January 19, 2004
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES:
U.S. Finds Annan Ready to Help Salvage Iraq Transition Plan (Robin Wright and Colum Lynch, January 19, 2004, Washington Post)
The Bush administration has not figured out how much control it is willing to give the United Nations, U.S. officials said. The internal differences echo earlier debates over whether the United States should collaborate with the world body, first in pressuring Saddam Hussein over his programs to produce weapons of mass destruction and then in going to war to oust him. [...]The political hand-over, which centers around a complex process based on caucuses in Iraq's 18 provinces to elect a new national assembly, has been challenged by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Iraq's leading religious cleric is demanding direct elections so the caucus process cannot be manipulated to favor U.S.-backed Iraqis.
Sistani has repeatedly called for the United Nations to weigh in on the election issue. Washington hopes the most immediate role U.N. envoys will play is mediating with Sistaniand other potential spoilers of the transition plan. Sistani has refused to see U.S. diplomats but has met with U.N. representatives.
"Look, the bottom line is we need help," a U.S. official intimately involved in Iraq policy said. "We need help on a lot of fronts, whether it's managing Sistani, whether it's making this process more truly transparent and inclusive in such a way that the Sistanis of this world buy into it. That is something we haven't had very much success [with]. There is a genuine recognition that we need to engage more broadly."
This is why we can keep on toppling regimes until all those we want gone are--the UN has no option but to step in and help with the rebuilding after we break such places. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 19, 2004 8:14 AM
"help salvage Iraq transition plan"
Of course, the writers could not comprehend that the adminstration's plan could have always included, as a very likely outcome, an eventual UN involvement in Iraq: whether promptly and gladly, or late and grateful, or late and resigned. Why is it than when the administration's plans work perfectly, they are the object of cynicism -- concocted by neo-cons as early as 1976? And whenever they evolve in less than a straight-line, they doom us to "quagmire" unless otherwise "salvaged" by "capitulations" to our "moral betters"?
Posted by: MG at January 19, 2004 9:28 AMThis will be a big Democrat theme in the election - Bush has messed up Iraq. ABC Nightline has had a bunch of recent Iraq profiles all of which portray the country as being one big cesspool.
Posted by: AWW at January 19, 2004 10:28 AMIt shouldn't be hard for the Bush admin to round up a bunch of Iraqis who were tortured by Saddam, or who are doing much better economically after Saddam's fall.
"My son goes to school at Baghdad High, and under Saddam, he didn't even have books, but now he plays football and has a scholarship to Harvard", etc.
Posted by: THX 1138 at January 19, 2004 10:58 PM