*EPF302 03/26/2003
White House Report, March 26: U.N. Role in Reconstruction, Blair
(Based on White House press secretary's morning briefing aboard Air Force One) (380)

U.N. ROLE EXPECTED IN AID AND RECONSTRUCTION IN IRAQ

Although the U. N. Security Council failed to act in "disarming Saddam Hussein's regime and enforcing U.N. resolutions," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, the Bush administration wants the United Nations to play a role in postwar Iraq.

"There's a role anticipated for the United Nations both on the humanitarian relief side and the reconstruction side," Fleischer told reporters aboard Air Force One March 26 as they accompanied President Bush on a visit to MacDill Air Base in Florida. "Certainly, in the United Nations, as the keeper of the oil-for-food program; that's an important program."

Fleischer pointed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's conversation with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan March 25 in New York as an example of the United States' efforts to "work through the process."

That process by which the United Nations operates, he acknowledged, "is a process that involves talks, and member states on the United Nations Security Council and in the United Nations have a right to talk."

"I think if we've learned anything from the United Nations recently, it's they don't move very quickly," Fleischer said.

"The president's focus is on what is effective, what will do the most good to help the most people on the ground in Iraq, and who can best get it done," Fleischer said. "How can we feed people the fastest and the most effectively? How can we rebuild the country the fastest and the most effectively? He wants the United Nations to have a role in that."

BUSH TO HOST BLAIR AT CAMP DAVID

After his March 26 visit to the air base in Florida, the president headed to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, where he was to have dinner with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The two leaders have planned a series of meetings to take place March 27. "They will be talking about the United Nations role in the reconstruction efforts and humanitarian efforts," Fleischer said. Secretary of State Colin Powell was to join them.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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