Getting Help in Iraq?

Bush and Rummy got the war they wanted in Iraq. And what a mess our troops are facing there now!

In the wake of the attack on the UN building this week, Bush is now talking about going back to the UN to ask for more assistance. This seems to me to fit well into Bush's modus operandi of using a crisis to promote something it wanted to do all along.

The economy's going well? Let's cut taxes. Economy's going poorly? Let's cut taxes. Energy crisis in the Northeast? Let's pass the deregulation measures we've wanted all along.

I think that's what's going on here. Bush and Rummy are never going to turn control of the occupation over to the United Nations. Barring some major disaster or a catastrophic public loss of confidence in the war, neither of which can be ruled out.

They're just hoping to capitalize on the immediate general disgust at the attack on the UN to get more countries to put their troops into the Iraqi shooting gallery. I don't think it's going to fly.

The Los Angeles Times reports on Friday that, indeed, the Administration has no intention of conceding control. Colin Powell, who many people persist in seeing as some kind of realist or moderate despite his performance in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, says that he assumes any countries sending troops into combat would want to know that they're under competent leadership by the United States.

What are these people thinking? The LA Times quotes an unnamed European diplomat characterizing the American proposal this way: "It sends us the message, 'We don't need to spill more American blood, we need foreign blood.'"

Bush and Rummy poured out their contempt at "old Europe" before the war. They insisted that those "weapons of mass destruction" that we have found no trace of yet had to be dealt with immediately. Now, guess what? Those countries are taking the attitude of, "You broke it, you fix it."

- Posted by Bruce Miller Friday 08/22/03

Tags:iraq war