U.S. to Ask for UN Fact-Finding Team in Iraq Dispute (direct elections)

U.S. to Ask for UN Fact-Finding Team in Iraq Dispute
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States wants U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send a team to Iraq to convince Shi'ites that direct elections are unfeasible or to suggest a workable compromise, diplomats said on Friday.

The request for a fact-finding team was expected to be made by Paul Bremer at a crucial meeting in New York on Monday with Annan and members of the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing Council during an effort to get the United Nations back into Baghdad.

Annan, in an exchange of letters with the Iraqi council, has already advised against direct elections as demanded by Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, saying that there was not enough time to organize them before the handover of power to an Iraqi provisional government this summer.

But Sistani, who received a copy of the letter, apparently believes that if the United Nations were on the ground in Iraq, it would better understand the Shi'ite view, the envoys said..

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040116/ts_nm/iraq_un_usa_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480

So everything's going great in Iraq, but things are so bad that direct elections are impossible.

Bullshit. Elections have been held in much worse conditions than we have in Iraq. Bush just doesn't really want democracy in Iraq any more than he wants it in the US.

they'll start implementing the Kucinich plan !!

LOL !!

turn Iraq into a clusterfuck, ask the UN for help because they can't fix what they have broken. They don't have one ounce of shame.

"fact finding mission" ??

As opposed to lie-justifying-unsuccesfull-mission ?

...

dalai

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

The Shiites are the majority and would want to control everything, what did Bush think was going to happen when he invaded Iraq? I knew there was a chance that a less desirable alternative could rise in Iraq. I'm not saying Saddam was desirable, but he was controlled, and women had more rights under him than the Shiites would give.

Bush has dogged the UN, but now he's scared and needs them after saying they're irrelevant because the Shiite majority wants an Islamic state like Iran and Afghanistan had with the Taliban, and he doesn't know what to do.

I don't know what Bush was thinking when he "planned" the war, but he wasn't thinking of the aftermath.

"I don't know what Bush was thinking when he "planned" the war, but he wasn't thinking of the aftermath."

Dubya the Dense doesn't think about things. Cheney & Rove tell him what to say and he does so.

"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." GW Bush
-- aboard AirForce One, June 4 2003.

1 - Why would the U.N. get involved now, just to get the blame when things go wrong?

2 - Even if they did, after 10+ years of U.N. mandated sanctions, why would any Iraqi, other than puppets, listen to the U.N.?