Have just read the following and pass it on for what it is worth. Sorry that it is so long.

The 'Other' Iraq Option

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan responded to the US call for help with troops to maintain security in Iraq by hinting at a coming UN power grab in Iraq. He said that the US would get no help from the United Nations unless the US allowed the UN to take charge of Iraq’s reconstruction.

Adding insult to the injury, Annan said that he was ‘counting’ on US troops to provide security for its mission in Iraq, following the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters on Tuesday. In essence, Annan is threatening to leave the US twisting in the wind unless the US hands control over to him. And just to make things interesting, he tossed on the added burden of responsibility for protecting the UN as well.

It is important to remember, when considering the UN’s fitness to take over Iraq’s reconstruction, that the UN hired former Saddam intelligence agents to guard their facility. (The guards are suspected of helping the bombers.) The UN refused US security. And the truck carrying the bomb was traced to Syria, who is the current serving president of the UN Security Council.

But if the US wants any help in the form of any meaningful military aid, it will come at that impossible price. "It is not excluded that the [Security] Council may decide to transform the operation into a UN-mandated, multinational force operating on the ground with other governments coming in," Annan told a press conference.

Then the kicker: "It would imply not just burden-sharing but also sharing decisions and responsibility with the others. If that doesn't happen, I think it is going to be very difficult to get a second resolution that will satisfy everybody."

Translation: If Washington doesn’t allow the UN to take over the operation it messed up for more than twelve years, then the UN will let Iraq collapse into a pile of extremely ancient ruins. The political equivalent of beginning a round of negotiations by taking hostages.

So much for ‘humanitarian concerns’ and the UN’s much ballyhooed role as the global champion of the oppressed. In truth, it is all about politics, and the UN doesn’t give a fig about what happens to the Iraqis. As an organization, it wants power – global power – and if that means allowing Iraq to implode to get it, then so be it.

Annan learned a lot watching the French maneuver and manipulate events to its advantage. If the French can do it as part of the UN, why can’t the UN just cut out the middle man?

Axel Poniatovski, a member of the foreign affairs committee in the French National Assembly, told the BBC that it was "difficult to understand why the US, today, wouldn't want to be under a UN mandate".

Assessment:

Why wouldn’t the US, today, want to be under a UN mandate? That is a question so profoundly stupid that it could only puzzle a member of the French government.

(I can’t resist. Please forgive the spleen-venting, but if I don’t, I fear a stress related stroke – I’ll just lay here on the couch and you take notes and nod infrequently)

Ummm, because the UN doesn’t have a clue what it is doing?

The FBI is investigating the United Nations’ security guards, who were selected by Saddam Hussein’s regime before the war. They reported to Iraqi intelligence on the movements of U.N. staff at the Canal Hotel compound, which served as a base for weapons inspectors.

The United Nations continued to employ the guards after the war because they were familiar faces. The UN said it didn’t want the US to provide security before the attack because they said they didn’t need it.

Who would the UN put in charge of Iraqi internal security? Saddam Hussein? That could be a reason why the US might not want to be under a UN mandate in Iraq? Given UN reluctance to remove him in the first place, who knows?

Could it be because Washington remembers the UN performances in the Balkans? In 1995, Dutch UN peacekeepers stood by and watched as 7000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Bosnian Serbs in a UN-declared ‘safe area’.

A subsequent Dutch parliamentary probe said the UN and its own troops were to blame for ‘failing to prevent Europe’s worst single atrocity since World War II.”

It concluded, “The entire international community was trailing behind events and was insufficiently prepared for the war crimes that were committed by the Bosnian Serbs.”

Maybe that’s why Washington doesn’t want to place itself under the UN’s mandate in Iraq. They read the Dutch report of a UN debacle so sweeping that the Dutch parliament couldn’t even exonerate its own troops.

The Bosnian Serbs were amateurs compared to the swelling ranks of al-Qaeda terrorists flooding into Iraq. Does anybody really think UN peacekeepers are a match for al-Qaeda terrorists? Anybody? I'll wait.

Let's not forget the swell job the UN has done with the Middle East since 1947. Or the UN’s ‘successful’ interventions in Africa? Like when the Cubans were finally driven out of Angola, for example. The same Cuban soldiers showed right back up in Angola months later as part of the UN peacekeeping contingent. Soon there were reports the Cubans were aiding the rebels from within the UN.

