U.S. Rejects French Plan to Hasten Iraqi Sovereignty

[Nambe]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

The United States on Monday rejected a French proposal to hasten Iraqi sovereignty as President Bush prepared to ask the United Nations to back his view of a gradual, U.S.-led Iraqi transition.

"The French plan which would somehow try to transfer sovereignty to an unelected people just isn't workable," U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters

Underscoring his determination not to hand over authority in Iraq until the country has stabilized further, Bush met with two members of Iraq's Governing Council, who said it was too early for full Iraqi self- government. ---

Bush is to address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. He is expected to defend his decision to go to war in Iraq last March without U.N. backing, and seek new support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq without giving the global body the broader political role sought by some members. ---

[starroute]

1. "An unelected people" ???

Did she really say that?

:wtf:

[leftchick]

2. condi, you stupid ass!

"unelected people"?!?! ROFLMAO if it were not so fucking sad....

[stopbush]

3. The Empire's new clothes

are showing once again.

[IndianaGreen]

6. Our troops will defend the Colonial Office, with poison gas if need be

as the British troops defended theirs in Iraq.

Our last occupation

Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq

Jonathan Glancey
Saturday April 19, 2003
The Guardian

No one, least of all the British, should be surprised at the state of anarchy in Iraq. We have been here before. We know the territory, its long and miasmic history, the all-but-impossible diplomatic balance to be struck between the cultures and ambitions of Arabs, Kurds, Shia and Sunni, of Assyrians, Turks, Americans, French, Russians and of our own desire to keep an economic and strategic presence there.

Laid waste, a chaotic post-invasion Iraq may now well be policed by old and new imperial masters promising liberty, democracy and unwanted exiled leaders, in return for oil, trade and submission. Only the last of these promises is certain. The peoples of Iraq, even those who have cheered passing troops, have every reason to mistrust foreign invaders. They have been lied to far too often, bombed and slaughtered promiscuously.

Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.

The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to "police" them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain's League of Nations' mandate. The mandate ended in 1932; the semi-colonial monarchy in 1958. But during the period of direct British rule, Iraq proved a useful testing ground for newly forged weapons of both limited and mass destruction, as well as new techniques for controlling imperial outposts and vassal states.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,939608,00.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Keep smiling Conde!

Why this token is allowed to freely make these statements to the press is beyond any form of linear thought or logic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Assuming she just meant "to unelected people"

Then it's transfer of sovereignty
to unelected people (the appointed council)
from unelected people (Bremer et al)
by unelected people (Bush admin)

What's wrong with that? It's The American Way!

[cthrumatrix]

7. Don't forget...this is the person who shrub gets his news from....

Now you see why * is so confused.