UN must break with US plans to win Iraqi confidence

[Manix]

<snip>


Can the UN do more on the political side after July? Much will depend on the UN's masters in the security council. It is clear that the US and Britain want a new resolution to bless the transfer of legal sovereignty to Iraqis, while also keeping US control over all security issues. The result will be a sovereignty which is severely impaired, a bizarre situation in which an allegedly independent country's army is under foreign command on its own territory.

It is not too late to change this, since the Bush administration is running scared, electorally, on Iraq. Spain's new government believes the US will never hand political control of security to the UN, and is withdrawing its troops. Full marks for principle and for keeping faith with its voters, but other countries need not give up hope quite yet. The US is in a weak position and if key members of the security council such as France, Russia and China stand firm, as they did before the invasion last year, there is still a slim chance.


<snip>


Now is the time for the majority of UN members to strengthen their control. If Iraq's interim government is to acquire more respect than the outgoing governing council had, it too should stand up to the Americans and lay down the rules. The Americans have killed more civilians in one month in Falluja than all the terrorist bombings of the past year, yesterday's included. That surely is a signal that things must change.




Guardian

[whistle]

1. This is why BushCo is trashing the UN...

...Iraq food for oil program.

[Capt_Nemo]

2. Two relevant points by Freedland

"Russia's military strategy in Chechnya is a crime and disgrace. But Moscow can argue it is acting on its own territory. Morally and politically, the Kremlin is wrong, and under international law its case is debatable. No such arguments apply to the US in Iraq. It is using excessive force on other people's soil, and it has no mandate to be there unless from the United Nations."

and

"The Americans have killed more civilians in one month in Falluja than all the terrorist bombings of the past year, yesterday's included."