“On 22 September [2003], a bomb exploded in the parking lot [of the UN compound in Baghdad], killing several Iraqi policemen. The UN senior directors in Baghdad then unanimously recommended to [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan the evacuation of all UN staff from Iraq. Kofi Annan accepted this but nevertheless kept a residual UN presence of about thirty international staffers in the country. The UN had effectively withdrawn from Iraq. …Many blamed the UN Secretary General for agreeing to the Coalition’s wish to allow the UN to re-enter Iraq with inadequate security arrangements, simply to send a ‘business-as-usual’ message.”
– Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 171