UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations intends to hire "a top tier security firm" to provide services for its global operations following a highly critical report that blamed "dysfunctional" U.N. security for unnecessary casualties in a last year's bombing at the world body's headquarters in Iraq.

A request for security firms to express their interest in competing for the contract, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, lists a wide-range of specialized services that the United Nations wants. They range from security assessments and crisis management planning to personal protection services for VIPs and consultations on kidnapping.

After the critical report on U.N. security was released in late October, Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged to implement its recommendations and said a review of U.N. security would encompass the organization's global activities.

"We will have to change our way of doing business to be able to protect our staff around the world," he said.

The United Nations currently has its own security staff around the world and going outside the organization for wide-ranging help represents a significant shift.

The panel's report cited massive security failures before the Aug. 19 bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 22 people, including top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, and wounded over 150 others. It also pointed to continued security lapses at the time of a second bombing in September, which killed several Iraqi police officers.

"The United Nations intends to issue an international competitive tender to identify a top tier security firm which will be contracted to provide high level specialized security and safety services, globally, within the United Nations system," according to the Request for Expression of Interest, which had an April 1 closing date.

The United Nations asked firms to provide detailed information on their capacity to deliver a dozen services, including contingency planning for evacuations, convoy management and training.

It said an initial one-year contract could be extended for two one-year periods and left open the possibility of awarding multiple contracts.

The critical report was prepared by a U.N.-appointed panel chaired by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. Annan appointed the panel on Sept. 22, the day the second car bomb explosion outside U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

A separate U.N. report, which the panel was given, said World Health Organization medical authorities estimated that "perhaps as many as 80 percent of the injuries and perhaps some deaths were caused by flying shards of glass" from windows that did not have shatter resistant film.

The Ahtisaari report criticized the United Nations for shunning protection from U.S.-led coalition forces -- the only source of security in Iraq -- and for ignoring "credible information on imminent bomb attacks in the area." It also accused the United Nations of violating its own security rules.

"The current security management system is dysfunctional," the report concluded.

Ahtisaari said the United Nations needs professional security assessments before sending staff anywhere, despite political pressures to act quickly.

The secretary-general withdrew U.N. international staff from Iraq in October and has refused to send them back to the country, except for short trips, because of security concerns, including frequent bombings.

Annan appointed a panel of independent experts headed by Gerald Walzer, former U.N. deputy high commissioner for refugees, to address the issue of accountability and on Wednesday he received their report.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the report, which will remain confidential, is based on a study internal documents and interviews with more than 140 people. He said it will be up to the secretary-general "to take administrative or disciplinary action."