The United States would like the United Nations to go back to Iraq. Kofi Annan is still having nightmares from the shock of finding out that even with all the appeasing and obstructionism and anti-Americanism that pours from the UN, the mujahideen will still attack them when they get the chance: U.S. Pushes for Reluctant UN to Return Staff to Iraq.

Annan withdrew all international staff from Iraq in October after attacks on relief workers and the bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19 that killed 22 staff and visitors, including the mission chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello. About 1,000 Iraqis remain on the U.N. payroll for humanitarian projects.

The meeting called for Monday as well as this week’s U.N. decision to send a security team to Iraq indicated Annan’s willingness to move toward political involvement in Iraq.

But safety is only one issue preventing a return of U.N. staff. Annan has stressed the need for “clarity” in the U.N. role, which U.N. officials have interpreted as not wanting to play a subordinate role or be a rubber stamp to U.S. plans between now and June.

The officials fear that U.N. approval would risk undermining the world body’s ability to be an honest broker after the handover, when Negroponte and others anticipate the world body playing a “robust” role in helping to draft a constitution and prepare for elections by the end of 2005.

On the other hand, some in the United Nations fear that if Annan does not send key staff back to Baghdad soon, the world body will not be a player in the next phase.