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Iraq not a "treasure chest," UN warns US, UK
UN Undersecretary-General Shashi Tharoor warned Britain and the US Tuesday that Iraq is not a "treasure chest to be divided up" after the war. Nor is it a whorehouse for the UN to run. What's yer point, you pompous gasbag? He also said that the UK and American governments had no rights under international law to change Iraqi society or politics or to use their economic resources. His warning came as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush were holding a war summit in Belfast, where it was expected controversial proposals would be announced to offer the UN a limited role in post-war Iraq. "The UN has no desire whatsoever to see Iraq as some sort of treasure chest to be divvied up," Tharoor said. This should not be a case of "people dividing up the spoils of a conquest that they undertook," he told BBC Radio. He said that the "only thing that matters ultimately is the right of the Iraqi people to determine their own future, to control their own natural resources and to determine their own destinies." "Oh, yasss... The Iraqi people are free to have an iron-fisted tin-hat dictator diverting their wealth into monumental construction to glorify himself and to buy weapons upon weapons. No one can take that right away from them..." The Anglo-American forces had rights and responsibilities of any occupying power, but "they really have no rights under the Geneva Conventions to transform the society or the polity or to exploit its economic resources," the undersecretary-general said. "If they do need more they need to come to the Security Council to get the backing of international law for anything more ambitious than merely being an occupying power in the military sense," he warned. "Or they can tell the UN and the Security Council to go whistle and then then watch them talk themselves to death for the next forty years..." Tharoor said anything the UN does would require a Security Council mandate and "that includes involvement in reconstruction, involvement in any aspects of governance or civil administration." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was expected to meet Blair and other European leaders later this week over what is expected to be the next diplomatic challenge over the future of Iraq. If he adopts the same insulting tone as this sanctimonious pinhead, Bush and Blair might beat him up. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-04-08 |
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