Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (100 page)

2
SVDM, airport statement, June 2, 2003.

3
The same Security Council resolution that had authorized the Coalition occupation and created the post of UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq had also provided for the end of civilian sanctions and the resumption of oil exports (the revenue from which would be deposited directly into a Development Fund for Iraq). It also mandated the termination of the Oil for Food Program within six months. (The program was officially closed November 21, 2003.) In January 2004 an Iraqi newspaper published a list of 270 people from 40 countries who had profited from the illicit sale of Iraqi oil during the Oil for Food Program, and in April the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that “the former Iraqi regime attained $10.1 billion in illegal revenue” from the program. The UN, the U.S. Senate, and the Iraqi government launched inquiries, which led to the resignation and ultimate indictment of Benon Sevan, the former head of the program. The report by independent investigator Paul Volcker, released in September 2005, faulted Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a conflict of interest involving his son Kojo (who was employed by a beneficiary of the program) and for the UN’s mismanagement of the Oil for Food Program. Annan would later call the whole affair “deeply embarrassing.”

4
William Langeweische, “Welcome to the Green Zone,”
Atlantic Monthly,
November 2004, p. 64.

5
Ibid., p. 88. The T-shirts were a takeoff on President Bush’s July 2003 taunts to those who might attack U.S. forces in Iraq. “My answer is, bring them on,” Bush said. “We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” Press Q&A, July 2, 2003.

6
Langeweische, “Green Zone,” p. 64.

7
Ibid., p. 62.

8
Iraq Steering Group meeting minutes, June 3, 2003.

9
See Rajiv Chandrasekaran,
Imperial Life in the Emerald City
(New York : Knopf, 2006).

10
A May 28, 2003, memo from the UN security staff in Iraq described the security situation as “post war” with “looting, car-jacking, street robbery, shootings and other crimes . . . widespread and common in cities and along main routes.” Report of the Security in Iraq Accountability Panel, March 3, 2004, online at (hereafter Walzer report), p. 22.

11
Because visitors could pass freely in and out of the Cedar as well, the security staff began looking for a private house that would offer Vieira de Mello both the communications facilities and the enhanced security he needed. The going rate for the one house they found was $12,000 per month, which he deemed too steep.

12
Walzer report, p. 17.

13
Procurement in peacekeeping and political missions was no easy matter. Each field mission was required to establish a local committee on contracts to review and recommend contract awards. This committee had to be composed of four staffers from the mission: a legal adviser, the chief of finance section, the chief of general services, and the chief of transport services. Field missions were not permitted to award contracts worth more than $75,000 without approval by the chief administrative officer and the local committee on contracts. Field missions could not award contracts worth more than $200,000 without their approval, plus that of the Headquarters committee on contracts.

14
SVDM to Kieran Prendergast, “Meeting with Ambassadors Bremer and Sawers,” June 5, 2003, CZX 03.

15
Al-Hakim would be assassinated on August 29, 2003, in a wave of violence against Shia clerics in Najaf that was thought to have been carried out by al-Qaeda’s Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. Al-Hakim’s brother, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who was already a member of the Governing Council, would then assume the leadership of SCIRI, which was the largest party in the United Iraqi Alliance coalition and won the most seats in the Iraqi parliament in the December 2005 elections.

16
Bill Spindle, “Identity Crisis,”
Wall Street Journal,
August 21, 2003.

17
SVDM to Joseph Vernon Reed, July 5, 2003.

18
Notes on the meeting with John Sawers, June 5, 2003.

19
Letters dated early June and June 25, 2003, published in Bernard Kouchner,
Les Guerriersde la paix: du Kosovo à l’Irak
(Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2004), p. 423.

20
Notes on the Sawers meeting, June 5, 2003.

21
SVDM to Carina Perelli, June 26, 2003.

22
SVDM to Perelli, July 1, 2003.

23
SVDM to Prendergast, “Meetings with Ambassadors Bremer and Sawers: Comprehensive Update on Political Process,” July 1, 2003.

24
Among those polled, 92 percent welcomed lawyers and judges and 75 percent welcomed Iraqi clerics, but only 36 percent welcomed formerly exiled politicians. Office of Research, Opinion Analysis, U.S. State Department, October 21, 2003.

25
SVDM, internal UN draft, August 17, 2003.

26
SVDM, remarks, July 13, 2003.

27
SVDM to Peter Galbraith, July 4, 2003.

28
SVDM, interview by George Packer, August 13, 2003.

29
SVDM, interview by Tim Sebastian,
HARDtalk,
BBC, April 14, 2003.

30
François d’Alançon, “Recontre avec Sergio Vieira de Mello, Le Pompier de l’ONU,” (Conversation with Sergio Vieira de Mello, Firefighter of the United Nations),
La Croix,
June 21, 2003.

