Focus on the UN

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Focus on the UN
7
Fri, 04-23-2004 - 11:12am
Three articles point to a political confrontation in the UN

White House Says Iraq Sovereignty Could Be Limited

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN



WASHINGTON, April 22 — The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.

These restrictions to the plan negotiated with Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy, were presented in detail for the first time by top administration officials at Congressional hearings this week, culminating in long and intense questioning on Thursday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearing on the goal of returning Iraq to self-rule on June 30.

Only 10 weeks from the scheduled transfer of sovereignty, the administration is still not sure exactly who will govern in Baghdad, or precisely how they will be selected. A week ago, President Bush agreed to a recommendation by Mr. Brahimi to dismantle the existing Iraqi Governing Council, which was handpicked by the United States, and to replace it with a caretaker government whose makeup is to be decided next month.

That government would stay in power until elections could be held, beginning next year.

The administration's plans seem likely to face objections on several fronts. Several European and United Nations diplomats have said in interviews that they do not think the United Nations will approve a Security Council resolution sought by Washington that handcuffs the new Iraq government in its authority over its own armed forces, let alone foreign forces on its soil.

Full article at

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/politics/23DIPL.html?hp

OTOH

OIC wants new Iraq resolution

Thursday 22 April 2004, 16:39 Makka Time, 13:39 GMT


The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) on Thursday expressed "grave concern over the current situation in Iraq" and "strong condemnation of heinous acts of terrorism" against Iraqi civilians, places of worship, holy sites and public places.

A statement issued after an emergency meeting of foreign ministers and senior officials stressed "the importance of the United Nations in playing a central role to establish peace, security and stability in Iraq."

"In this regard, we urge the Security Council to adopt a resolution in due course which will effectively help the restoration of sovereignty and full independence to Iraqi people and empower the United Nations with the necessary mandate and authority to ensure the achievement of this goal."

The 57-member OIC called upon governments and international financial institutions to provide "the full range of loans and other form of assistance" to rebuild Iraq's war-ravaged economy.

'Smooth transfer'

They welcomed the 30 June deadline for US-led forces to transfer political power to an Iraqi interim government and called on occupation troops to ensure that the process would be smooth.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, who chaired the meeting, told reporters that the UN could not play a secondary role in a conflict situation such as that in Iraq.

He said UN participation would encourage more countries to invest in Iraq's reconstruction process.

Thirteen members holding key positions on various committees of the OIC are represented at the conference by ministers or senior officials.

They are the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Senegal, Guinea and Sudan. OIC secretary-general Abdelwahed Belkeziz is also present.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6D616503-6E44-4264-AC21-9E013F133298.htm

A tale-tale fact about new Iraqi Ambassador.

The history of U.S. interventions in Latin America also informs the skepticism. The U.S. military invaded Mexico three times, and the CIA's involvement in Central and South America in the 1980s makes Latin American leaders dubious of U.S. intentions in Iraq.

" have the image of the United States as the super-powerful country that is always abusing its power to dominate other nations," said Miguel Angel Báez, editor of Noticiero Semanal. "Many Latin American nations are victims of the U.S. interventionist policy that has provoked economic, social and political crises in those nations, forcing immigrants to come to this country. I believe that this in part is a reason why we tend to identify more with (the) less powerful nations."

Connections between the United States' mission in Iraq and its role in Latin America may not be so far off. President Bush's recent appointment as U.S. ambassador to Iraq happens to be John Negroponte, former U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s. Negroponte has been criticized for assisting the Contras, U.S.-funded insurgents fighting to oust the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, according to an Associated Press report published in the April 19 edition of Fresno, Calif., bilingual weekly Vida en el Valle.

The article reports: "When questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on whether he had acquiesced to human rights abuses by a Honduran death squad funded and partly trained by the CIA, said: 'To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras.'"

Negroponte's denial that the death squads ever existed has led him to be described by Stephen Kinzer, The New York Times Nicaraguan bureau chief from 1983 to 1989, as "a great fabulist" who "professed to see a Honduras almost Scandinavian in its tranquility, a place where there were no murderous generals, no death squads, no political prisoners, no clandestine jails or cemeteries."

Full article at:

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8d206c93b24a6a5138199862667b953a

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
In reply to: hayashig
Fri, 04-23-2004 - 3:04pm
Pulling My Hair OutI just replied with a long post & lost it. Post later when I'm less annoyed.Perturbed

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 8:24am

I'm addressing the Times' article in the next post, I almost lost this one.


>"A statement issued after an emergency meeting of foreign ministers and senior officials stressed "the importance of the United Nations in playing a central role to establish peace, security and stability in Iraq." "<


I can't picture the US achieving this

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 8:50am

>"Several European and United Nations diplomats have said in interviews that they do not think the United Nations will approve a Security Council resolution sought by Washington that handcuffs the new Iraq government in its authority over its own armed forces, let alone foreign forces on its soil."<


How is this going to work out?


>"

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 2:58pm
<<"the importance of the United Nations in playing a central role to establish peace, security and stability in Iraq." >>

I agree it is a rather daunting task. I was not aware that so many conservatives were opposed to the UN. There is a whole history on neo-cons versus the UN. It will be interesting to see how this is resolved.

