Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, August 7 -- On August 7 US President Barack Obama announced authorization for airstrikes on Iraq. Then three of his Senior Administration Officials (SAOs) held a 50 minute conference call with the press.

Earlier on August 7 after 6:30 pm, Council president for August Mark Lyall Grant emerged to read a press statement, followed by question and answer stakeouts by French deputy Alexis Lamek and Iraqi Permanent Representative Alhakim.

  Inner City Press asked Lamek if France will take military action. While we'll await the French mission's transcript, Lamek eventually said "that needs to be done indeed."

  Inner City Press asked Alhakim about airdrops, if ISIL has anti-aircraft guns and if the dam has been taken over. This last, he denied, saying that ISIL does not control the dam.

  And shortly after that, US President Barack Obama announced he has authorized airstrikes. He took no questions.

  There is a draft resolution in the works, with UK Ambassador Lyall Grant saying that a new draft would be circulated later on August 7. The Security Council leaves on August 8 for a week-long trip to Europe and South Sudan and perhaps some other places for now undisclosed. Some wonder how they will keep up not only with Iraq (and the Levant) but also Gaza and conceivably Ukraine and other matters.

  In a statement from Baghdad, the UN mission UNAMI announced that “over the last 48 hours 200,000 civilians have fled the advance of ISIL, with at least 180,000 crossing into the Dohuk district of the Kurdistan Region.” UNAMI said “up to 200,000 predominantly Yazidi civilians becoming trapped on Jabal Sinjar in territory not controlled by ISIL.”

 Even before the Security Council turned from its regularly scheduled Darfur meeting to the urgent session on Iraq, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, not in the UN but "in New York" according to his public schedule, put out a statement calling on those with “resources to positively impact the situation to support the Government.”

 Did that mean air strikes?

On July 25 after the UN Security Council met behind closed doors with the Syria Commission of Inquiry's Paulo Sergio Pinheiro and Karen AbuZayd, the two Commissioners and UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant came to take questions from the press.

  Karen AbuZayd spoke of abuses not only by the government but also, in response to a question, by what she called the Islamic State of Iraq and [Syria], ISIL.

  Inner City Press when called on asked her about ISIS' takeover of border crossing, renaming as Islamic State and attacks on non-Sunni Muslims in Mosul.

In this context, what did she think of hers or another Commission of Inquiry covering the group's abuses in Iraq as well? Bigger picture, does the state by state focus of the UN make sense in this context?

  AbuZayd said she prefers not to call them “Islamic State,” it give them too much credit. Pinheiro resisted any talk of expanding his Commission's mandate -- Syria is enough.

  A US state media asked about foreign fighters, including pro-government; Pinheiro said that Hezbollah is the only group of foreign fighters he's away of.

 This is strange, given that the UN's own recent report on Syria humanitarian access notes that “on June 29, the Islamic State issued a statement announcing that the Caliphate included people from the following nationalities: Caucasian [sic], Indian, Chinese, Shami (Levantine), Iraqi, Yemeni, Egyptian, North African, American, French, German, and Australians." Watch this site.