31
SVDM, remarks to the press at presentation of secretary-general’s report, July 22, 2003.

32
Ibid.

2
SVDM, UN draft, August 17, 2003.

3
SVDM, interview by Packer.

4
UN News Center,“Transcript of Press Conference by Sergio Vieria de Mello, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq in Cairo,” August 9, 2003.

5
SVDM, draft op-ed, August 2003.

6
Office of Research, Opinion Analysis, U.S. State Department, October 21, 2003.

7
SVDM, interview with Packer.

8
Anthony Shadid,
Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War
(New York: Henry Holt, 2005), pp. 258-59.

9
DynCorp was given the contract for field training sometime in June 2003. In a 2006 interview with David Rohde, Bremer blamed the contractors for the CPA’s failure to ensure that the country was policed: "DynCorp was not producing anybody. We were doing the best we could.” Michael Moss and David Rohde, “Misjudgments Marred U.S. Plans for Iraqi Police,”
New York Times,
May 21, 2006.

10
SVDM, interview with Packer.

11
Notes on the meeting with John Sawers, June 18, 2003.

12
Report of the Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of UN Personnel in Iraq, online at , p.13 (hereinafter Ahtisaari report).

13
Robert Adolph to Ramiro Lopes da Silva, June 18, 2003.

14
Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, U.S. Defense Department News Briefing, June 30, 2003.

15
“Donald H. Rumsfeld Holds Defense Department News Briefing with Jay Garner,” U.S. Department of Defense, June 18, 2003.

16
Jon Lee Anderson, “Out on the Street,”
New Yorker,
November 15, 2004, p. 74.

17
Brookings Institution, “Iraq Index: Number of Attacks by Insurgents and Militias,” updated July 20, 2007.

18
Adolph to Lopes da Silva, Security Management Team, and UNSECOORD, Threat Assessment, June 29, 2003.

19
Kevin Kennedy to UN Headquarters September 4, 2003.

20
SVDM to Bremer and Sawers, July 6, 2003.

21
Robert Adolph, Chronology of Events (in possession of author).

22
Fred Eckhard to Shashi Tharoor, “Iraq Briefings,” July 25, 2003.

23
Salim Lone to Eckhard, August 12, 2003.

24
Ahtisaari report, p. 10.

25
Adolph, Chronology.

26
SVDM to André Simões, July 1, 2003

27
Jean-Sélim Kanaan, July 1, 2003, published in Bernard Kouchner,
Les Guerriers de la paix: du Kosovo à l’Irak
(Paris: Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2004), pp. 436-38.

28
Ahtisaari report, p. 17.

29
SVDM to Kieran Prendergast, July 24, 2003.

30
Report of the Security in Iraq Accountability Panel, March 3, 2004, online at .
www.un.org/news/dh/iraq/SIAP-report.pdf
, p.13.

31
Ibid., p. 18.

32
Ibid.

33
Robert F. Worth and John Tierney, "FBI Teams Sent to Investigate Bomb Attack on Embassy,”
New York Times,
August 9, 2003, p. A6.

34
Vivienne Walt, “Jordanians Ask: Why Us?; Analysts Disagree on Reasons Behind Embassy Bombing,”
Houston Chronicle,
August 8, 2003, p. A21.

35
Justin Huggler, “A Mercedes Was on a Roof, Blown by the Force of the Blast,”
Independent
, August 8, 2003, p. 2.

36
Office of the SRSG, weekly press briefing, August 7, 2003.

37
Helen Kennedy,“Daughters Talk of a ‘Loving Dad,’”
Daily News,
August 2, 2003, p. 3.

38
Initially Jordan denied that U.S. forces were planning on going to Iraq. They were “not participating in this war,” Marwan Muasher, Jordan’s foreign minister, said. They were there only to train Jordanian soldiers and defend Jordan against Iraqi missile attack. Ian Cobain and Stephen Farrell, “Israeli Special Forces Join ‘Secret Front’ in Jordan,”
Times
(London), March 17, 2003, p. 13.

39
Anthony Shadid, “Attacks Intensify in Western Iraq; Foreigners Suspected in Eight Assaults,”
Washington Post,
August 2, 2003, p. A12.

40
Tamara Chalabi, “Jordan Slandered My Father at Saddam’s Behest,”
Wall Street Journal,
August 7, 2003, p. A10.

41
Dexter Filkins and Robert F. Worth, “11 Die in Baghdad as Car Bomb Hits Jordanian Embassy,”
New York Times
, August 9, 2003, p. A1.

