In a line that could have come from a "Tonight Show" monologue, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations described the Arab world's greatest contribution to Iraqi reconstruction with a gallows-humor reply: "Suicide bombers."

"There is really little help that comes from the Arab world," said Hamid Al-Bayati, permanent representative of Iraq to the United Nations.

He met with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in Salt Lake City Wednesday, one week after the governor made a Thanksgiving visit to Iraq, and then participated in a roundtable discussion sponsored by the law school at the University of Utah.

Iraq is repaying loans to neighboring states that originated during the regime of Saddam Hussein. Some of those debts have been forgiven, but others are the biggest single drain on Iraq's economy, Al-Bayati said.

Bringing no big surprise to an American audience, Al-Bayati said security and financial aid from the United States followed by financial infusion from Japan are the two major components to Iraq's reconstruction.

"It is so important that they (Americans) don't abandon the Iraqi people.

"Together we can make Iraq a secure and stable country" to the benefit of the Middle East and the rest of the world, he said.

Al-Bayati did not directly take on American politicians and the divisive battles in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail over the continuing American military presence in Iraq. "There is a lot of controversy about the war," he said. "I think Americans should stand together and support their forces on the ground — the sons and daughters of the nation who are fighting on the ground."

He did say he is hopeful but not sure the fledgling Iraqi parliament and prime minister will agree to ask the United Nations before the end of the year to renew the resolution authorizing international security forces to remain in his country. He characterized differences between the parliament and prime minister as being on the same scale as differences in the United States between Congress and the president.

Too distant is the world's recollection of Iraq as a civilized country with a constitution and an orderly society in the early part of the 20th century, Al-Bayati said. He urged the audience not to remember Iraq for the chaos promulgated by "the vacuum of power" that followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship but for Iraq's "competent people, very educated people" who sprang from the oldest civilization on the planet.

"A year ago there was talk about civil and sectarian war. No more. Now there has been a huge change in six months' time. That's the benchmark I would like to see other than philosophies and related views."

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