The Command Post - Iraq - Blair, Bush To Debate U.N. Role

March 26, 2003

Blair, Bush To Debate U.N. Role

Mr Blair told parliament on Wednesday there was agreement between the UK and US that the UN should be involved in the reconstruction of post-war Iraq. "It is better for everyone," he said. Mr Blair wants to persuade the Bush administration to shift power from a US military governor to a UN civil administration after the war ends....
Despite Mr Blair's hopes, British officials privately admit that many in the US administration have no stomach left for a UN role beyond providing humanitarian aid. "There is a ferocious debate going on inside the administration about all this," said one British official. "Things may not be moving in the direction that we would wish. The prime minister must get Bush to buy into into this idea of a UN role and fight for it."

Posted By Christopher Rake at March 26, 2003 12:40 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Mr. Blair has been wrong about the UN role from the get-go. He, along with Mr. Powell, were suckerpunched by the French and never saw it coming. Let's not let it happen again.

Posted by: Melissa at March 26, 2003 01:48 PM

No UN civil administration in Iraq is going to be able, or even willing, to deal with reconstruction, de-Ba'athisation and keeping all the different groups from offing each other and grabbing power. This is a really, really bad idea from Mr. Blair. Iraq is not East Timor.

Posted by: Toby at March 26, 2003 02:19 PM

I actually preferred Blairs idea. UN certainly left US alone, but can you predict allready that we won't be treated as 'satan' after all this anyway? If that happens how on earth do you think there will be control over iraq till it 'rises' enough?

Iraqis seem to be quite unpredictable as i'm concerned, one day they say welcome, next day they grab their rifles. Letting them free certainly doesn't equal making friends back there. And it's not only about ppl at iraq, but there are neighbor countries that might find it offending if US led the whole thing alone nor they thought so.

Maybe all this is seen as 'facelift' around arabic countries and we weren't treated as 'worst of all' after this. That's an possible option too, my favorite actually - but honestly i didn't bet on it (free flaming for that).

Well it's up to Bush to decide, but i'm sure there are other conciderations too than just 'UN sucks'.

Posted by: Doug at March 26, 2003 02:59 PM

Perhaps if the UN weren't skimming some of the revenues from the "food for oil" program, we'd actually trust them to administer Iraq. Because they are generally incompetent, venial bureaucrats I don't think putting oil money in front of them is a good idea.

Posted by: Henry at March 26, 2003 04:23 PM