UN mulls Iraq return as Shia protest again

[Aidoneus]

UN mulls Iraq return as Shia protest again
Tuesday 20 January 2004

UN chief Kofi Annan is leaning towards sending a team to help save the US power transfer plan in Iraq as a wave of anti-occupation protests mobilised the country's Shia majority for a second straight day.

Thousands of followers of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rose up in protest on Tuesday.

In Baghdad and the southern city of Karbala, a sea of al-Sadr followers lashed out at the US-appointed Governing Council's plans to endorse federalism in the basic law to rule the country through 2005.

They also protested against the Pentagon's designation of captured leader Saddam Hussein as a prisoner of war.

In central Baghdad, thousands of al- Sadr followers chanted: "We are against those who want to divide the country and separate us."

--snip--

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/55E31C03-BDD4-48AE-ACC8-016FEA6DE192.htm

[gulliver]

1. Al Jazeera pot stirring.

Anything is possible, but the headline and first paragraph of this article are deceptive. The article says only that the UN will "soon send a four-person team to evaluate the security situation on the ground." It doesn't say that the team is trying to help "save the US power transfer plan."

Furthermore, four people on a field trip does not constitute a return to Iraq by the United Nations. Only Al Jazeera and Bush would try to spin it that way.

I doubt the United Nations would just dismiss the Shiite push for elections. That would be fairly dangerous. And I don't imagine the United Nations thinks it owes Bush any favors -- to say the least.

[alcuno]

2. CBS News called it a "rescue" last night.

Said that the UN was being asked to "rescue" the US in Iraq.