U.S. Emphasizes Intent to Transfer Full Power to Iraqis -- With Limits

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usiraq26may26.story

U.S. Emphasizes Intent to Transfer Full Power to Iraqis -- With Limits

By Mary Curtius and Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writers

May 26, 2004 WASHINGTON — The White House scrambled Tuesday to reassure skeptics that the U.S. planned to transfer full sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, even as the Bush administration publicly disagreed with its closest ally about whether a new Iraqi government could block U.S. military operations.

A day after President Bush declared in a major speech that Iraqis would exercise authority over their own affairs, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in London that Iraq's interim government would have the right to veto specific military operations by the U.S.-led coalition, a view American officials immediately disputed. And French President Jacques Chirac told Bush in a telephone conversation that France wanted any new U.N. Security Council resolution to spell out clearly that the Iraqis would have a say over U.S.-led military operations.

The dispute over how much authority the new Iraqi government would wield came at a crucial diplomatic and political moment for the White House. While the U.S. is negotiating a Security Council resolution seen as critical for bestowing international legitimacy on the interim Iraqi administration, U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is struggling to name a government.<snip>

In a London news conference Tuesday, Blair seemed to be reassuring the French and other Security Council members when he said that the Iraqis would be allowed to block U.S. military plans.<snip>

"If there's a political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallouja in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government," Blair said, in a reference to recent U.S. attacks on Sunni Muslim insurgents in that city. "The final political control remains with the Iraqi government. That's what the transfer of sovereignty means."<snip>

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the U.S. did not intend to give the Iraqis authority over American operations in Iraq. He said the relationship between the interim government and coalition forces would be negotiated only after the new officials were named.<snip>

[kevinhnc]

1. Isn't that like being kind of pregnant?

Full power with limits? Partially pregnant? Half-dead?

Who are these clowns?

[papau]

2. LOL

:-)

[wtmusic]

4. Xactly--a spotlight on Bush's ignorance and recalcitrance

This is going down a very bizarre and disturbing path

[bemildred]

3. Power in imperial satrapies is always subject to the Emperor's veto.

Why is that so hard to understand?