Annan Highlights Iraqis' Plight - 'Sad Day For The UN' by BBC News 1:21pm 20th Mar, 2003   United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has expressed concern for the millions of civilians who could be caught in the looming war in Iraq.    "It is the plight of the Iraqi people which is now my most immediate concern," he told a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York - just hours before a US deadline for war was due to expire.    Mr Annan said Iraqis had suffered a lot over the years and were faced now with a disaster "which could easily lead to epidemics and starvation".    Millions of people around the world share this sense of disappointment and are deeply alarmed    Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General.    During the meeting, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia renewed their criticism of the US decision to use force to disarm Iraq.    Mr Annan told the security council it was "a sad day for the United Nations"."I know that millions of people around the world share this sense of disappointment and are deeply alarmed," he said.    The Secretary General said nearly a million Iraqi children were suffering from malnutrition, and the coming conflict would make things much worse. He said efforts to relieve the plight of the Iraqi people could yet prove to be the task around which the security council could rebuild its unity.    Conflict of visions    His appeal came after opponents of the use of force in Iraq repeated their objections - most notably Germany, France, Russia and Syria.    To those who think that the scourge of terrorism will be eradicated through what is done in Iraq, we say that they run the risk of failing in their objective .Dominique de Villepin, French foreign minister    "Germany emphatically rejects the impending war," Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said.    He said Iraq had been slow and misleading during the inspection process. But he added that no-one could seriously believe that wars of disarmament were the way forward.    His French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, said the crisis had highlighted two conflicting visions - one based on the use of force to cut through the complexities of the modern world, and the other built on the idea that progress in international relations depended on dialogue.    "To those who think that the scourge of terrorism will be eradicated through what is done in Iraq, we say that they run the risk of failing in their objective," he said.    But Mr de Villepin called on the UN to pull together and address Iraq's humanitarian needs, and said France would take its full part in that process.    Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also condemned the US decision to go to war. But he also voiced hope that diplomacy could still prevail, stressing that resolving the Iraqi problem was "impossible without the Security Council".    Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara said the war against Iraq would return to haunt the US and Britain. The session began with the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix expressing "sadness" that it had not been possible to produce the assurances needed about Iraq's arsenal, in the three-and-a-half months of inspections.    He presented a work programme which sets out the key remaining disarmament tasks for Iraq. He acknowledged, however, that his programme "would seem to have only limited practical relevance in the current situation" since all the inspectors had followed orders to leave Iraq under the threat of imminent war.    19 March, 2003    UN News :Annan appeals for worldwide relief aid for Iraq in case of war    With the prospect of war in Iraq looming over Security Council deliberations on the key remaining disarmament issues for Baghdad to resolve, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to the international community today to do "everything we can to mitigate the imminent disaster" of the humanitarian crisis facing the Iraqi people.    Speaking at the conclusion of the Council's meeting, which was attended by five Foreign Ministers, the Secretary-General noted that over the past 20 years the Iraqi people had been through two major wars, internal uprisings and more than a decade of debilitating sanctions. "In the short term, the conflict that is now clearly about to start can only make things worse - perhaps much worse," he said.    The Secretary-General also stressed that Iraq's most vulnerable citizens - the elderly, women and children, and the disabled - are denied basic health care for lack of medicines and that nearly a million children suffer from chronic malnutrition. "I am sure members of this Council will agree that we must do everything we can to mitigate this imminent disaster, which could easily lead to epidemics and starvation."    The Council was meeting to hear reports from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), which is responsible for the biological and chemical weapons profile, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is in charge of investigating the nuclear arms programme, on what issues remain for ridding Iraq of banned weapons of mass destruction.    The Secretary-General said the UN had done its best to assess the possible effects of war in terms of refugees and human need, but of the $123.5 million requested a month ago in preparation for an Iraqi conflict, only $45 million had been pledged so far and only $34 million received.    "I'm afraid we shall very soon be coming back with an appeal for much larger sums to finance actual relief operations - and I earnestly hope that Member States will respond with generosity and speed," he said. 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