42
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Car Bomb Kills 11 in Baghdad,”
Washington Post,
August 8, 2003, p. A1.

43
Filkins and Worth, “11 Die in Baghdad.”

44
Thom Shanker, “Iraqis to Keep Responsibility for Guarding Embassies,”
Washington Post,
August 9, 2003, p. A7.

45
Adolph, Chronology.

46
Salim Lone to SVDM, August 13, 2003.

47
SVDM to Martine Chergui, August 7, 2003.

48
SVDM, interview by IRIN news service July 14, 2003.

49
Office of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq (UNOCHI) Centre Region, “Draft Paper on the UN Outreach Campaign in Mosul,” circulated August 17, 2003.

50
SVDM, interview by IRIN.

51
SVDM, remarks to Security Council before presentation of secretary-general’s report, July 22, 2003.

52
The Committee to Protect Journalists found the shelling to be unintentional but avoidable. It faulted senior U.S. officers who knew journalists stayed at the hotel but did not properly convey this knowledge to the tank commander who fired. Eventually the U.S. military investigation into journalist Mazen Dana’s death would reach the same conclusion.The death was "regrettable,” but the soldier who had shot Dana had “acted within the rules of engagement.” Committee to Protect Journalists, “Iraq: CPJ Dismayed by US Investigation into Killing of Reuters Cameraman,” September 22, 2003.

53
Anthony Shadid, “US Military Probes Cameraman’s Death,”
Washington Post,
August 19, 2003, p. A15.

54
Ibid.

55
Younes to SVDM, August 18, 2003.

56
Jamil Chade, “Ocupação e humilihante, diz Vieria de Mello” (Occupation and Humiliation, Says Vieira de Mello),
O Estado de São Paulo
, August 18, 2003.

57
SVDM, remarks to Security Council before presentation of secretary-general’s report, July 22, 2003.

58
SVDM, interview with Packer.

59
Chade, “Ocupação e humilihante.”

60
SVDM, draft op-ed, August 2003.

61
Chade, “Ocupação e humilihante.”

62
Joshua Hammer, “I Saw Many Dying,”
Newsweek
Web exclusive, August 19, 2003.

2
Mansour to Veronique Taveau, August 19, 2003, 8:14 a.m.

3
The congressional delegation was composed of Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), and John Sununu (R-NH).

4
Report of the Independent Panel on the Safety and Security of UN Personnel in Iraq, online at , p. 14.

5
Ibid.

6
“Blast at UN Headquarters in Baghdad,” CNN Breaking News, August 19, 2003, 9:01 a.m. ET.

7
Ibid.

8
Jeff Davie, “Search for the SRSG,” internal written account, September 11, 2003.

9
Ibid.

10
Salim Lone, “Discussion with UN Baghdad Spokesman,” CNN, August 19, 2003, 11:45 a.m. ET.

11
Salim Lone, “Interview with Spokesman for UN Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello,” CNN, August 19, 2003, 1:00 p.m. ET.

12
“Baghdad UN Blast:What Future for the UN,” BBC News, last updated August 25, 2003, online at .

13
“Huge Explosion at U.N. Headquarters in Baghdad,” CNN Breaking News, August 19, 2003, 12:01 p.m. ET.

14
Fred Eckhard, “United Nations Briefing Re: Bombing on U.N. Compound in Baghdad, Iraq,” UN Headquarters, August 19, 2003.

15
“Huge Explosion at UN Headquarters in Baghdad,” CNN Breaking News, August 19, 2003, 12:03 p.m. ET.

16
Ibid.

17
Jimmy Breslin, “Dying over Something That Never Was,”
Newsday,
August 22, 2003.

18
“Huge Explosion at UN Headquarters in Baghdad,” CNN Breaking News, August 19, 2003, 12:03 p.m. ET.

19
Larry Kaplow, “At a Soft Target, UN and Iraqis United by Shock,” Cox News Service, August 19, 2003.

20
Jamie Wilson, “Baghdad Bombing: They Came to Bring Relief from War. Now They Are Asking: Why Us?”
Guardian
, August 20, 2003, p. 3.

21
Several of Vieira de Mello’s friends and family members dispute whether the UN envoy would have lashed out in this way. Although he was an atheist, they say, he was also superstitious. In addition, he was in a highly vulnerable position, dependent on the efforts of his devout rescuer. I have relied upon Valentine, the only witness to the scene, who is adamant that the exchange proceeded as I have described. Assuming Valentine’s memory serves him, the outburst can best be ascribed to the pain Vieira de Mello was in, as well as his anger over what he likely saw as unacceptable proselytizing.

22
Davie, “Search for the SRSG.”