The entire population of sub Saharan Africa faces annihilation from AIDS because of the ‘cost of treatment and prevention’ when they have enough money in the World Bank to lend money to Malaysia to develop its global electronics market. AIDS has been around for two decades and they still can't figure out how to buy medicine.

(Hint -- maybe they could make it themselves. The UN has all the ingredients and even some guys who can read recipes -- never occurred to them in 20 years?)

How long will it take for the UN to fix Iraq? Two centuries?

Does anybody ELSE remember Rwanda? The UN stood idly by while one person in seven was slaughtered in an ethnic genocide. The UN let them kill each other until the only ones left were the wounded, the sick and the little kids. Then they set up refugee camps just in time for them to die by the tens of thousands when the UN realized in their yearlong 'rush' to rescue the Rwandans they forgot some of their tents and were out of medicine.

The UN was actually only given one really important job to do all by itself, as a sovereign body. That was to enforce the sanctions it imposed on Iraq as a condition of the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire.

How about this for a reason why the US isn't leaping at the chance to let the UN run things? In Iran, former president and leading cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave a sermon on Friday, saying, "If the UN is put in charge, many great countries around the world will help. The Russians will come. The Germans will come. The French will come. The Indians will come. Islamic countries will come. They will try to somehow solve the problem that the Americans have created, the tragedy that they have brought upon our region."

And that is the whole UN agenda in a nutshell, straight from the mouth of America’s most implacable enemy. The Russians will come. The Germans will come. The French will come. Oil executives in tow, with construction contracts already filled out.

Didn’t they already come, about twelve years ago, and prop up the world’s most despicable dictator in exchange for those same contracts they are trying to get now?

Iran is for it. That’s a good reason to be against it.

But there is the other option, one I hope the US would take for the sake of my spleen, but pray it does not for the sake of Iraq.

Let ‘em have it. The whole kit and caboodle. Pull out all our forces. Bring home all our guns. While we’re at it we can withdraw our participation in the UN since we don’t seem to be welcome there anyway. Tell Israel they are free to handle their own war on terror any way they like, since we are going home.

Then send a note to Osama bin-Laden that Kofi Annan is now in charge of the Iraq occupation and that the best way to get his attention is to bedevil the French, now that Israel has nuked Iran and Syria and we've cut off his supply of North Korean nuclear weapons. Not to mention our solving North Korea's energy problems without UN interference, (now that it glows in the dark all by itself).

And we can sit here at home and watch Allah sort it out on TV.

 

And you came up with all this before 6:30am (eastern time) on a Saturday?

Mex, you need to learn how to relax.

 

Stan, I agree right up to the end.... don't back out... occupy EVERYTHING! Make them enojoy life wether they like it or not! Creates jobs too! Good for the environment!

 

Perhaps the best step would be for the U.S. to withdraw it's complete and total support of the UN, including all the financial assistance that organization receives from us. Let the rest of "them" pay for "their" organization. Why should we pay just to let them to kick us in the behind? Diplomacy? statesmenship? Doesn't seem to have done much good lately.

~Dave

 

I support our President and Nation.

I do not support the UN.

We should either own it, and rule it, or leave it to wither and die. Who are they to even try to dictate to us. That, in and of itself, is insulting. The weak instructing the strong? I don't understand.
This attitude is far too prevalent lately, and I sit here shaking my head.
??? ??? ???

 

No wonder that I, as an European, am opposing to some of the views that are expressed here.
"
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan responded to the US call for help with troops to maintain security in Iraq by hinting at a coming UN power grab in Iraq. He said that the US would get no help from the United Nations unless the US allowed the UN to take charge of Iraq’s reconstruction."

"Axel Poniatovski, a member of the foreign affairs committee in the French National Assembly, told the BBC that it was "difficult to understand why the US, today, wouldn't want to be under a UN mandate".
Assessment:
Why wouldn’t the US, today, want to be under a UN mandate? That is a question so profoundly stupid that it could only puzzle a member of the French government."

OK, here we go: Does the USA assume that now that they have brought reached the station that is designated "peace" in Iraq on their "roadmap" (that IMHO looks like the brush cleaning rag of an alcoholic cubist painter) and where they do find out now (based on something they first called intelligence and what seems to be a massive bending of the truth now) that it doesn't nearly make them look or feel good.
OK, the US messed it up-against the opposition of the UN and lots of members of the UN, and now the US wants to have the UN clean it up. BUT, the US wants the UN to do it without interfering with the "plan" they have for the region that has already shown its "qualities". And if the rest of the world does not like it, nuke them. If anybody wants to oppose your childish rantings or doesn't believe your science fiction department of the "intelligence" services you own, make a self illuminating parking lot out of his country.


