Fed: ICRC prepared to work with new admin in Iraq

00-00-0000
Fed: ICRC prepared to work with new admin in Iraq

CANBERRA, April 8 AAP - International Red Cross officials in Australia today said theywere prepared to work with whatever postwar administration emerged in Iraq, even if itwas US-appointed.

Washington plans to install the first stages of a civil administration to run Iraqin the southern port of Umm Qasr within days.

Members of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, headedby retired general Jay Garner, are scheduled to start operating in the port as soon asthe conflict ends.

The administration is said to include 23 ministries, each headed by an American withIraqi assistance.

But UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned a significant United Nations role inIraq would be needed to bring international legitimacy to a new Iraqi government.

Helen Durham, the national manager of international humanitarian law for the AustralianRed Cross, said the International Committee for the Red Cross would work with whatevernew administration emerged.

"The important matter is that we should be able to do our work according to our fundamentalprinciples, particularly humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence," she said.

Dr Durham said international aid agencies would have to discuss how they would tackleIraq and the question of a US administration.

"But in the Red Cross context we work all across the world, as long as our principlesare understood and respected," she said.

"From the ICRC's point of view, we've worked very successfully with a range of institutionsand with a range of authorities across the world.

"There tends to be a very good understanding with authorities of our mandate, and we'requite an old institution."

She said it was very difficult to say who should run the new authority - either the US or the UN.

"We are currently getting good access to POWs (prisoners of war) on the side of thecoalition forces and we are in negotiations and very soon hope to access on those whoare being held by Iraqis," she said.

"So we are not making any judgments about how a post-conflict Iraq will be run."

A spokesman for the aid agency Oxfam-Community Aid Abroad in Jordan, Alex Renton, yesterdaysaid any attempt by the US to oversee humanitarian assistance would lead to more sufferingfor the Iraqi people.

Mr Renton said Oxfam believed it would only be able to work effectively under a UnitedNations administration.

AAP rft/sb/gl/jlw

KEYWORD: IRAQ RED CROSS