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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (2267)	6/18/2003 12:16:01 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793914

Pander is a very kind word for that NYT story, LB. Wonder if Dick Morris kept a diary? THAT would be very interesting...!

To: LindyBill who wrote (2267)	6/18/2003 12:22:32 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

Re: Congo, UN, John Kerry, and 2 UN Peacekeepers killed: Am very behind LB...Tonight,read last night's paper....saw the article I found below on the Congo killings, and also a note on Drudge tonight about Kerry's thoughts about our US soldiers and the UN.... I find it totally sickening that ANYone in the US Admin, or either House of Congress, would actually rely on the UN for anything regarding our soldiers lives right now... Some food for thought: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KERRY FLASHBACK: Wanted American troops 'dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations'... 88888888888888888 And yet look at the news today~~ some headlines from Google: UN to investigate killings of 2 of its military observers in ... Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, CA - 5 hours ago ... past three weeks, UN representatives in the embattled town of Bunia in northeastern Congo had described the investigation as focusing on finding out who killed ... >>>>>New Role for Rebel Forces in Transitional Government - Inter Press Service<<<<< Children Pay the Price for UN Failure in Congo - Report - Inter Press Service >>>>> UN seeks aid on Congo and Burundi - Contra Costa Times <<<<<<<<< Here's the article from Knight Ridder: Posted on Tue, Jun. 17, 2003 U.N. to investigate killings of 2 of its military observers in Congo By Sudarsan Raghavan Knight Ridder Newspapers NAIROBI, Kenya - The United Nations has expanded an inquiry into the brutal killings of two of its military observers in the Congo to include allegations from its employees that the U.N. Mission in Congo was partly responsible for their deaths. In a public announcement Monday from its headquarters in New York, the United Nations said it would investigate "the allegations and circumstances" surrounding the deaths of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi. For the past three weeks, U.N. representatives in the embattled town of Bunia in northeastern Congo had described the investigation as focusing on finding out who killed the two observers. Both were savagely murdered last month in the remote outpost of Mongbwalu, some 40 miles north of Bunia, where rival Hema and Lendu tribal militias are battling for control of mineral-rich Ituri province. The allegations of negligence by the U.N. Mission in Congo, known as MONUC, were detailed in a Knight Ridder article last week. A U.N. spokeswoman in New York said these allegations and others would be investigated. "There have been questions that we're getting of whether the U.N. is going to do something about it," U.N. spokeswoman Hua Jiang said in a phone interview. "We're just saying that we are doing something." In separate interviews with Knight Ridder, five U.N. military observers with knowledge of what happened to Oran and Banda said the two had begged their superiors for six days to evacuate them from Mongbwalu. They were receiving death threats and were alone and unarmed. A U.N. helicopter from Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes. But the United Nations, due to its rules and bureaucracy, never sent a chopper. It was unable to get the required security clearance from the Lendu militias to land in Mongbwalu, and sending armed U.N. troops to evacuate the men required an order from Kinshasa. Eleven days after their first distress call, the United Nations flew in with armed peacekeepers on May 18. By then, the men had been brutally massacred. The five U.N. military observers charged that MONUC sent them into one of Congo's most volatile and violent areas without adequate preparation or protection. Col. Daniel Vollot, the MONUC sector commander in Bunia, said all U.N. workers worked in dangerous, unpredictable situations. MONUC, he said, wasn't responsible for the deaths of Oran and Banda. Monday's announcement could bring more pressure on MONUC to find out whether it bears any responsibility for the killings. Jiang said the investigation was a joint effort by U.N. headquarters and MONUC. But MONUC is in charge of the probe in the Congo, she said. She declined to say whether independent investigators are being used. MONUC spokesman Hamadoun Toure described the probe Tuesday in Kinshasa as an "internal investigation." It's unclear how long the probe will last or whether the results will be made public. Fighting and insecurity in Mongbwalu have slowed down the investigation, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday in Bunia.

To: LindyBill who wrote (2267)	6/18/2003 12:27:11 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793914

AP Corrects Iraq Weapons Story Tue Jun 17, 8:22 AM ET Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo! story.news.yahoo.com WASHINGTON - In a June 15 story about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites), The Associated Press reported erroneously that two-thirds of Americans said the administration exaggerated the weapons threat. The poll by CBS News found that 44 percent of Americans believe the administration overestimated the extent of Iraq's weapons stores, and that two-thirds of those people felt the administration exaggerated the threat from those weapons.