New U.S. envoy to Iraq a magnet for tough jobs in Iraq
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - John Negroponte, the American ambassador to the United Nations whose next job is U.S. ambassador to Iraq, tried to retire from tough assignments but they just keep chasing him.

A career foreign service officer who worked in Vietnam, Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines, he left government service in 1997 to join publisher McGraw-Hill as executive vice president for global markets.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell, under whom Negroponte worked while Powell was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, persuaded him to quit that lucrative job and become ambassador to the United Nations in 2001.

Now, at the age of 64, Negroponte is headed for Iraq to head the U.S. embassy -- with 3,000 people the biggest American embassy in the world -- after an official transfer of power to Iraqis on June 30.

U.S. President George W. Bush tapped Negroponte on Monday and called the job a "very difficult assignment." With Negroponte at his side, Bush said: "There's no doubt in my mind he can handle it."

Unfailingly polite, Negroponte's unruffled manner belies his extensive experience with wars and disasters. He joined the Foreign Service in 1960 in Hong Kong, went to Vietnam in 1964 as a young diplomat and ended up advising Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Paris peace talks in 1968-69.

He was ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985, the years the Reagan administration was using the country as a base to topple the Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua.

Consequently, his confirmation as U.N. ambassador was delayed by six months in 2001 as he defended himself against charges of covering up human rights abuses by the U.S.-backed Honduran government. But then came the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States and the Senate quickly approved him.

"He is an outstanding professional, a great diplomat and a wonderful ambassador here," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said of Negroponte.

TRADEMARK CIVILITY

Since then he has rarely had a quiet moment, presenting the Bush administration policy on terrorism, Iraq, the Middle East and countless other controversial issues.

He is known to court diplomats, from the smallest to the largest country, with a civility that often contrasted with the severe comments about the United Nations from Washington.

German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said that when he took up his U.N. post in November 2002, Negroponte invited him to dinner before he could even present his credentials.

"He is a personality that can integrate different views. He is a professional," Pleuger said.

Negroponte follows orders that are not always popular with his Security Council colleagues. He vetoed numerous compromise resolutions on the Middle East and threatened to shut down all U.N. peacekeeping operations if the United States was not exempted from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Despite the differences on Iraq, French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere calls Negroponte "a good professional and a good friend."

"He understands the diversity of the world and he can be a good listener," Sabliere said. "From the bottom of my heart I wish him the best."

On Iraq, Negroponte helped craft Security Council resolution 1441 in 2002 giving Baghdad one last chance to disarm. While that resolution passed unanimously, the Bush administration failed to get a second resolution giving an explicit U.N. blessing to last year's U.S.-led invasion. It later largely sidelined the world body despite frequently calling for it to play a "vital" role in Iraq.

But Negroponte, like Powell, remained a defender of the United Nations and of Annan in particular, welcoming a more recent rapprochement with the world body after the Iraq war.

On April 7, he gave a nuanced presentation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the scandal enveloping the U.N. handling of the multi-billion-dollar oil-for-food program and complimented Annan for launching his own investigation.

Negroponte speaks Spanish, French, Greek and Vietnamese, using his Spanish frequently during brief media appearances.

The son of a Greek ship owner, he was born in London and raised at his family's Park Avenue home, later attending Yale University. He is married to Diana Villiers Negroponte, a native of Britain, and a lawyer and academic. The couple have adopted five children from Honduras.

From: http://www.reuters.com
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