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U.N. Work in Iraq Going Well, Annan Says
The work of a U.N. team now in Iraq to study whether elections can be held before the U.S.-led coalition hands over power to Iraqis "is going extremely well," Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday.
They’re doomed. Doomed!
The team arrived in Baghdad on Saturday, and Annan said they have met with the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi Governing Council, and were now holding separate meetings with individual council members. "They are reaching out and are open to talk to as many groups as possible," he said. "So far so good. The atmosphere has been good. They’ve been well-received and there’s been very good and frank discussions," Annan said. "I think the work of the team is going extremely well."
It’d be nice if the UN could get one thing right in all this.
The current U.S. plan is to choose legislators in regional caucuses, a move opposed by the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who wants direct elections. During the team’s talks with the council on Sunday, Sunni Muslim Arabs echoed the U.S. view that early elections were not practical because of the need for extensive preparations to ensure a fair and credible ballot.
And because they’d lose their shirts, and know it.
Most of the Shiite members favored an early vote, arguing that sufficient data was available to guarantee an acceptable election.
"Why yes, we’d be happy to get 70% of the votes and let our Kurd buddies have another 20%."
The secretary-general said the team, led by his personal adviser Lakhdar Brahimi, is operating on the assumption that the U.S.-led coalition will transfer power by June 30, as called for in its Nov. 15 agreement with the Iraqi Governing Council. But he reiterated that "if the parties were to agree to other arrangements I think it would be difficult to reject it. We will have to consider it."
Just opened a door that we might not want open.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte stressed, however, the importance of sticking to the June 30 hand over. "We are very committed to the June 30 deadline," he said. "This is a date of the utmost importance to us."
"So quit trying to jiggle our elbow!"
Annan said he expects the team to remain in Iraq "for as long as they can stand it about a week or so." "Obviously, they will have to run away come to New York to catch up on some good meals finalize their report and enjoy a fine port give their conclusions to me to ignore study, and then I will sit on it convey my disrespect conclusions to the people I hate most in Iraq CPA and the people second on my list Iraqi Governing Council," he said. Annan said he needs to give the report to the Governing Council later this month "to factor the decision into their end of February deadline for completion of the basic law" which the Iraqis are drafting to govern the transition. Asked whether the United States will abide by the U.N. findings, Negroponte said, "Certainly these views are going to be weighed with the utmost seriousness."
"But they ain't in charge. They'll never be in charge! They'd lose money running an ice cream stand in Hell!"
Annan said he chose Brahimi - a veteran Algerian diplomat - to head the mission because it "was technical but also intensely political and highly charged" and he wanted someone with extensive diplomatic experience.
And who knows the electoral process better than an Algerian?
Negroponte said the United States had made clear it would welcome Brahimi’s involvement, but added that the decision to send Brahimi was the secretary-general’s, not Washington’s.
"We suspect he’s ucky."
Posted by: Steve White 2004-02-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=25947