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U.S. to Pull Forces From 2 U.N. Missions
The U.S. military will pull tiny contingents out of two U.N. peacekeeping missions because Americans no longer are exempt from international prosecution for war crimes, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday. A seven-person team will be removed from the U.N. mission to keep the peace between the African nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and two liaison officers will be taken out of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters at a new conference. "It was determined ... that the risk was not appropriate to our forces, and so they were withdrawn," Di Rita said. The head of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch questioned the Bush administration's rationale. "This sounds like an excuse to pull a few U.S. personnel out of U.N. peacekeeping missions, not because they are at any risk, but to make an ideological point," said Richard Dicker.
| Could also be that we need them for more important things. We're calling up members of the Individual Ready Reserve, to go with the reservists we're mobilizing... |
| But did you get the point? |
He said the International Criminal Court, which started operating last year in The Hague, has no authority over events in Ethiopia or Eritrea because neither country has ratified the treaty establishing the tribunal. The main U.S. mission to Kosovo, numbering about 2,200 troops, will not be affected because separate agreements exempt them from war crimes prosecution, Pentagon officials said.
Posted by: Steve White 2004-07-02 |
