UN chief orders weapons inspectors and humanitarian staff to leave Iraq
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Your support makes all the difference.The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today that he will order UN weapons inspectors and humanitarian staff to leave Iraq.
Mr Annan made the announcement after telling a closed Security Council meeting of his plans. He did not say when the evacuations would begin.
"I have just informed the council that we will withdraw the UNMOVIC and atomic agency inspectors. We will withdraw the UN humanitarian workers," Annan said.
According to UN officials, a total of 156 UN inspectors and support staff are in Iraq from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is in charge of nuclear inspections, and the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, which inspects chemical, biological and long–range missiles.
The United Nations also has 99 international staff members working on humanitarian programs in northern Iraq and 95 international staffers in Baghdad and the rest of the country, the officials said.
Despite the expected withdrawal of UN staff, Annan made clear the world body will not abandon Iraq.
"This does not mean that should war come to Iraq that the UN will sit back and not to do anything to help the Iraqi situation," Annan said.
IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei announced Monday that the United States advised the inspectors to leave, the surest sign yet that a military conflict was imminent. El-Baradei asked for Monday's Security Council meeting to consider the US request.
The advice to leave Iraq didn't catch the inspectors off guard.
Contingency plans for a quick evacuation were drawn up alongside plans for the return of inspectors on 27 November after a nearly four–year break, UN officials said.
The handling of the US advice on Monday was in stark contrast to the pullout of UN inspectors in December 1998, ahead of US and British airstrikes. Then, former chief inspector Richard Butler ordered the inspectors to leave in the middle of the night, and Security Council members only learned they had left the following morning.
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