Iraq: Annan fires UN staff; Jordan to return stolen antiquities

By: Nabil Raza

UNITED NATIONS/ AMMAN: Senior UN staff ignored the security threats in Iraq before the Aug. 19 bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in which 22 people were killed, Secretary General Kofi Annan said.

Annan fired one top official and demoted another. He chastised his highly respected deputy Louise Frechette, who chaired a steering group on Iraq when the United Nations decided last May that UN staff could go back into the country after the US-led war.

She submitted her resignation but Annan refused to accept it, according to UN spokesman Fred Eckhard.

The action Monday appeared to be unprecedented at the UN, where senior leaders are almost never rebuked so publicly.

Separately, Jordan expressed its readiness to return to Iraq more than 700 stolen antiquities that were seized from smugglers, the official news agency Petra said on Tuesday quoting the director-general of Jordan's Department of Antiquities Fawaz Khreisha.

He said the pieces, confiscated by security and customs authorities, were well preserved, scientifically documented and ready for delivery upon the request of the Iraqis. The department has sent a compact disc with pictures of the artifacts to the Iraqi authorities renovating the National Museum in Baghdad, which was looted after the fall of Saddam Hussein last year.

Khreisha said Jordan had previously handed to Iraq 1,000 pieces of antiquities.

Iraq, a cradle of civilization long before the empires of Egypt, Greece or Rome, was home to dynasties that created agriculture and writing and built the cities of Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon -- site of Nebuchadnezzar's Hanging Gardens.

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