British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw indicated in London Wednesday that his country and the United States were mulling over a bigger role for the United Nations in Iraq following the bombing at the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

"Obviously now, given this appalling tragedy that has happened in Baghdad, the United Nation's role, its practical role and its mandate, will be top of my agenda in New York," Straw told the BBC one day before his visit to the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday.

At least 20 people, including top UN envoy to Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello, were killed when a truck loaded with explosives blew up outside the UN office in Baghdad on Tuesday.

"We are open, for sure, to discussions with our Security Council partners about the way in which the United Nations' role in respect of security can be strengthened," Straw said, adding that he had already spoken to US Secretary of State Colin Powell about giving the world body a bigger part to play in Iraq.

The United Nations has so far been denied an explicit role in running postwar Iraq, which is occupied by the US-led coalition forces.

In the interview with the BBC, Straw also said that Britain and the United States may have failed to anticipate the security vacuum left by the sudden collapse of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"The military action was over more quickly than anybody anticipated. We had not anticipated that the Saddam regime would collapse that quickly," Straw said.

"And although that meant there was a success in terms of the hard military action, it also meant that there was a greater vacuum than was anticipated in respect of the post-conflict situation," he added.
 
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2003)