Zalmay Khalilzad: "We are an organized government, institutionalized. We are not a banana republic."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04532447.htm


US envoy says State Dept. knew of pulled UN text

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Washington's U.N. envoy denied on Tuesday he had failed to consult the State Department before putting a Middle East resolution to the U.N. Security Council that he later withdrew after Israel objected.

The United States pulled the draft, which hailed the results of a Nov. 27 Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, last Friday in what the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers called an embarrassing about-face.

Saying the United States was "not a banana republic," Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dismissed what he said were media reports he had submitted the draft resolution "on my own."

"With all due respect, there is nothing with those reports," he told journalists.

"I talked to the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) a few hours before I came to the council. We were very well coordinated with people in Washington," he said.

"I don't know whether the secretary of state had seen the text but I had talked with her and I'm sure she was fully briefed. The same applied to my colleagues," Khalilzad said.

"We don't just write a text in the mission and come and present it to people. We are an organized government, institutionalized. We are not a banana republic."