Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Rollcast... who wrote (5672)	8/22/2003 4:53:27 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793587

Quote Of the Day: "I love my culture. I love everything about it. I love the music, I love the language. I love the food. Look at me, I really love the food.", California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante on his Hispanic heritage and rotund figure.

To: Rollcast... who wrote (5672)	8/22/2003 9:23:40 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793587

DISPATCHES In the Cross Hairs By MICHAEL R. GORDON - NEW YORK TIMES There were several warning signs that the United Nations could soon be in the cross hairs of the forces battling the American-led coalition in Iraq. In early hours of August 10, a small band of unknown assailants in a white and orange taxi zoomed past a United Nations compound in the northern Iraq city of Mosul and shot at the Iraqi security guards. A short time later a rocket-propelled grenade flew over a second U.N. site in the city. A patrol from the Second Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division searched the building across the street from that U.N. facility but found no sign of the attackers. I learned about these incidents during a recent visit with the American forces in Mosul. In a country in which ambushes, drive-by shootings and explosions from improvised mines are a daily occurrence these attacks attracted little attention - especially since no injuries were reported. But coupled with the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad earlier this month they formed a ominous pattern, in my view. In a guerrilla campaign in which a car bomb is another instrument of war, a military ambulance has been attacked, surface-to-air missiles have been fired at aircraft flying in and out of the Baghdad airport and Iraqis who have been cooperating with American forces has been killed, nothing is off-limits. The United Nations Baghdad compound was the ultimate soft target. It was highly symbolic and that alone made it vulnerable. Also, its officials eschewed tight military security. The attack which ripped apart the U.N. building sent a very unsettling message at a very delicate moment. It occurred as the Bush administration was trying to persuade more nations to send peacekeeping troops to Iraq, and as American military commanders were trying to encourage non-governmental organizations to share the nation-building burden by undertaking more projects in Iraq. Consider the new multinational division that is now assembling in southwestern Iraq to replace the United States Marines, who are scheduled to leave in early September. The division is led by the Poles and will also have brigades that are commanded by the Ukrainians and the Spanish. There are an assortment of other nations contributing troops to take the place of the Marines including Bulgaria, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Thailand. The attack on the United Nations compound and the experience of the new foreign troops may well determine whether additional nations yield to the Bush administration?s entreaties to send forces to Iraq. The hope has been that foreign forces that had no role in the invasion would be less of a target for the insurgents than the United States military and that the aread they would occupy would remain relatively peaceful. But now that hopeful scenario is in doubt because of the bombing of the U.N. compound. A recent attack at Al Hillah, near Camp Babylon, where the Marine headquarters is located does not help either. Al Hillah will soon be under the jurisdiction of the Polish-led division. The last time a marine was killed by enemy action in Iraq was April 12, according to a Marine Corps spokesman. But on Thursday a gunman approached an American service member who was in a sport utility vehicle in the city, shot him and ran away. (The United States Central Command has not said whether the person, who died as a result of the attack, was a Marine or the member of another service that was attached to the Marine command) Since the bombing of the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday there has been the usual finger-pointing. U.N. officials have been quick to emphasize that the American-led coalition has the ultimate responsibility for security in Baghdad. American officials have asserted that the United Nations did not want the overbearing force protection that often comes with the United States military. Investigators will eventually determine how the United Nations headquarters became dangerously exposed. For starters, they can examine the design of an outer wall that ran too close to the U.N.?s office to keep car bombs out of range. In contrast, the former palace housing the Coalition Provisional Authority run by L. Paul Bremer III has turned into a virtual fortress. Visitors are frisked and their vehicles are inspected before they can get within sight of the Republican Palace headquarters, a forbidding exercise in force protection that the United Nations seemed to think would interfere with its activities in Iraq. My own sense is that this was probably a collective failure. The United Nations was not sufficiently attuned to the potential dangers it faced because it wrongly assumed that its record of humanitarian assistance in Iraq and arms-length relationship with the American occupiers would make it less of a target. Also, the over-stretched American force was relieved not to have yet another site to defend that its commanders concentrated on other threats. But this was a loss for each. The Bush administration, which failed to win an explicit Security Council endorsement of its military intervention, was eager for U.N. special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello to come to Iraq, albeit in a minor supporting role. His death and that of others in the attack was a big setback for American policy and its claims to have made headway in stabilizing Iraq. The Bush administration and the United Nations have each suffered a serious blow. Neither can afford to turn away from Iraq without a serious loss of credibility. How well they can work together in Iraq is an open question. nytimes.com