United Nations: In an effort to reassure his staff, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has decided to set up an independent panel of experts to fix responsibility for security lapses that led to the truck bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters, killing 22.

Simultaneously, he also ordered a "strategic reorganisation" of security management that would be overseen by Deputy Secretary General Lousie Frechette.

Annan announced his decision in a letter sent to the staff in which he also promised to do this "utmost to ensure that such failures are not repeated either in Iraq or elsewhere."

The team to look into the security apparatus being appointed will also review the responsibilities of key individuals for lack of preventive and mitigating actions before the attack on August 19.

Annan's decisions comes in the wake of a highly critical report by an independent panel, which described the security system as "dysfunctional" and criticised the top management for refusing security from the US-led coalition, the only "credible" force in Iraq, without making any alternative arrangements.

The report had also criticised the team of senior officials led by Frechette on Iraq who, it said, failed to perceive the threat.

The composition of the team would be announced next week, a UN spokesperson said.

The United Nations had appointed independent panels earlier too to review the disasters like 1994 Rwanda genocide but it would be perhaps the first time that such a body would go into individual responsibilities and failures.

In the letter Annan said that he would personally review the "serious weaknesses" that have been revealed in the management of security system.

Expressing his "grave concern" over the "serious shortcomings" in "our provision of security" to the UN staff, Annan said, "we owe it to those affected by the attack on our Baghdad headquarters - the dead, the injured, the survivors and their families - to do our utmost that such failures are not repeated."

Saying that he "deeply" regrets the "systematic failure" that the reports had revealed, he assured the staff that as Secretary-General, "I will spare no effort in acting on the conclusion of the panel's report."

The announcement came within 24 hours of Annan's decision to relocate the entire UN staff comprising 22 personnel in Baghdad outside Iraq, possibly in Cyprus, for a review of security conditions.

PTI