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| International-UN-NGOs | |
| Russian Envoy: U.N. Credibility Intact | |
| 2004-02-10 | |
| The credibility of the United Nations remains intact and may even have been strengthened since the Iraq war because the reports of U.N. weapons inspectors have now been confirmed by U.S. search teams, Russia’s U.N. envoy said Monday night. He hasn’t spoken with many of my neighbors apparently. A year after Secretary of State Colin Powell put the U.S. case for war against Iraq to a bitterly divided Security Council, countries that supported the war and countries that did not are all pressing for the United Nations to play a Being the Russians are a nation of chess players, I would have counted on better logic than this. Last year, Powell’s arguments failed to convince the Security Council, which refused to authorize the war against Iraq. France, Russia and Germany led the opposition, and in the weeks and months that followed some politicians and pundits predicted that the United Nations would become irrelevant. They’re almost right on that point,the UN has NEVER been relevant. But Lavrov said "as far as U.N. credibility is concerned ... I would say that it did not suffer." You never had any, ask anyone from Rwanada, better yet ask the Iraqi’s. He said Russia and many other Security Council members relied on the conclusions of U.N. weapons inspectors, who returned to Iraq in November 2002 and reported to the council that Iraq had finally started to cooperate fully and had provided immediate access to sites. "Through this Iraqi cooperation, the inspectors were allowed to establish quite a number of facts, but basically confirming that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and no signs of a resumption of weapons of mass destruction programs which had existed before the 1991 Gulf War," Lavrov said. But the capacity to produce them was always there,at the very least. "The search teams employed by the (U.S.-led) coalition in the past few months basically came to the same conclusion," he told a news conference. Last month, David Kay, the former CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons who led the U.S. hunt for banned Iraqi weapons, said "we were almost all wrong" about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. I think david Kay also mentioned that Saddam was much more dangerous than we could have imagined. "We were relying on the conclusions and the opinion of the inspectors who were saying that given two or three more months, they’d be able to give us some kind of definite report," Lavrov said. "We trusted the inspectors - and they so far have not been proven to be wrong." He said the U.N.’s credibility "was proven by the fact" that U.N. nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range missile inspectors "were reporting objectively," he said. I still don’t think that the UN weapons inspectors could find their ass with both hands.
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| Posted by:JerseyMike |
| #10 a new blog maybe? www.iraniansforkerry.com |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-2-10 8:41:43 PM |
| #9 No, I suppose the UN's credibility did NOT suffer; the meter bottoms out at zero. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2004-2-10 8:08:20 PM |
| #8 and no signs of a resumption of weapons of mass destruction programs which had existed before the 1991 Gulf War," Lavrov said. Not true: Kay's group found evidence of WMD programs in a semi-dormant state that the UN inspectors missed, and that were calculated to implement a fast-restart capability. There was an active missile program that even the inspectors caught. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-2-10 1:51:07 PM |
| #7 Maybe the Guinean leader can pass along Dionne Warwick's phone number to Putin as a gesture of goodwill.... |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-2-10 11:55:05 AM |
| #6 Maybe Putin forgot about the leader of Guini who chose to consult his psychic friend to decide the proper fate of Sadaam. The Butcher of Baghdad's future depended on whether the gullet contained an even or an odd number of pebbles and whether Chicken Little ate bugs for breakfast or opted for the salad bar. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-10 11:19:49 AM |
| #5 ONE BILLION barrels... |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-2-10 10:51:37 AM |
| #4 Si'Hefe. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-2-10 8:51:25 AM |
| #3 if that's the case, then I think Putin should let Kofi handle the Chechen crisis - no? Well said! |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-10 8:03:06 AM |
| #2 Well, if that's the case, then I think Putin should let Kofi handle the Chechen crisis - no? "He said Russia and many other Security Council members relied on the conclusions of U.N. weapons inspectors who returned to Iraq in November 2002 |
| Posted by: B 2004-2-10 7:41:53 AM |
| #1 UNSC Resolution 1441 was passed -- 15-0 with Russia voting YEA -- under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which authorized the use of FORCE by UN member states to bring the target nation into compliance. UNSC Resolution 1441 further explicitly promised SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES -- defined for all Council members as the use of FORCE -- for the failure of the Saddamite regime to immediately, proactively and unconditionally comply with the terms of UNSC Resolution 1441. PM Blair -- after failure to win a resolution stating Saddam had not complied with UNSC Resolution 1441 -- told the House of Commons his team of international law experts had determined USSC Resolution 1441 was all the authority needed to use FORCE to conduct free and unfettered inspections in Iraq proper. Member states which upheld the "honor" of the UN by enforcing UNSC Resolution 1441 gave a victory to that "august" international body. Conversely, Russia slithered away from her international obligations under UNSC Resolution 1441 and by doing so soiled her panties. |
| Posted by: Garrison 2004-2-10 7:27:26 AM |