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Since September 2001, Negroponte served as the United States Representative to the United Nations. On April 19, 2004, President George W. Bush nominated Negroponte to become U.S. Ambassador to Iraq following the projected June 30, 2004, handover of sovereignty to as yet undetermined Iraqi authorities. [2] [3]

When, in early 2001, Negroponte was nominated by Bush to be appointed as United States Representative to the United Nations, human rights groups opposed, and a concerned Senate questioned, his nomination, causing a six-month delay in his ulimate appointment, which was acceeded to after September 11, 2001.

Despite his complicity in supporting Nicaraguan death squads during the Iran-Contra affair and his support of the brutal military dictatorship of General Gustavo Alvarez Martínez in Honduras, Negroponte's Senate confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq went smoothly.

The Senate confirmed the nomination by a vote of 95-3 on May 6. He was sworn in on June 23. Negroponte will head a U.S. embassy in Baghdad that will be temporarily housed in a palace that belonged to Saddam Hussein. When up and running, the embassy will be the largest in the world, with a diplomatic staff of over 3,000 personnel. [4]

Shortly after taking up the position, Negroponte was asked about eyewitness statements that in late June Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi had personally executed up to six suspected 'insurgents' in front of his U.S. military bodyguards. (Allawi denies the accusation). In an email to the Sydney Morning Herald, Negroponte did not attempt to deny the story. "If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would have no time for other business. As far as this embassy's press office is concerned, this case is closed," he wrote. [5]

In November 2002, it was Negroponte that was U.S. point man steering a compromise resolution through the United Nations Security Council stepping up the pressure on Iraq. "As we have said on numerous occasions to Council members, this Resolution contains no 'hidden triggers' and no 'automaticity' with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the Council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA, or a member state, the matter will return to the Council for discussions as required in paragraph 12. The Resolution makes clear that any Iraqi failure to comply is unacceptable and that Iraq must be disarmed. And one way or another, Mr. President, Iraq will be disarmed," he told the Security Council.

He also delivered a warning to other less hawkish members of the Security Council too. "If the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of a further Iraqi violation, this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq, or to enforce relevant UN resolutions and protect world peace and security, he said. [6]

Negroponte faced contention over U.S. intentions during the U.N. debate leading up to the war in Iraq. In March 2003, Negroponte "walked out ... after Iraq's ambassador accused the United States of trying to exterminate the Iraqi people. ... Iraq's U.N. envoy Mohammed Al-Douri charged that the United States had arranged for contracts to rebuild Iraq in 1997, six years before the U.S.-led war began [on March 19, 2003, and] had even planned the carving up of Iraq before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990." [7] See war profiteering for current information.

Once again, the matter of humanitarian aid was at issue. Al-Douri, described as nearly "spluttering", said that the "United States now was using the issue of humanitarian aid to hide its 'criminal aggression.' ... The Iraqi envoy urged the Security Council to halt the war in Iraq, saying ending the conflict was even more important than getting humanitarian assistance into the region." [8]

"'Britain and the United States are about to start a real war of extermination that will kill everything and destroy everything,' Al-Douri warned. 'And then their regret will be of no use. ... If the humanitarian issue is very important, it is more important' to halt the war, he said."

Over the past four decades, Negroponte's work has included such diverse roles as advising the puppet U.S. government in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, supervising the Reagan administration's use of Honduras as its logistical center for the counterinsurgency and counterrevolutionary campaigns in Central America, ensuring good U.S.-Mexico relations during the NAFTA negotiations, managing relations with UN Security Council members in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, and overseeing U.S. operations in Iraq during the lead-up to elections there in January 2005.

Negroponte is Jewish. A friend in Spain expressed his deep concern to me recently: " to appoint a Jew as ambassador to the Arab country that has been devastated because of the will of a cabal of Jewish neocons headed by Wolfowitz ­ Bush is just an accessory -, is like trying to put off a fire using buckets of gasoline."