Article

2003-02-25 Iraq

Group wants UN to help set up interim civil administration

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Posted by Fred Pruitt 2003-02-25 09:57 am|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 the reason for UN involvement:
1. Free up US troops for elsewhere
2. Get additional sources of funding (assuming the oil rigs have been blown and so outside money is needed)
3. Most important - when something goes wrong during the occupation - and something certainly will at some point - a blown up wedding party or whatever - sahre the blame, give us cover - its the UN occupation, not US colonialism

and their not bad at the nitty gritty administrative stuff - theyve done at least as well in Cambodia, East Timor, etc as we did in Haiti.

OTOH - they WIIL have their own agenda on Iraqi politics - likely to me more pro Saudi, and thus pro-Sunni arab, and ex-baathist, than our agenda. And they may well get in the way of our regional agenda for democracy promotion.

So its a difficult decision, not at all clear to me we dont want at least some UN involvement in the post-war.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-02-25 12:03:48|| 2003-02-25 12:03:48|| Front Page Top

#2 LH,

Interesting post. It makes me wonder if part of our dismal dance at the UN is to get them to veto the final resolution so that we can effectively cut them out of the picture in the post-Saddam world.

Posted by Dreadnought 2003-02-25 16:10:08|| 2003-02-25 16:10:08|| Front Page Top

#3 Once Saddam and his bad-boy apparatus is eliminated, we need to get Iraq right in order to change the other bad neighbors. The UN will not be the ones to do it. I can think that those countries who signed their names to letters of support would be excellent candidates for the effort, along with the US.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2003-02-25 16:39:50|| 2003-02-25 16:39:50|| Front Page Top

#4 All of the above:
1. have no power or authority.
2. are not representative of the peoples of Iraq.
3. are probably not electable, assuming that they believe in democracy.
4. probably are more interested in recovering booty, confiscated by the Saddamites, than in liberating Iraq.
5. are power rivals, rather than ideological enemies, of SH.
6. are chronic whiners who should move to France.

Posted by Anon 2003-02-25 19:42:34|| 2003-02-25 19:42:34|| Front Page Top

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