UN panel on staff security leaves Baghdad

The United Nations panel appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate security in Iraq in the aftermath of the terrorist bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad has left the Iraqi capital, a UN spokesperson said today.

The panel, led by Martti Ahtisaari, a former President of Finland, was sent to Iraq shortly after the 19 August attack on UN headquarters there that killed 22 people. Mr. Annan charged the panel with reporting in detail about security relations between the UN and the United States-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and responsibilities within the UN relating to staff security, both at Headquarters in New York and in the field.

The panellists, chosen by Mr. Ahtisaari, include Peter Fitzgerald, Deputy Commissioner of the Irish National Police; Brigadier-General Jaakko Taneli Oksanen of the Finnish Army; and Claude Bruderlein, Director of the Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University.