Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister with long experience in the U.N. system, who was asked by Kofi Annan in 2000 to prepare a report on reforming peacekeeping, has called these "peace-building" tasks. In the case of East Timor, the Security Council devised a unique mandate. For the first time in history, it took total control of a country, with all executive, legislative, judicial, and even military power vested in its appointed administrator, who ran everything from the power stations and fire departments to radio, television, and a U.N. newspaper. So when Kofi Annan watched the blue U.N. flag come down over Dili, East Timor's capital, at midnight this past May 19, the tropical air hung heavy with colonial antecedents. The secretary general was not just a VIP at someone else's independence party. He was an imperial sovereign handing over the reins of power. The mission he closed was the shortest, least bloody, most benevolent, and possibly most successful colonization since the Middle Ages. But, in carrying out its mandate, UNTAET made mistakes from which future U.N. missions would do well to learn. Untaet's very name United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor conceded that this was no proud empire on which the sun would never set. U.N. Resolution 1272 of October 25, 1999, which authorized the mission, did not mention an exit date, but U.N. members foresaw a timeframe of two, perhaps three, years. In early September 1999, Indonesia had agreed to withdraw from East Timor and allow an Australian-led peace force to enter the territory to guarantee security. Untaet was to take over command from the Australians and create a civil administration to