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Red Cross mulls cutback in Iraq operations

UN agencies shocked, not surprised

AP, Geneva
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said yesterday it is considering cutting back its operations in Iraq after a bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters that shook the neutral Swiss-run organisation.
The attack killed two Iraqi employees of the ICRC and as many as 10 other people outside the agency's compound, said agency spokesman Florian Westphal.
Several ICRC employees were slightly injured inside the compound, Westphal said.
"The ICRC certainly condemns this attack in the strongest terms and expresses its heartfelt sympathy with all the victims and their families, not just our two employees who were killed," Westphal told AFP.
"Any deliberate attack causing death and injury among civilians is prohibited by international humanitarian law and does negate the most basic principles of humanity," he added.
"We will also reassess our conditions in Baghdad over the next few days; there will be no immediate decision taken on that, we need to take stock," Westphal said.
''Such an attack is a major blow for us,'' Westphal told The Associated Press. ''It's a big shock. It is obviously impossible to move onto a normal day's business, so we really have to step back and take stock.''
In Geneva, United Nations aid agencies said they were shocked by the bombings, but not surprised.
But they said it was unlikely their operations would be affected: They already had cut back to skeleton staffs because of the August 19 truck bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Damien Personnaz, spokesman for the UN Children's Fund, said it's not surprising because it's happened before, at the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Agencies said it's unlikely that they will scale back their operations after the latest attack, because they have already done so.
Meantime, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says he's shocked and outraged at the Red
Cross bombing in Iraq.
Prior to entering a European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Straw also called the security situation in Baghdad "unsatisfactory." Still, he said the overall situation in Iraq is getting better. He said the coalition will not be deterred.
He said ICRC officials in Baghdad and at the Geneva headquarters were reviewing operations.
''It's too early for us at the moment to say how this attack will impact on our activities,'' Westphal said. ''We will have a fairly clear idea within the next few days how we want to proceed.''