I do know that the weaknesses and failures of the UN that are mentioned here are bad and true, but the USA have been a member of the UN, had their votes in hte UN etc.
But the alternative, that to me looks like being on the receiving end of an US foreign policy that seems to be made by people who should be sent back to Kindergarten to retry their socialisation seems much worse to me.

I tried to get my tone to fit what I have to hear from US sources about us Europeans everyday- If you feel that insult goes over injustice to injury here, please note that this is the way you talk to us, talk about us in our presence and now you doe expect us to even like you?

Go, flame away !

AlpineRAM

 

Alpine, I agree 100 percent with you about the way the situation is getting handled. I feel it is very sloppy and my concern is for the individual soldier first. When he feels safe, then he can start concentrating on the safety of the rest of the country. I don't feel we have enuff troops there. I think with more troops, the job can get done quicker and then we can get out of there. Unfortunately, our last administration was more concerned about "recreation" and downsized our military far too much. I'm all for assistance from the U.N., again will get the job done quicker. Turning everything over to the U.N.? Giving the U.N. authority over our troops? No, no, no. Progress may be slow, but even if the U.N. could accomplish anything, I don't feel they could do it any better. Part of the arguement for years has also been that most of the major players in the U.N. has there own equipment, uniforms and doctrine. This would lead to logistic problems without them being familiar with ours. I have done a few joint excercizes, and even with "annual" training with these countries there are problems. Can you imagine an emergency situation? Also, some of the countries are far from a democracy wether they call themselves one or not, and the U.S. is even going to get close to allowing itself to be "ruled" again. Stopped that a long time ago. You may touch a nerve to some by saying "their leadership" belongs in kindergarten, but if you were here behind the scenes, you would see many agree. Problem is it's what we have to go by for now, dealing with it the best we can just like anybody else. All we can do is lean on them.

 

Further, I have personnally met some of the Dutch Marines (on par I beleave with our Rangers) right before they deployed to Bosnia. I was at Wildflecken while they were doing weapons qualification. They then went to Grafenvehr and Hohnefels for further training before deployment. Can you imagine 2 months of field training before deploying indefinately? They are a VERY motivated group. If they didn't get involved for some reason, I don't beleave it was THEIR doing.They would have slapped the serbs around like little girls. Everybody knows that the DUtch don't waste anything anyway.

 

Redleg: Thanks, I thought that the first answer to this would be a flame.

I do think that the US handling of the Iraq situation is not up to the standard that the world could have expected after teh announcements that have been made. Right now the situation makes me think that all kind of intelligence work has either been ommitted beforehand, or maybe the CIA paper was just used by an imaginary minister of propaganda and indoctrination.
I can't believe that all those institutions within the US wouldn't have warned and predicted that just winning a war and occupying the territory would be the really easy part of this. I think this lesson has not been learned since Vietnam or Corea. Maybe us Europeans have the advantage of having experienced the troubles of ending a colonization of a country in this century, and still we have to clean up the aftermath in some fields. (see France-Algeria, France-Senegal, Germany-Togo etc)
I do understand your point about chain of command and incompatibility of systems. But I think the command or power requested by the UN from the USA was not to directly command troops etc, but to be able to solve conflicts the troops that are there must be neutral and be commanded by the international community-the UN. I think (based on reports from Iraq) that the majority of the population sees the US troops as an occupation army. Hence there is a lot of resentments against anything the USA will do there. The UN on the other hand is highly valued there as a kind of neutral umpire who is able to defend himself.
Your assessment of the Dutch troops is correct. I can say with pride that the Austrian troops are considered as more than equal in a mountaineous territory to the Dutch elite and to lots of other good units. I know that we are no superpower and that we do operate on a very tight budget but the motivation, the training and the dedication are good.
The problems that arose in former Yugoslavia were massive and there was very much done wrong down there. (I speak out of experience, since I have been transporting medicaments and food into cities and babies out of cities for 4 years down there, have been in Vukovr during occupation by the Serbs etc- the pictures are still there in me..)
But, if you think of the use of napalm (sorry it's called differently now for marketing reasons) by the US troops in Iraq long after every place should be under control shows us something. The situation is as much under control as it was in Bosnia.... meaning that it was not under control.Meaning that in this situation happens and will cost lots of lives, of combattants and of innocent bystanders.

AlpineRAM

 

...Biting my tongue...