Iraqi government complains U.N. doing too little to help January elections

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

By Rawya Rageh
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:45 p.m. October 20, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq's interim government complained Wednesday that the United Nations isn't doing enough to help prepare for January elections, saying the organization has sent fewer electoral workers than it did when tiny East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia.

U.S. aircraft, meanwhile, mounted four strikes in Fallujah on what the U.S. military said were safehouses used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network. A Sunni Muslim clerical group demanded that the Iraqi government prevent any full-scale U.S. attack on Fallujah, hoping to muster the same public anger that forced the Marines to abandon a siege of the city last spring.

In other violence, 11 American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were wounded when two car bombs exploded in Samarra, a city that U.S. and Iraqi forces have hailed as a success story since taking it from insurgents last month. An Iraqi child was killed and a civilian was wounded, the Army said.

A suicide bomber in Baghdad detonated his car near a U.S. patrol on the airport road, wounding two American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen. The road is among the most dangerous in the capital. Zarqawi's terror organization claimed responsibility for the attack, though it was not immediately possible to verify that the Internet posting was authentic.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20041020-1445-iraq.html

[acmavm]

1. Well hell, that only makes sense. They're whining because the

UN doesn't want to send in moving targets? This place is far too out of control for that. And now the Sunnis are calling for a boycott of the election. What is the UN supposed to do, put a gun to their heads and force them to vote? And for who, Allawi?

[bemildred]

2. Bwaaahaaahaaa. Funniest thing I've read today. nt

[frylock]

3. the u.n. is irrelevant..

until you really, really need them to bail your ass out.