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Dubya
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Well, now we see Bush and Company going hat in hand to the UN, asking for their "unnecessary, irrelevant" imprimatur. Irony, how I love you-let me count the ways...
link
Quote:
U.N. to Consider Request to Study Earlier Elections in Iraq
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 20, 2004; Page A15
At talks yesterday with the United States and the Iraqi Governing Council, the United Nations took its first step toward reengaging in Iraq and helping the United States rescue its troubled plan to hand over political power to the Iraqis, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
Secretary General Kofi Annan promised to look at how the United Nations can help, after a request from L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, and Governing Council President Adnan Pachachi.
Bremer and Pachachi asked the United Nations to begin by dispatching a team to help decide whether elections can be held for a new provisional government before the U.S.-led occupation is scheduled to end on June 30.
The fate of the political transition hinges largely on how a provisional government is selected. The U.S. plan calls for a complex system of caucuses in 18 regional provinces; it has been rejected by Iraq's leading cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and a growing number of Iraqis. Tens of thousands took to the streets of Baghdad yesterday to support Sistani's call for direct elections.
"We have asked the secretary general to send a team to Iraq to investigate the possibility of having such elections and, in case that is not possible, to explain why so, and also to discuss alternatives to that," Pachachi said at one of three news briefings after the talks.
In private communications with Iraqis, Annan has signaled that elections seem impractical. But he tipped his hand publicly after the morning talks.
"I don't believe there may be enough time between now and May to hold elections, but the team will go down and look into that further and then report to me," he said at a news conference.
Intervention by the United Nations could defuse the mounting tension over elections, said Abdul Aziz Hakim, a member of the Governing Council and a Shiite Muslim cleric who has dealt with Sistani.
"We would like a technical committee to be sent to look into and consider the matter of elections in Iraq," said Hakim, who was also on the Governing Council delegation. "Then this conclusion will be respected by Mr. Sistani."
Despite rancorous relations between the Bush administration and the United Nations for more than a year, Annan stressed the importance of pooling resources, skills and leverage to help Iraq make the difficult transition.
"The stability of Iraq should be everyone's business. I think we have an opportunity to work together to try and move forward in a process that the council and all of us have believed in," Annan told reporters.
The United Nations had expected to play a prominent role in Iraq once the United States leaves at the end of June. The issue is what role the United Nations will play -- and how it will participate in decision-making -- between now and then.
"If we get it wrong at this stage, it will be even more difficult and we may not even get to the next stage. So I think it is extremely important that we do whatever we can to assist. And I'm looking at this issue and holding these discussions in that spirit," the secretary general said.
The talks were frank but cordial, according to Iraqi, U.S. and U.N. officials. The U.N. delegation was especially struck by what it perceived as a new U.S. attitude about working with other nations through the world body. U.N. envoys said they hope this will be the beginning of an enduring pattern of international cooperation.
The major obstacle could be security. Annan drilled delegations from Iraq and the occupation authority on the spate of recent attacks and the ability of U.S. or new Iraqi forces to protect the United Nations if it returns.
Annan pulled out the U.N. staff in October, after two suicide bombings at Baghdad headquarters in less than three months killed about two dozen people, including chief U.N. representative Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Yet Iraqi and U.S. officials came away convinced that the United Nations will agree in the next two weeks to send a U.N. team to Iraq as a harbinger of its return in some form -- first operating from offices in Cyprus and Amman, Jordan, and later inside Iraq.
"Certainly it is our hope that the United Nations can play an active role, and soon. This has been our hope all along. I am optimistic. I think this will be done," Pachachi said.
In a sign of U.N. interest in helping facilitate the return of Iraqi sovereignty, U.N. officials are already talking about possible options to adapt the caucus system and refine the U.S. plan to make it more acceptable to Sistani and other challengers.
Although the United Nations might not be able to provide enough personnel to provide independent monitoring of the caucus or indirect elections, it could advise on how to recruit such monitors and how to conduct the process, well-placed sources said.
Bremer and the Iraqi delegation are due to hold talks at the White House, Pentagon and State Department today.
On another front, the White House announced yesterday that former secretary of state James A. Baker III will travel to oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf to hold further discussions on relief of Iraq's $120 billion foreign debt. Baker already toured Europe and Asia to appeal for debt relief; he will visit Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia this week.
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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."
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