Former UN chief: bomb was payback for collusion with US

THE reason the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad were bombed is because the UN has been taken over by the US and turned into a “dark joke” and a “malignant force”, according to one of the UN’s most internationally respected former leaders.

Denis Halliday, the former UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq, attacked the UN as an aggressive arm of US foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the truckbomb attack on the UN mission in Baghdad which killed at least 23 people – many of whom were Halliday’s former friends and colleagues.

“The West sees the UN as a benign organisation, but the sad reality in much of the world is that the UN is not seen as benign,” said Halliday, who was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. “The UN Security Council has been taken over and corrupted by the US and UK, particularly with regard to Iraq, Palestine and Israel.

“In Iraq, the UN imposed sustained sanctions that probably killed up to one million people. Children were dying of malnutrition and water-borne diseases. The US and UK bombed the infrastructure in 1991, destroying power, water and sewage systems against the Geneva Convention. It was a great crime against Iraq.

more