Iraqis inspected the wreckage of a bus following an explosion in Baghdad, Iraq Dec. 6. A suicide bomber set off explosives aboard the bus, killing two people and wounding 15, according to the police. Photo: AP/World Wide Photos. 'I really believed that we could have stopped the war and that if we had worked a bit harder, given the inspectors a bit more time, we could have.' -Kofi Annan UN Secretary General

Mr. Annan, who leaves office on Dec. 31, described Iraq as being in an extremely dangerous situation and again questioned the ability of Baghdad’s leadership to solve the civil strife by themselves.

“When we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war. This is much worse,” Mr. Annan said in an interview with BBC television and radio.

Mr. Annan said he agreed with Iraqis who say that life is worse now than it was under Saddam. “I think they are right in the sense of the average Iraqi’s life,” he said.

“If I were an average Iraqi, obviously I would make the same comparison—that they had a dictator who was brutal, but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, ‘Am I going to see my child again?’” Mr. Annan said. “And the Iraqi government has not been able to bring the violence under control.”

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which was not approved by theUN Security Council—and Mr. Annan subsequently called “illegal”— divisions among UN members have sharpened.

“I really believed that we could have stopped the war and that if we had worked a bit harder, given the inspectors a bit more time, we could have,” Mr. Annan insisted.

He said that the U.S. Iraq Study Group, which recently released its report and recommendations regarding the U.S. occupation of Iraq, recognized that “things are not working the way they had hoped and that it is essential to take a critical review—take a critical look at what is going on and, if necessary, change course.”