Annan expects UN to play an important role in rebuilding Iraq

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he expected the United Nations to play an important role in rebuilding Iraq after the war and said this would bring legitimacy to the effort.

Mr Annan also announced he was naming Rafeeuddin Ahmed, a Pakistani national and former associate administrator of the UN Development Program, as his special adviser on Iraq.

"I do expect the UN to play an important role, and the UN has had good experience in this area," Mr Annan told reporters ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council that he had called to discuss the issue.

"There are lots of areas the UN can play a role, but above all the UN involvement does bring legitimacy, which is necessary for the country, for the region and for the peoples around the world," he said.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is "extremely precarious" and is expected to get worse if relief teams remain unable to distribute aid, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.

The ICRC virtually the only aid organisation inside Iraq has teams in Baghdad, Basra and in the north of the country, but the fighting has made it too dangerous to work, said Jakob Kellenberger.

"It is an extremely precarious situation, and we remain worried," he said. "The situation is preoccupying and we have to expect that it will become even worse."

The ICRC has six aid workers in Baghdad, four in Basra and another four in the north, as well as more than 100 local staff.

Outside of those areas, such as in the southern cities of Nassiriya and Najaf, aid workers have difficulty assessing the humanitarian needs of Iraqis, he said. In recent days, ICRC teams have been able to distribute drinking water and blankets to an area west of Baghdad and repair water distribution systems and downed electrical grids in certain cities, Kellenberger said.

But, he added, the "most preoccupying problems" remain the lack of water and electricity for large groups of the population elsewhere.

According to the ICRC, hospitals in Baghdad are now in urgent need of stocks of supplementary water due to the reduced supply from treatment plants.

ICRC water bags previously delivered to five hospitals in Baghdad had been largely used up by April 5, but an additional 30,000 litres of water would be distributed as soon as possible.

The ICRC has restored water services to 40% of the population of Iraq's second biggest city, Basra.