Iraq aid groups reduce presence

In the aftermath of the bombing of the UN headquarters here Aug. 19, those normally on the front line of rebuilding war-ravaged societies are hunkering down - or going home. United Nations and Western relief workers are reassessing their missions in postwar Iraq, trying to weigh the humanitarian needs of Iraqis against their own need to stay safe.

Security barriers are being built or reinforced, bullet-proof vests line office hallways at the ready, and luggage of relief staffers is being piled up daily for flights out as agencies rein in their programs, or - in some cases - stop them altogether. Officials warn that such a slowdown could undermine the US-led rebuilding effort.

There is no wholesale exodus yet, but relief workers are increasingly filling sandbags instead of gaps in humanitarian aid projects. Key players in the Iraq relief effort - the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - have been threatened and targeted. A bunker mentality is taking hold.

UN officials say that they are evacuating more than 200 of their 350 Baghdad staff, many of whom were wounded in the blast. The ICRC this week also began sending home more than half its Baghdad staff of 200 - the culmination of a series of security measures launched when one field officer was murdered on a road south of Baghdad on July 22.

Citing security risks, the British charity Oxfam this week pulled out of Iraq completely. Most others are sharply curtailing plans.

"When you are in a war, you know more or less what to avoid," says Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the ICRC in Baghdad. "But this is totally different: it is indiscriminate, with no pattern and no rationality."

As the occupation force in Iraq, US troops are responsible for security here; President Bush on Tuesday made clear that the US wants help rebuilding Iraq, and that it would require "substantial" time and money.

But US forces are having a tough time providing for their own security; this Tuesday, the US death toll since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major fighting, exceeded the number of US troops killed during the war.

Relief professionals say that, in some respects, their situation today - being attacked by an unseen enemy, with unclear motives - is more dangerous than during wartime, when risks are often simpler to calculate.

"The ultimate victims ... are obviously the Iraqis themselves," says Ramiro Lopes da Silva, the acting UN chief in Iraq since the death last week of Sergio Vieiro de Mello in the blast, speaking Wednesday in an interview.

Mr. Da Silva spoke to a handful of journalists in a mess tent erected near the destroyed UN headquarters - part of the UN temporary "offices," along with some air-conditioned containers - with three small wounds from the blast still evident and covered with pieces of tape.

The UN blast and drawdown is having a ripple effect on aid agencies, large and small, and "even private contractors and companies that were intending to operate in Iraq are now going to have to reassess the levels of threat and risk, before they take their next steps," Da Silva said. "The result is a setback in the process of stabilization."

The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted unanimously on a resolution to protect relief workers, declaring that attacking them would now be considered a war crime. On paper, at least, this provides a measure of protection.

But even groups like the ICRC, which already has a strict mandate of neutrality and are well respected worldwide, are having trouble in Iraq. The ICRC has weathered extraordinary conflicts. It was the cornerstone of feeding Somalia during a famine in 1992, though it was forced to use armed Somali guards at the time to get by.

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