IMF and World Bank withdraw staff from Iraq

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund informed the US Treasury they are pulling their staff out of Iraq on following the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

"It's disappointing considering that all international organisations should be strengthening their resolve to fight terror after this bombing," a US official said.

The IMF and the World Bank are key players in efforts by the US-led coalition now running Iraq to rebuild the country's devastated economy. Both institutions are expected to provide billions of dollars in loans to help restart the country's banking system and get the economy functioning again, and had sent assessment teams to Iraq to start the process.

By contrast, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said only two people among the 300 or so UN international staff in Baghdad had taken up a UN offer of voluntary repatriation.

"I think the staff is pretty committed to staying on the job," he said. "The leadership is reassessing security."

The bomb killed top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 19 others, and wounded at least 100 people. Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the US-picked interim Iraqi government, said the death toll was expected to rise because people are still trapped in the rubble.

Eckhard, quoting the UN security co-ordinator's office in Baghdad, said 16 bodies had been recovered but only seven identified. Twenty wounded UN staff members were evacuated to Amman, Jordan, he said.

"There has been a de facto suspension of UN operations in Baghdad," Eckhard said, adding that they were looking at alternative ways to house the headquarters unit "so that we can get operations up and running again".