Saw this column in the NYT:

Brahimi's Two Mistakes

By WILLIAM SAFIRE



ASHINGTON

U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the Bush administration's great Arab hope to appoint a transition government that would bring democracy to Iraq, is off to a troubling start.

His first mistake was to announce on French radio that "the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians," as well as the "equally unjust support of the United States for this policy."

That freelance condemnation was too much for even Kofi Annan, who sent out his official spokesman to explain that Brahimi was "a former foreign minister of Algeria" who was "expressing his personal views" and not necessarily those of the secretary general.

Undaunted by this rebuke (U.N. officials are not empowered to condemn member nations), Brahimi went on ABC television to tell George Stephanopoulos in an interview taped Friday that President Bush's support of the Sharon plan to withdraw from Gaza made his task in Iraq harder because the brutal, repressive Israelis "are not interested in peace no matter what you seem to believe in America."

This supposedly fair-minded international civil servant — in whom we are entrusting the delicate assignment to negotiate a path to free elections among Iraqi Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and other groups — then used his ABC-TV forum to make his second mistake.

As the world knows all too well, the insurgent forces combining Saddam's experienced killers and Al Qaeda terrorists have taken control of Falluja, near Baghdad. Obliteration is not an option; we are not Putin's Russians taking Grozny after leveling it.

This presents us with a trio of options. Here is what the president, his National Security Council and top field commanders have been wrestling with this past weekend:

Do we continue to try to negotiate with the insurgents holding the city's residents hostage, with our forces taking casualties almost every day? A series of broken truces would show restraint and compassion for civilians but would be taken for weakness by many throughout Iraq. Terrorists would then attempt similar standoffs in other cities, with more casualties in the long run.

Or do we send in our marines and other troops, backed by tanks and choppers, to end the Falluja insurgency? That would risk raising the immediate level of bloodshed on all sides for a brief period — thereby potentially infuriating Arabs everywhere who would see the suffering on Al Jazeera television.

Or do we search for some third way — patiently recruit and train former Iraqi soldiers, pay them plenty, and run joint patrols with U.S. marines — in hopes that we can slowly grind down the opposition before it bleeds us to despair? If this compromise doesn't work, we could then choose option one or two: interminable delay, or fight to win.

Either the coalition will take charge of Falluja or the insurgents will create a capital for their comeback. Unless the terrorists turn in real weapons, the liberation should assert control, neighborhood by neighborhood, with enough infantry power to make the battle of Falluja as short and decisive as possible.

The diplomat Brahimi evades the choice, which is his second mistake. "In this situation," he says, "there is no military solution." He elevates that to a philosophy: "There is never any military solution to any problem." Pacifism has its adherents, but when bin Laden's agents are shooting at liberators, do you turn the city, and ultimately the country, over to them?

Brahimi, diplomats assure me, is not really a pacifist; Algerians did not drive out the French without bloody warfare. His strategy is to gain quick local support by denouncing Israel (always an Arab street-pleaser) and by aligning the U.N. with those Iraqis who — having been cured of crippling despotism — now feel free to throw their crutches at the doctor.

As semi-sovereignty approaches, Iraqi politicians, except for Kurds, curry voter favor by complaining about having to join the fight for Iraqi freedom. Ayatollah al-Sistani is so fearful that a fiery upstart backed by Iran's Hezbollah will steal his followers that he competes by demanding a tyranny of the Shia majority.

The U.N.'s militantly pacifist Brahimi is falling in with this anti-Western Arab demagoguery. In embracing him so readily as the acceptable legitimator, Bush's heart may have been too soon made glad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/26/opinion/26SAFI.html

This after I visited a 55 page report concerning Shiite Clerics at

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pubs/2004/clergy/clergy.pdf

Militray recruiters have always visited high schools and received information about students. Males still must register even if there isn't a draft.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 3:15pm
<>

There are some prickly situations ahead. If the US stubbornly insists on hand-picking the governing group, this will be exponentially difficult. It is obvious that the US is tolerated, and any motives to maintain power will be detected an opposed. There are strong opinions on all sides. A magic wand seems appropriate.

The military executed the war with brilliant strategy, and then nothing. The total lack of foresight is blinding--the missteps have threatened the goal. Not to succeed is disastrous, but the way to success is unknown. And tends toward error after error because the administration isn't honest with itself (or the American people) about it's motives; the desire for Iraqi oil is just to powerful.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 3:23pm
<>

William Saffire is no neocon. Someone posted an articl a couple of weeks ago that claimed the Religious Right turned the Republican party against the UN. The truth is that pretty much all Republican factions have a problem with the UN that predates the RR and neocons.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 04-26-2004 - 6:06pm
<>

I certainly didn't mean to imply that he was. My comment came from my reading of another article "The evangelical roots of US unilateralism" by Duane Oldfield from "Foreign Policy in Focus."

http://www.fpif.org/

I was unaware that Republican factions had a problem with the UN that predates the RR and neocons. It certainly explains some some situations that I've encountered on these boards.