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Powell puts Iraqi transition in hands of Foggy Bottom hack
EFLOver the objections of the Bush administrationâs hawks, Secretary of State Powell is bringing back President Clintonâs point man to the old Iraqi opposition to oversee the transfer of power to an Iraqi government in Baghdad from coalition forces. Next week, the American ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone, will take up new offices in Foggy Bottom to run what one State Department official told The New York Sun is an âIraq policy super office.â In his new capacity he will negotiate the status of American forces in Iraq and prepare for the opening of an American Embassy in Baghdad after a new government is formed in June. Administration officials told the Sun that the deputy defense secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, tried for weeks to block the appointment of Mr. Ricciardone. Translation: heâs no Paul Bremer. Between 1999 and 2001, Mr. Ricciardone was in charge of implementing [the Iraqi Liberation Act] for the State Department. He spent much of his time seeking to broaden the INCâs coalition of Saddam Husseinâs opponents and fighting with the ones willing to work with America get rid of the tyrant. âI think it is a horrible shame that the person appointed to thwart congressional intent on the Iraq Liberation Act is now pulled from the Philippines to work on Iraq policy,â one of the staff members who wrote that legislation, Randy Scheunemann, said yesterday. âItâs an insult to Iraqi democrats and a slap at our interests in the Philippines.â As much as many of the administrationâs hawks dislike Mr. Ricciardone, Secretary Powell has grown to rely on him. Shortly after September 11, 2001, Mr. Powell tapped him to run the State Departmentâs task force on the coalition against terrorism, a 24-hour a day operations center that monitored diplomatic traffic on Al Qaeda. The career foreign service officer was also on the front lines of the Clinton administrationâs efforts to try Saddam in an international tribunal, similar to the one hearing the case against Serbian ex-dictator Slobodan Milosevic. That was then, this is now. Mr. Ricciardone was also a key player in the State Departmentâs early attempts to expand the Iraqi opposition to bring back opposition groups sponsored by the Iranian government. Woo hoo! Bring on SCIRI, al-Dawa, and that theocracy. Posted by: someone 2004-01-15 |
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