East Timor, which elsewhere was seen as a success.
6
In a speech in February 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld had said that the United States intended to avoid the kind of “nation-building” that the UN did. He faulted the UN performance in Kosovo.“They issue postage stamps, passports, driver’s licenses, and the like,” he said, “and decisions made by the local parliament are invalid without the signatures of the UN administrators.”
7
In poverty-stricken East Timor, he continued, the UN had caused the capital city of Dili to become “one of the most expensive cities in Asia.” Restaurants there “cater to international workers who have salaries that are some two hundred times the average local wage,” he said.“In the city’s main supermarkets prices are reportedly on a par with London and New York.”
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Rumsfeld seemed to believe that the United States would simply be able to dislodge Saddam Hussein and walk away without itself getting involved in Iraqi affairs.
In thinking about the war’s aftermath, other U.S. officials believed that they faced a trade-off between legitimacy and control, and they expressed a clear preference for control. Even Secretary Powell was insistent. “The Coalition, having taken the political risk and having paid the cost in lives, must have a leading role,” he said.
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Three weeks into the war, after their third summit in as many weeks, Bush and Blair could only agree that “the United Nations has a vital role to play in the reconstruction of Iraq.”
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Neither man specified what “vital role” meant. When journalists pressed Bush to clarify the meaning of the phrase, he grew irritated. “Evidently there’s some skepticism here in Europe about whether or not I mean what I say,” Bush said. “Saddam Hussein clearly knows I mean what I say. And a vital role for the United Nations means a vital role for the United Nations.”
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Paul Wolfowitz was more concrete, saying that the UN would perform humanitarian tasks. “The UN can be an important partner,” the deputy secretary of defense said. “But it can’t be the managing partner. It can’t be in charge.”
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Three weeks into the war, after their third summit in as many weeks, Bush and Blair could only agree that “the United Nations has a vital role to play in the reconstruction of Iraq.”
10
Neither man specified what “vital role” meant. When journalists pressed Bush to clarify the meaning of the phrase, he grew irritated. “Evidently there’s some skepticism here in Europe about whether or not I mean what I say,” Bush said. “Saddam Hussein clearly knows I mean what I say. And a vital role for the United Nations means a vital role for the United Nations.”
11
Paul Wolfowitz was more concrete, saying that the UN would perform humanitarian tasks. “The UN can be an important partner,” the deputy secretary of defense said. “But it can’t be the managing partner. It can’t be in charge.”
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