UN claims broad role in Iraq, chides US on safety

"Viera de Melo, who is also the UN high commisioner on human rights, had informed the military govt(US) that Iraqis must quickly be given tangible power, Annan said".

"UN Secretary General Kofi Annan spelled out Friday a broad , ambitious plan for a UN role in Iraq and prodded US and British to quickly establish order and to let Iraqis control their future".


LINK:
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-07/19/content_246404.htm


HOW IRONIC, GOSH

. . . even if the average Murrikan can't figure it out.

TYY

kill a UN 'pest'

blame AlQaida

keep the people scared...

mmm

was taking place when the building was struck......hmmmmm wonder what was being announced or discussed ?

when the blast occured....:(

prompt any SC players to put forward a new resolution to give the UN real authority in shrub's sandbox?

I'd like to see France or Russia or Germany (or for a real pipe dream, China) offer a new resolution to have the UN take over Iraqnam, and watch Powell have to go and veto it. I don't know if even a fraud like Powell could get up and veto the one shot at our having less dead Americans result from this fiasco he helped get us into. That'd "put the cards on the table," though.

French, German, Russian and Chinese intelligence know exactly what happened today, as does the UN.

just read a statement from Kofi Annan about deMello's death. In answer to a question afterwards, he stated quite clearly that the US was ultimately responsible for all security (or lack of it) in Iraq. Then Barbara ___? (CNN Pentagon correspondent) relayed the Pentagon response--i.e., the UN never asked for special security for the building and so it wasn't provided, except that in a general way there were patrols going past occasionally. To me, this sounds very defensive--and even if it wasn't the US or Chalabi behind the attack (which I am not ruling out, but not proposing as the likliest), I can easily imagine the top military and "coalition" teams snickering about the vulnerabilities of the UN officers and journalists in Iraq, and thinking to themselves that the UN was hostile if not the enemy because of its resistance to the attack on Iraq in the first place. "Irrelevant" was the word, I believe. And the UN may have been criticizing US operations.

A Newsweek journalist in Baghdad told CNN that he and others (all at one hotel in Baghdad) were considering leaving the country, as there was now a feeling that being a foreigner was to invite attack. The question is--to whose benefit would a pullout of journalists and/or the UN work? The UN has apparently decided to stay. But I do think the US has some serious explaining to do. The fear of the journalists, at least, is not only for attack from anonymous "terrorists," but from the the US military--witness the death yesterday of Reuters photographer, Menan Dana, shot by a US soldier.

I want to know the results of all the promised "investigations." And I want this attack on the UN to lead to SERIOUS questions about the US role and presence and behavior in Iraq. I am hoping that this event (SO heart-sickening) will make the UN stop accepting (or seeming to accept) the BushCo spin, and demand accountability. It could happen. Maybe.